More Than Skin Deep

This project began as an offer to memorialize a friend’s (Mary) breasts before a radical mastectomy to confront Inflammatory Breast Cancer. We recently had reconnected through a friend who subsequently died from ovarian cancer. This morphed into a documentation of Mary’s journey. Photos were taken at her home, in Winooski, Vermont and at Dana Farber Cancer Center Boston, Massachussets.

To some, breasts define the identity of a female.

The surface rarely shows what lies beneath, more often it reflects what is beyond. A blemished fruit may be sweet; likewise a beautiful breast may hide malignancy.

The journey—after a diagnosis of cancer—reveals facets of society, medicine, politics and yes—self-discovery.

Cancer is experienced across society—it reaches every home. It is a journey for all of us to endure.

We gain from each other. Fellowship has an outsized role to play in recovery.

The camaraderie found in waiting rooms to chemo drip stations, regardless of background, strengthened my belief in humanity.

Share love, not stigma.