ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a disabled person, suffering from a rare illness called Fibromuscular Dysplasia. This illness attacks arteries and forms serious blockages in them, which can lead to strokes and aneurysms. It has also caused chronic kidney disease in my case. I’ve only recently gained weight, after always being small and 105 lbs. I’ve never before known what it meant to have a larger body, to feel unattractive! I personally related to this poem. I am older now, and heavier than I’ve ever been. I feel unattractive. Am I still feminine? Will stilettos make me feminine? I feel as large as the ocean, as the city! I can relate!
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Susanne Swanson Bernard is an analog collage artist, photographer and freelance writer, living in Boise, Idaho. Her Collages have been shown in Covet Art Gallery, Oceanside, Lark Gallery, Online, Woman of Steel Gallery in Garden City and Nevada Fine Arts in Reno, just to name a few. They have also been published on four Boise Weekly Covers, and twice inside Boise Weekly, and in Chestnut Review and The Art of Chestnut Review, Bare Hill Review, Mad Art Magazine, Black Lives Matter, The Santa Monica Mirror, and in a poetry anthology titled “Standing.”
© Susanne Swanson Bernard