Art is/and Recovery

This is Ann's work. It is special to her and special to me on many levels, and we have never met. Ann was not an artist, or didn't think so, until her brother (who is an artist) suggested that she draw her feelings as she was treated for breast cancer.

Ann is now an assemblage artist, but more about that later.

My younger sister is a breast cancer survivor, and I have only watched her look at that new face in the mirror, that new body in the mirror. It is a very singular experience, and I wish I had suggested to her to draw through the transitions too. I saw Ann's work without the back story, but I had an immediate sense that she faced breast cancer. Her raw, naive, self-portraits reveal the struggle eloquently...

And beyond surviving breast cancer, Ann took her visual work far beyond those pictures. Now she assembles work that literally comes from her journey~ the things she finds in her path as she walks. The found objects speak to her and she in turn meshes them together to create rich, colorful pieces...in another voice, much less naive. It is a year or so in the life of an artist picking up life in a whole new way.

Photos of this year's work will be posted soon!