October: Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I always feel that I have so many blessings that I should be doing something to help those that have been hit with bad times. October is the breast cancer awareness month, and I have been trying to do some art about it for the last 3

Venus Amazona (c) Constanza Ehrenhaus 2009

years. However, due to poor planning, not remembering on time and lack of time, I am never able to do that. This year I remembered early enough and I started drawing in late August. I thought I was going to be done well in advance, but the truth is that I have been so overloaded with work that I could only work on my Venus on and off during short periods of time about one day a week, if at all. So I just finished her (Click on her to see the full size image)! And I am rather happy with her, she is not perfect, but I wanted to keep a lot of the anatomy errors of the original Venus, and she still looks elegant and graceful.

I recently read a very sad and bitter comment from a woman who had survived breast cancer and had a mastectomy. She was absolutely enraged about this Barbie doll that was beautiful and honoring breast cancer survivors. Her point was that the doll was beautiful and had her breasts and she did not, and did not feel beautiful.

This is my tribute to all those women that have gone through mastectomy. I chose Venus by Botticelli as my muse, since she is a representation of ideal beauty. Even having gone through a mastectomy, a woman is still a woman, and she can be beautiful. Beauty is more than breasts, she can still be elegant and graceful, still womanly and gorgeous. It is in each of us the choice of feeling pretty regardless of having lost a breast. Do not give up feeling like a woman, being a woman!

This illustration is available as a print, and all the profits will be donated to foundations that fight breast cancer. Besides, the digital file has been donated to the Susan Komen Foundation for them to use as they see fit.