Thanks lady!!!! I love it!
There are a couple local ladies here in Fargo that have written a book about Breast Cancer. One is a photographer and the other is a motivational Breast Cancer Surviving speaker. I actually met one of them (Kim Wagner) at the Hope Soars Picnic back in September. Their website is here: http://nolumpsthankyou.com/index2.php#/home/
Meg Spielman Peldo, daughter of a Hollywood Vassarette lingerie designer in the 1950s, has become a brassiere-maker in her own right.
But instead of cotton, satin and lace, she’s used pancakes, maracas and pomegranates to create artsy undergarments.
The Fargo-based fine-art and portrait photographer spent years conceptualizing and shooting a series of “art bras” formed with flowers, plants, grasses, fruits and vegetables, stones, sea glass, buttons and other objects.
Spielman’s book, “No Lumps, Thank You: A Bra Anthologie,” combines 30 of her imaginative images with lighthearted humor to help raise money for breast cancer charities.
“No Lumps,” released Sept. 28, was inspired by The Hotel Donaldson’s annual Bras on Broadway fundraiser.
The project began with the wearable bird’s-nest bra Spielman made for downtown Fargo’s first Bras on Broadway six years ago. Her “breast nests” were so well received, she wondered what good she could do with a book.
“That’s why I have the book, because of Bras on Broadway,” she says.
Spielman submitted a proposal along with three images to a few publishers, and a week later she got a call.
Stories and laughsThe special edition of “No Lumps, Thank You” includes stories from 53 regional breast cancer survivors collected by Fargo writer and speaker Kim Wagner, who was undergoing treatment herself while she was doing interviews.
“This book is full of funny anecdotes and personal reflections from strong, gutsy, amazing women. It was an honor to jot down their stories and be a part of it,” Wagner says.
She says talking to other women who were going through the same things was therapeutic.
“I never liked the idea that it’s a ‘journey’ or a ‘battle,’ but it was nice to know that so many of us could commiserate and say we’ve been there,” says Wagner, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer last summer.
Contributors range in age from their early 20s to their 70s and 80s.
“This is not a team that we would ever volunteer to be on, and yet it really is a marvelous conglomerate of young and old,” she says.
Proceeds from the special edition will go to Sanford Health’s Embrace Cancer Survivorship Program.
“What we have learned through that program is how important other breast cancer survivors are to each other as far as their healing, because they have the most poignant tips and tricks for each other to get through that difficult journey,” says Dr. Shelby Terstriep, medical oncologist at Sanford’s Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo.
She says the blurbs included in the book address everything she and her staff hear from their patients on a day-to-day basis.
“We’ve already had someone at the beginning of her cancer journey comment on how helpful it was to read other people’s stories. That’s the kind of impact we want to have on people,” Terstriep says.
Spielman’s playful touch is meant to make a difficult time a little bit easier.
“I hope it offers encouragement and it shows compassion and laughter. It’s supposed to be light-hearted, and I think we achieved that,” Wagner says of the book
