October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On Friday, the Phelps Cancer Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is holding a reception for an art show titled “An October Retrospective: Art by Breast Cancer Survivors.” Organizer Francesca Olsen is a North Adams resident, recent breast cancer survivor, and an artist. Quilts that she produced during her arduous treatments will hang alongside work from three other local artists who also explored the experience of breast cancer creatively. Olsen tells WAMC that the show is about examining the complexities of life with cancer as well as deepening the collective understanding of those who survive it.
OLSEN: While I was going through cancer treatment last year – I went through chemo, I had a mastectomy, and I had radiation – I really needed to put my energy and my feelings into something outside of myself. And as an artist that was going to be art. So, I'm a quilter, and I took to quilting and I created three large quilts based on medieval and tarot card imagery that represent each of those treatments- Chemo, surgery and radiation. So, one of them, the surgery, one looks like swords. The chemo one is represented by cup- It's called alchemy, there are some alchemy lines coming out of it. And the radiation one is inspired by the old school radiation symbol- Not the bomb shelter one, but the wiggly line one. So, they all kind of speak together in color. And when I was finished with them, I thought, well, maybe I could get them hung at the cancer center so that other people could see something that somebody else created as they went through the hell that is going through cancer treatment. And the cancer center said yes, which I'm very thankful for. But I wanted it to be a little bit more democratic than just me showing my work. So, I've connected with tons of other survivors and people in treatment currently, and so I put out a call to see if anybody else would like to stand with me and submit their art.
WAMC: Tell us a little bit about some of these folks who are also sharing their experiences with breast cancer through art.
Here in the Berkshires, there are so many artists, which means that the demographic concentration of cancer survivors who are artists is obviously going to be higher. And the point of showing this art together is to show that we are people with complete lives who are still doing deep constructive things with ourselves, who are asking really important questions about the world, etc. So, I'm really excited to have Karin Stack on display. She just had a show in downtown North Adams and she was generous enough to hook us up with a piece. She has done amazing art related to her cancer journey in the past, so she's fairly well known. Martha Flood has also submitted a quilt. She's a textile artist and designer who used to have a shop on Eagle Street in North Adams. And my friend Kate Wunch who actually went through treatment at the exact same time I did, she has a beautiful self-portrait photograph in this show. And she and I met through a mutual friend, because our mutual friend knew that we were both going through chemo at the same time, and we became part of a chemo support group text and it was wonderful. So, I'm really happy that her is specifically is going to be here.
What are you hoping folks take away from this gallery?
I want them to understand that the time of treatment can be spent in a constructive way. I think a lot of people who haven't gone through this think that what we're doing while we go through all this chemo and radiation is just like sit there and suffer- But that's really not the case. People who are sick are the same people, they're just sick. So, I'd love to take that away. And I would love to remind people that breast cancer is really common. One in eight women get breast cancer. So, one in eight women are out there, going back into their lives and doing what they used to do every day, and feeling out what it's like to be on the other side of that line. That's really important to me too.
