CNN Food and Health

Artists speak the truth about breast cancer

October 28, 1995
Web posted at: 7:20 p.m. EDT

From Correspondent Janine Sharell

BURBANK, California (CNN) -- Breast cancer awareness month is nearly over, but at least two women are hoping that their messages of inspiration will continue to be heard, seen and felt long past October 31.

Photojournalist Melissa Springer's exhibition features 30 photographs of 30 women, united by one disease. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Springer's photos (12K JPEG image) illustrate triumph and pain, sadness and love.

Connie Harper

"When I walked in and saw this, I thought, 'oh, what peace and serenity,'" said breast cancer survivor Connie Harper after seeing Springer's work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. (77K AIFF sound or 77K WAV sound)

That's one reaction Springer looked for. "I hope that this exhibit empowers women," she said. "That's the main thing, to say 'everything's gonna be okay.'"

On stage, actress-playwright Brandyn Barbara Artis blends humor, honesty and heart into a personal bout with breast cancer. "Sister, Girl" is playing to cities all over the world, thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Excerpt from "Sister Girl" (179K AIFF sound or 179K WAV sound)

"The play actually has music, it has dance, it has poetry and it is based on a journal I kept before, during and after my mastectomy and the diagnosis of breast cancer," Artis said.

Artis

Artis' diagnosis came in 1987. The play, she said, is important "because there were a lot of brave women who became very vocal about having had breast cancer and survived it, but none of those women looked like me." (170K AIFF sound or 170K WAV sound)

"We had Nancy Reagan, we had Betty Ford, we had Ann Jillian, but when is the last time you had a woman of color admit to having breast cancer, then tell the world about surviving it?" Artis said.

Artis said that she believes educating the public through art is as valid as doing it through pamphlets and other educational material, particularly when the material is autobiographical.

"I think that it's scary for women to hear a bunch of stats spouted at them because we're not statistics," she said. "I lost a breast, not a brain."



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