Photo By Artist Nancy Bellen

After five years of preparation, I will be launching my touring art exhibition The Woman Inside Project, my series of painted casts of the torsos of women with breast cancer, and the accompanying stories of the gorgeous women they really are. I am thrilled and honored to be kicking off the tour in partnership with my friend and exquisite photographer Nancy Bellen in a joint exhibit of our work titled, "SHE LIVES." The show begins at Commonweal , nonprofit health and environmental research institute in Bolinas, California. The opening will be January 24, so if you're in the Bay area, we'd love to see you there.

She Lives
A Collaborative Installation with
Lissa Rankin and Nancy Bellen

January 24 - March 6, 2010

Opening Reception:
Sunday, January 24 from 3-5 PM
Commonweal Gallery

451 Mesa Road

Bolinas, CA

(Please come!!!)

I wanted to share with you the description of the show because- really- it's all about Owning Pink. Here goes.
 

SHE LIVES
 

She lives through the words “You have cancer.” She lives without knowing what tomorrow will hold. She follows a path towards recovery, and rallies the troops to help her overcome. She is not defined by her illness. She transforms. She surrenders to the Universe. She loves fearlessly. She takes off the mask. She speaks her truth. She rides the open road, giggling at gas stations. She plants a garden and watches it grow. She dances with her arms held high and her head thrown back. Sometimes, she succumbs to the disease, but she lives on still, ever present. She cannot be broken because SHE LIVES.

Artists Nancy Bellen, a film-maker, photographer, and woman who has had breast cancer, and Lissa Rankin, an OB/GYN physician, artist and writer, join forces to explore the living essence that radiates from women who have experienced breast cancer. Witnessing the stories with seemingly opposing but surprisingly overlapping lenses, Bellen and Rankin document how women live, in spite of breast cancer.

For their two-person show at Commonweal titled SHE LIVES, Rankin showcases The Woman Inside Project, while Bellen features photographs and video she collected from 113 participants hailing from 5 countries on 4 Harley Davidson motorcycle rides for women with breast cancer on Amazon Hearts rides across the globe. To create The Woman Inside Project, Rankin cast the torsos of women with breast cancer, while listening to their stories. She then painted the casts with encaustic (molten pigmented beeswax) and transcribed their stories into first person narratives, reflecting back her view of the beauty within each woman. Rankin then transcribes these stories onto scrolls of waxed paper, which hang with each cast to reveal the Woman Inside. Bellen’s installation combines photographs, film, a motorcycle, and a simulated gas station to represent the bonding moments women shared on the road. To create the draped fabric piece of installation art that frames the show, Bellen and Rankin collaborated, combining Bellen’s collection of photographs with the stories Rankin wrote. Fluid layers of silk evoke memory, dreams, and lives lived fully.

About their show, Bellen and Rankin say, “This show is not about breast cancer. It’s about living. We aim to shine a light on the fact that we all experience and recover from loss over and over again in our lives. Whether we lose a job, a loved one, a marriage, a dream, or a breast, we live still. Not to diminish what anyone experiences, but we get to choose how we live in the face of loss. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Joy is a choice. This show is about how people live in the face of adversity. It’s about the resiliency of the human condition.”

Pinkies, this show could have been about each one of you. It's really not about breast cancer. It's about how we face loss and fear, how we cope. I guarantee you that each of your stories would have been just as beautiful. What does the woman inside YOU look like?

Knowing that SHE LIVES within us all,

Lissa