Creative Cup; Silent Spring
The Creative Cup; Silent Spring, is inspired by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. She wrote this at a time when “ecology” wasn’t part of society’s vocabulary. She had incredible foresight on the poisonous use of pesticides to the environment and human health. Rachel Carson stressed the balance of nature is critical to the survival of humanity. Carson wrote Silent Spring just two years before she died of breast cancer.
She emphasized throughout this book that chemical pesticides, herbicides and the residual effects will be the death of our natural environment and the human body via cell poisoning – cancer. This Creative Cup is in memorial to the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s death from breast cancer. It illustrates the incongruity between the deceptive beauty of a garden and the lethal effects of chemicals sprayed to achieve this allusion.
Whenever you talk about a disease such as this it creates emotions as I believe breast cancer touches everyone in some way. Breast cancer is a complex disease, there is still much scientist and researchers don’t know about the cause of breast cancer. It is known that it is a hormonal cancer and estrogen plays a major roll in its development.
It amazes me upon researching cancer cells, the chemicals produced to create a life of convenience, a bug free garden and lawn are the same chemicals that are killing us and our home; earth. In 2012 reports were released stating manufactures now acknowledge that chemicals used in manufacturing of various products are not staying in the product, they are seeping into the human body and the environment.
Synthetic estrogen is used in pesticides, plastics and bonding agents in detergents and paints. This chemical penetrates into your body mimicking your body’s estrogen as it travels through your blood stream into cells causing erratic cell behavior, breaking down the organized structure of healthy cells not allowing old cells to die and new ones to develop- engulfing the tissue, dwelling in the body’s fat cells. Once the cells lose their structure they become immortal, escaping destruction, cheating the system, allowing these cells- now cancer cells to live forever. Cancer cells never die, just the human body they attack. It’s a masquerade.
The red ribbon represents the estrogen traveling through the soil and water into the body. The green clusters are cancer cells growing wild like weeds. The digital images of cancer cells are beautiful, looking like flowers – it’s hard to believe something so beautiful could kill you. The albino crows are the symbol of hope. I hand sewn the entire piece using multiple fabrics. The crows are painted with acrylic. This will be auctioned on March 19th, 2015, all proceeds will go to funding breast cancer support and hotline programs.
This Creative Cup Bra is dedicated to Patty Lawlor, a beautiful soul who touched my life and the lives of many others, who lost her life to breast cancer during the creation of this project.
