Art as therapy continued..
In between taking Art History examinations and Sculpture and painting classes, I found a surgeon, had my lump removed through his skilfull hands and had my nipple carefully re-positioned at the end of October this year. They have learnt a lot from cosmetic surgery! He did suggest I could have the other breast reduced in size to match- but I demurred. They are small enough as it is!
This experience became the inspiration for my first soft sculpture. I constructed an armature from wire, which was tied togeher with masking tape, about 1m high. It was initially intended to be a fertility image - a large breast with multiple nipples. Why fertility images at the age of 61? Good question. I have no idea where my inspiration comes from. I had been working on this theme for a while.
After the operation I was full of anger. Bitter and resentful at the mutilation of my body. Upset with my loss of part of my breast. Was it vanity? No. I do not think so. It is part of what essentially defines me as a woman. My femininity.
Whatever it was , I decided to change the form of my work. I cut the rounded form and made an inverted slash into it about 50 cm long. This was my scar!
I covered the whole form with batting and sewed a grey stretch velvet cover for it. The scar was a quilted, puffed up, bright pink velvet, with a red form inside it. Every stab of my needle helped me to vent my anger. Boy it was therapeutic!
I sewed in embroidery threads, my nipple scar around the areola, and finally attached multiple small breast forms to it with tangled pink and red threads.
More another day.....
Comments
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Hi Chris, just wanted to say I'm loving your art posts (as a fellow career-change/artist type
. I originally started out life as a registered nurse, and then went back to uni and did fine art (painting and printmaking). It's worked out well for me -- opened lots of doors to opportunities I never would have thought possible.If you need a hand posting pics for any of your work just let me know. It's not the easiest thing in the world to work out on this site, but once you know how to do it, it's easy.
~Di
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Hi Chris, just wanted to say I'm loving your art posts (as a fellow career-change/artist type
. I originally started out life as a registered nurse, and then went back to uni and did fine art (painting and printmaking). It's worked out well for me -- opened lots of doors to opportunities I never would have thought possible.If you need a hand posting pics for any of your work just let me know. It's not the easiest thing in the world to work out on this site, but once you know how to do it, it's easy.
~Di
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Help! Yes please. How on earth do I do that? All I coud find was Flash. Anything involving computers is not 'easy' for me, the almost total Luddite. I can tell you that Digital Imaging at college was a major challenge ! Thank you for your message Di. It is so exciting to know that you - or anyone, is reading my small story.
I too love doing Printmaking and Painting. I tackled Sculpture in order to give me new skills for my artmaking.
Chris
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Hi Chris -- do you have a place online where you can upload images, like Facebook, Flickr, Picassa or Photobucket? All you need to do is go to the page where your image is displayed and copy the location of your image (from the address bar in your browser, where the http://www, etc. is), then come back here to your own blog (I usually have two tabs open) and click on 'create a blog post'. In that window, just click on the small image icon above where you type your text (it looks like a tree). When you do that, you'll get a window pop-up with a field (labelled 'image URL) where you can paste in the image location, and it will then appear in your post.
If you don't already have somewhere you can put your images, then let me know and we can work something out.
Di
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OK . Got it Di. Thanks . I am on Facebook so can use that. I have to upload a few more images to it first. Will play with it a little later on. I am being run off my feet tthe last few days. Everybody wants last minute Christmas gifts and have come to us to buy them. I do not mind that, but it is so tiring!
Collapsed at 8pm last night. Unable to move. I hate the effects of Chemo. I used to have so much energy....
Now I have a huge turkey roosting in the fridge- whatever deluded me into thinking I was capable of stuffing at and cooking it? BIG mistake. Idiot.
Thanks so much for your help.
Chris x
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