Today would have been my mother’s 92nd birthday. Mary Harper was an award winning artist, a tolerant housewife, and superlative mother. She died in 2002 after almost winning her fight with breast cancer.
Lexington, Kentucky-area quilters have been decorating bras in advance of Breast Cancer Awareness month which began on Saturday and continues through the month of October.
Breast cancer accounts for 16 percent of all cancer deaths among women nationwide; a womans risk for developing breast cancer in her lifetime is one in seven. A man’s risk is smaller but not tiny.
The Plum Creek Quilters Guild and the Lexington Regional Health Center will sponsor the Think Pink Cele-bra-tion next Thursday.
PCQG member Kathy Beck made themed art bras called “Cheer for the Cure” and “Snow Boobies.” Cancer survivor and member Linda Maloley made two art bras, “Flat Busted” and “Support Bra.” The quilters’ art bras will be modeled and auctioned to raise money for the Eppley Cancer Center.
90% of all diagnosed cases of breast cancer have no family history.
In other fund raisers, Art beCAUSE held its 9th annual Breast Cancer Foundation Gala at Westin Copley Place in Boston yesterday. Art beCAUSE is a foundation founded by an art gallery owner and breast cancer owner. Together, they decided together to use some of the profit from the art gallery to fund research.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among Vermont women.
My mom studied fashion design at Spring Garden Institute after she earned a B.A.-English at Swarthmore. Once, when I was about 10, she covered one of her own brassieres with colorful fabric to form the top half of designer bikini. She would have made a bra for the Think Pink Cele-bra-tion. She did donate paintings to events like Art beCAUSE.
Art brings joy and can bring funding. And art projects like these help more than cancer survivors. You can do that in your own town.