Breast Cancer - What's Art Got to do with it?

I spent many years working with clay - starting by making pots in high school and moving on to sculpture after college and then grad school. Initially, I absolutely loved working on the potter's wheel. I picked it up quickly and it was fun seeing what I could do with it. Pretty soon, though, I found myself frustrated by the smooth surface of the clay. I began to do a cutout technique that I used in one way or another for many years. I started out with geometric patterns and then moved on to more organic textures, eventually using a lot of different tools and techniques to alter the surface of the clay and reference a structure underneath the surface.

Eventually, to quote my own artist's statement: "I wanted to find a way to make the texture and pattern actually become the form and add greater depth to what was previously only implied. As a result, the form has been exploded, in a sense, into many small parts that are fired and then joined together afterwards."

It has been a couple of years since I made anything at all. The last pieces were a real struggle. I was pleased with the result, but bored by the process and did not see anywhere to go from there. I finally came to the conclusion that I had simply reached the end of the idea. I had been working, in some ways, with the same idea for almost 20 years and had taken it as far as I could. It was such a relief to get to that point and realize that there was no need to keep pushing myself to do something I no longer enjoyed.

What does all this have to do with breast cancer? Well, when Mom was diagnosed, I was a teenager, just about to start high school. I remember reading (where would I have read these things? Seventeen magazine?) that cancer can exist for many years before it is detected. I think that was the most disturbing thing to me at the time. That a disease could be inside of a person for so long without anyone knowing or being able to find it - even if they knew it was there.

So when I think about all those years working with clay, trying to get beyond the surface, to see what the structure was beneath, it is almost as if I was trying to see under my own skin. And those last pieces I made? One friend who bought one of them, and just happens to be a cancer researcher, told me apologetically that they actually reminded her a little bit of cancer cells. I recall not being offended in the least - it made sense to me and I know that people bring their own experiences and sensibilities to a piece of art. Now it makes sense on another level.

One of the downsides of having so many family members who have had breast cancer (mother, both grandmothers, a great aunt) is that I always assumed I would get it, too. It was just a question of when. I even had genetic testing done a couple of years ago and was shocked that it came back negative. As they explained to me, though, there is still a lot they don't know about genetics and a negative test does not mean there is no genetic component. Just perhaps one they have not identified yet.

I was officially diagnosed on 4/28/11, when I received a phone call from the nurse practitioner with the pathology report from my biopsy. She said, as I recall, "They did find a little cancer." I was not surprised. I think the first moment I "knew" was a week earlier, when I was having an ultrasound, after being called back for a follow-up mammogram. The room was very quiet and the technician was moving the ultrasound wand around and looking at the screen, taking pictures. I realized I could see the screen, too, so looked up to see the jagged gray oval on the screen. It looked huge. And I thought to myself, "So this is how it's going to happen."

All those years of trying to get below the surface of the clay, finally getting as close to that as I could, and now I know. I know what was beneath the surface.

I've posted a combined photo - one of the last pieces I made (right) next to a microscopic photo of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma - the kind of cancer I had (left). It is actually kind of pretty.