Summary:

Surrounded by Family and Friends is a collection of six life-sized fabric and thread wall hangings that explore the relationships between dying persons and those human or animal companions they are about to leave behind. Scherer’s drawing tools are her scissors and sewing machine; she sculpts in fabric--a warm, tactile and inviting medium.

In "At Night," a dying man, though weak, is alert, conscious, and comfortable. His direct eye contact with the viewer draws us into the family grouping of standing daughter or wife with eyes downcast on one side of the bed, and a seated elderly woman and middle aged man on the other side looking at her. The artist met and did a pencil sketch study of her protagonist 21 days after he had rejected further dialysis and other treatments. Scherer documents in her notes, "He wanted his doctor to see the drawing--proof that he was still here, doing it right, dying his way. He told his wife, ’The doctor should see this! I did it MY way!’ We agreed to write those words on the drawing." (Project on Death in America newsletter, 2002: (10) p. 7)

"Open Window" shows an elderly woman in bed with a window open to a breeze that gently stirs her long gray hair splayed out around her head like a crown. Although the woman is fragile and bedridden, the hair is striking, gray with age, but thick and vital. Her cat stands sentry beside her, greeting the viewer with a steady gaze.

In "Child" a seated mother is kissing the head of the dying child on her lap. The supportive medical technology is barely visible. A teddy bear, colorful patterned quilt, and a clean gauze-like curtain communicate the essence of palliative care.

Two standing figures tenderly touch and comfort themselves and a third who is dying in bed. "Three Men" is exceptional for its unselfconscious display of the loving relationship between the subjects. They might be brothers or friends, lovers, or professional caregivers. Intergenerational and non-traditional families from culturally diverse groups apply to all six of these works.

"In Her Room" appears to be a husband and wife, though the actual relationship doesn’t really matter. Directly gazing at the viewer, the calm subjects invite us into the comfort and intimacy of this moment. The "husband" might well be the caregiver. He sits close to the woman’s bed, his hand wrapped firmly around her outstretched arm.

"Bigger than Each Other" is a composition of a couple seated on a couch holding hands, fingers entwined. The woman--with tubing supplying nasal air/oxygen--is enveloped in the body of her husband (partner? Physician?). Although physically present to each other in an embrace, they appear to be lost in their separate thoughts.

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In a bleak setting, at an ocean's edge, a family grouping of three poor people, barefoot, huddled and shivering, are lost in contemplation. The figures' proportions are elongated. Imposing in their size, they take up the entire canvas. Rendered entirely in shades of blue, all other details are eliminated from the composition adding to the mood of blue empty coldness of sand, sky, and sea.

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This well-known image has become one of the 20th century's most potent symbols of psychic agony. A lone emaciated figure halts on a bridge clutching his ears, his eyes and mouth open wide in a scream of anguish. Behind him a couple (his two "friends") are walking together in the opposite direction. Barely discernible in the swirling motion of a red-blood sunset and deep blue-black fjord, are tiny boats at sea, and the suggestion of town buildings.

The composition, colors and dramatic use of perspective, the undulating curves of the landscape and hollow figure personify alienation and anxiety. Munch described the event which took place on a trip to Ekebergsasen (view of Christiania in background) in his diaries: "I stood there trembling with fright and I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature."

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A couple by a riverbank, bodies stiffly but tightly merged in the passion of dance, is framed by two female figures--an innocent woman, virginal in white, reaching tentatively towards a sprig of pale budding flower blossoms, looking forward, and a mature, sober figure in black, hands clasped mournfully, looking back. In the background, caricatures of lively, dancing couples embrace orgiastically while the Norwegian moon casts a shimmering shadow over the calm water. The female figures (archetypal) seem to be variations of the same person: the young innocence of spring, the seductive, and the sorrowfully mature.

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Seated centrally on bed and canvas, legs tightly pressed together, hands clasped between them, covering herself, a naked, adolescent girl stares directly at the viewer. Her expression is serious, tense, anxious. (Or is it coy and seductive?) Shy and defenseless, her thin lovely, virginal body contrasts with its dark amorphous shadow cast on the wall behind her.

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The face of a young girl is pictured with a grossly oversized blood-red tear dropping from one eye. She supports the tear with both her hands. The girl stares directly at the viewer and appears to be as angry or numb as she is sad.

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As the title denotes, each image of a person with AIDS is captioned with his or her own words and signature. Howard's juxtaposition of both images and words lends a special power and specific meaning to the collection: images are given a distinctive human voice, words a distinctive human face.

Each image tells a story, but the story is that of a singular life facing a singular death. Using a focused lens and realistic frame, Howard presents candid portraits of persons in ordinary surroundings engaged in daily activities. Light creates mood in this pictorial display of the entire range of human emotion.

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This collection of over ninety photographs and their stories celebrates an "unsung army of great healers," caregivers of persons with AIDS. Herself infected with the HIV virus, mother and AIDS activist Mary Fisher chronicles painful, private, and precious moments of interaction between patients, families, lovers, friends, and "professionals," in home, hospital, clinic, and other settings (a women’s prison on Riker’s Island, a homeless shelter in Boston, a nursery in West Palm Beach). Interspersed with the photographs and commentary are excerpts from Fisher’s letters and addresses including her show-stopping televised speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention.

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In 1991 the artist and model Matuschka was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy. Following her surgery, which she discovered had not been necessary, Matuschka became an activist on breast cancer issues. Hoping to increase awareness of the prevalence of breast cancer and also to suggest a more positive self image for women who had had mastectomies, she continued producing artistic portraits of herself, many of them revealing the results of her mastectomy.

Her career took a very public turn with the appearance of her photographic self-portrait on the cover of the New York Times Magazine on August 15, 1993.(She appears in a tailored white dress cut away from her right shoulder and torso to give a full view of her mastectomy scar.)This photo (titled "Beauty out of Damage" and accompanied by Susan Ferraro’s article, "The Anguished Politics of Breast Cancer") and a dozen other photos and paintings were exhibited on the Web by the Pincushion Forum web site and later put into an archive. The archive also contains several texts that help orient viewers to the visual works.

Viewer-readers may be interested in numerous poems, stories, and longer works about breast cancer that have been annotated in this database. Especially recommended are: Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals; Betty Rollin’s First, You Cry, excerpt from; Joyce Wadler’s autobiography, My Breast; Marilyn Hacker’s poem sequence, Cancer Winter; Linda Pastan’s poem, Routine Mammogram; Henry Schneiderman’s poem sequence, Breast Cancer in the Family; and a story by Helen Yglesias, Semi-Private. Other titles may be found here by searching for "breast And cancer."

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Dominating the image, a vengeful Satan with arms outstretched stands upon Job's prone body dispensing boils from a vial with his left hand while shooting arrows at him with his right. Job's head is thrown back and his hands are lifted off the ground in a sign of agony. His weeping wife kneels at his feet. The background is minimal yet dramatic with its dark swirling clouds, bright setting sun, and Satan's huge blood red wings.

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