Breast Cancer Self-Portrait: Representations in Image and Word

Ellen Kirschner (Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA)

Sometimes images can express what cannot be said in words. Losing my breast to cancer was like that for me. Even in support groups, people were hesitant to talk about mastectomy. More time was spent discussing hair loss, and that surprised me. Hair grows back. So I began, on my own, to stand in front of a mirror and create pastel images of my body and the feelings in me it evoked, in order to express and come to terms with my loss: with mastectomy and breast reconstruction and all the changes in my body it produced.

At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center I met an art therapist, Paola Luzatto, Ph.D. where I participated in groups she called “The Creative Journey.” Together with other cancer patients I created “image poems” that expressed, shared, and ultimately transformed my experience of illness and survival.

Mining the relationship between verbal and non-verbal representation is the heart of the method I used. First I created images – some were stimulated by inner feelings, some were cut out of magazines and assembled in collages, and some emerged just from engaging with the tactility of art materials themselves. Once the image was composed, I took time to look at it as it was, outside of myself, and see what meanings it suggested, which I would then verbalize. This process always seemed to generate fresh meanings, sometimes deeper and broader than the ones I was aware of at first. The last step was to create a title, in words. This interaction between images and words became a method both to generate inner transformation, and also to create art through which I could communicate with others, and with which they, too, could interact, generating both external relationship and inner transformation.

Through this process I moved from dealing with the changes in my physical body, to the changes my illness caused in my relationships with others, and ultimately to a spiritual journey and evolution that blossomed from within myself. The process became a powerful way to overcome the sense of isolation that illness may cause.

Here I will present images I created over a three-year period, with a narration that both explains the process and also builds on the meanings that the images evoke. Particular emphasis will be placed on how the combination of images and words can provide an expanded context for coming to terms with illness. I will conclude by inviting audience members to share what has been touched in them, thereby continuing the evolution of communication and transformation that the interaction of words and images can so powerfully create.