we said at the event in october that we would share the music that was created for the evening, with the healing haikus that our friend Katy and her family recorded.

if you weren’t there, just a little background on that  - we wanted an ambient soundtrack to play during the event, one that wouldn’t be distracting or jarring, but would contribute in a meaningful way to the overall atmosphere.

if you go back and read this post about the haiku assignment, you will learn where these haikus came from. they were recorded for the event and our good friend, musician Ryan Paul got his band together and put music behind them.

in our first year of this project, kate and i were so grateful and eager to be meeting people that wanted to participate that we would schedule studio time and then jump in with cameras right away. it worked in the moment, but a more defined process began to emerge. we started to meet women who weren’t sure if they wanted to participate or not – so we started spending an hour or two just talking, hearing stories, and asking what motivated them to even be considering doing this. this seems so obvious now, and it has become an essential part of our process.

often in the course of that discussion, the photograph that i want to take of the person becomes very clear in my mind. sometimes i need more time to process before i talk about it, and sometimes i blurt out my idea in the meeting. when we met with our wonder woman, katy, she told us the story of having a double mastectomy on her 40th birthday. it occurred to me that we could help her reclaim her birthday – but that’s not how i said it. i get excited and all idea-bursty and just pounced on her with LET’S DO A BIRTHDAY PARTY!!  my words coming out hadn’t had time to align with where i was coming from in my mind, and it immediately didn’t feel right to her. we don’t ever want to push anyone to a place they don’t want to go, but i explained that depending on how we approached staging a birthday party it could be a chance for her to begin to replace a painful experience with a pleasant one. we did three photo shoots with katy, and we did end up doing the birthday party. she chose five of her dear friends to come participate and brought decorations and the actual birthday cards she had received. our mutual friend nicki baked a cake. people brought presents. we had the full spectrum of emotions. in the end, it wasn’t a staged birthday party, it was REAL. it was wonderful.

the photo that we chose for the october event was an interpretation of something that katy had told us in our first meeting: that she felt amazing support and friends and loved ones all around her, but still at times felt alone in her experience.

yesterday we met with an incredible woman named patty, and she went home and wrote about the meeting here. after the meeting my mind was racing with ideas that we want to try in the project. every single time we meet with a new person we learn something new, get inspired, and find our project growing wiser.

i wanted to write about our process because i want you all to know what we are doing behind the scenes, between events. i also want to let you know in case you are reading this and thinking of participating or meeting with us, so you start to get an idea of what to expect.

we are working on a plan to bring people together more often than in october. we are learning that though our project has a website, the real stuff doesn’t happen online. we want it to become more accessible, more often, and are moving slowly and surely toward that.

There’s no going back now! The Fox Egg Gallery is now filled with the images of incredible women. Amazing sights and sounds are cued up. And the day of a brand new conversation has arrived. Here’s a picture of the controlled chaos leading up to the event.

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that’s important. But it doesn’t mean much if we don’t have, well…awareness. Pink is pretty, but wearing a ribbon doesn’t save lives. Early detection does.

Wearing ribbons in solidarity is a great gesture, but it doesn’t mean much if we’re not aggressively supportive of the women and men in our lives who are struggling with an illness that is at best frightening, and at worst life-threatening.

We need to be taking care of ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, our friends. We need to be reminding the men in our lives that they, too, can get breast cancer–they should be doing exams, as well. We need to stop being afraid of saying the wrong thing, and start simply reaching out with kindness. We hope that tonight, the courage and openness of our amazing models and friends will help us all to better understand this cancer that affects us all.

Here’s our schedule:

5:00-We begin! Hang out, see some art, have a snack. You know. You’ll hear a soundtrack. Listen carefully: it’s an original score by Ryan Paul and Corey Eischen of Sleep Study, written in honor of this year’s amazing survivors. In the background, you’ll hear the verses of a family deeply affected by breast cancer and incredibly proud of their survivor mom/wife. While you’re listening, please don’t look at me. It makes me weep, without fail.

6:30-Diedrich Weiss plays a gorgeous song he wrote, called “Wounds to Scars.” Pretty much, it’s perfect.

7:00-The incomparable Colleen, one of last year’s models, gives a presentation about how she works to preserve her legacy, and offers insight into how you can share your own.

8:00-Brianna Lane will play a set to wrap up the evening. If you’ve never heard her play, it’s worth coming just to see her. Of course, it’s worth coming just to see the art. Or just to hear Diedrich. Or just to hear the poetry and musical soundtrack.

Or just…come on in. We’ll bear hug your face.