Artist: Lori Nelson
Title: Rachael DeVries
Description: One of a kind Keep A Breast cast sculpture
Year created: 2020
Medium: Plaster base and artist materials
Edition: 1 of 1
Height (inches): 12
Width (inches): 11
Depth (inches): 8
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: back
Description of piece:
One of a kind Keep A Breast cast of Rachael DeVries painted by Lori Nelson.
Artist bio:
BUST: RACHAEL DEVRIES "Shaney jo is such a light, and it was a wonderful experience learning about Keep A Breast’s mission. I even started regular self-check exams after getting casted!"
ARTIST: LORI NELSON "I'm like just about anybody you can stop on the street: I've lost dear, dear people to breast cancer, the most soul-wrenching being my sister-in-law, Susan. When my sibs and I were all in our 30s and early 40s, doing careers and kids, my brother's wife discovered a lump in her breast. She described it over the phone, kind of amazed, as having the size and characteristics of a superball, those palm-sized high-bouncers from the seventies. She was so young. For a couple of hard treatment years, we - my brother's sisters and I - took turns mothering and sistering that busy household of young kids. When things would get quiet in the house, sometimes I would put my head next to Susan's on the pillow where she rested on a bed in the living room and sing The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode - all the gothy repertoire of our youth. I'm a terrible singer, but she smiled. It was our own music club. In the end, the club had to disband. We lost Susan at age 40. In my piece for the Keep A Breast Foundation auction, I am reaching back to those intimate hours with my sister-in-law, where we were almost in a secret hideout, absolutely safe and unfindable, sharing those tunes from the days when things were good. If I could go back to that little club of two, I know which song would be first, we sang it together so many times: Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick The one that makes me scream she said The one that makes me laugh she said and Threw her arms around my neck Show me how you do it and I'll promise you I'll promise that I'll run away with you, I'll run away with you. (Just Like Heaven, The Cure) Many years have passed, and I think of Susan as I see her kids grow."