Wired Up provides full instruction for four amazing mixed-media projects that use wire! Featuring projects from Kelly Snelling & Ruth Rae, Giuseppina Cirincione, Jennifer Swift and Robert Dancik!
[Say that three times really fast: breast pocket project. Yeow!]
Yeah, I know: everyone has something going on for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and you’re already sick of pink and you’re tired of those silly Facebook teaser status posts, and, and, and. But Melly has something a little different, something I think you’ll find interesting. We’re going to have a conversation and do a podcast about this next week, so you’ll want to read her note, below, and watch her little video so you know what we’re talking about. And so you can be involved–because it’s just way cool, and it’s different from all the other October projects out there. Here’s Melly’s post she sent out and said I could use to spread the word:
Hello Women.
“Pinktober’ is fast approaching! Breast Cancer Awareness month! I am tired of it and it hasn’t even begun.
At the same time, I feel passionate about being a ‘flattie’, a woman who chose not to reconstruct and doesn’t want to wear breast forms either. I am getting used to being flat and am experiencing the stares of curiosity that is a normal part of our humanity but also a showing of how few women chose to ‘go flat’ after breast cancer. You may have read a recent article I wrote for Role/Reboot, an online magazine questioning gender in society. So I supply the link here:
The article pretty much sums up why I think women are hesitant to put their breast forms aside. I am active in an online forum for breast cancer survivors and the women on this board really would like ‘Flat Awareness’ to occur. We cringe at the thought of Plastic Surgery Reconstruction Day (October 17, search google-!) We don’t want foreign objects in our bodies. We don’t want to wear forms to maintain a ‘socially acceptable body image’. We want to be accepted as women who have decided against reconstruction and we want to push this image into being widely accepted in the societal visual lexicon of what a female body can look like over the course of a lifetime. This isn’t just a choice for women who are ‘old enough’ (i.e. not to have a stake in the game). We want to shut the repressive pressures off and create a new sexy, strong and beautiful.
(By the way, my pool program will be filmed and interviewed on Monday by a major television label, I am not sure if it will be local or national. I am going! Proudly flat and I hope to be interviewed!)
Anyway,
With this Call for Entry, I seek a physical representation of the women you know, who made the decision not to reconstruct their bodies after breast cancer by way of making breast pockets (explained below). I invite you to create breast pockets for this project. Perhaps an exhibition proposal is in order? (I have never done this before).
First things first, better to begin, than not at all. I hope you are able to contribute some pockets and to help to spread the word about this project.
Melly
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And now here’s the video where she shows you how to make a pocket. You are welcome to make it any other way you want, of course–she just wants to take that first hurdle–”I don’t know HOW to make pockets! Wahhhhhhhhh!!”–out of the way.
Check back next Friday for Melly’s and my conversation–you can sit and listen while you work on your pocket!
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