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Image provided by: Guilderland Public Library
*Y'^t'^^^^A^^'V^vWT^.'^1*^'^'*-KV^ 1 *'* I *.'''\ 1 \* t '\\'' M ;i;/»^'«v^s,3J! 10 Tftg Mtampni'Enterprise -Tti,urs^yiMaixh%6,^(H>(f Stitching birds ... Young artist heals self and others as project takes wing p • '''• (Continued from Page 1) ing paper. A girl who was ill after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima set out to fold a thou- sand paper cranes to make her- self well again. She died before she finished the task but those she loved finished for her. Emily Rawitsch has started on a flight of fancy herself. It began with the idea of turning a bra into a bird and, now, after hours of long work, the project is about to take wing. The 22-year-old artist is creat- ing an installation called \Tran- scend,\ which will be exhibited at H Naturals in Troy from April 7 to 29. The exhibit is to answer the question, \When you lose some- one you love, how do you tran- scend the pain and celebrate life?\ Rawitsch admires the artist Ross Bleckner who lost his lover to AIDS. \His paintings ask how to mourn; they celebrate and com- memorate,\ she said. In October, Rawitsch was one of a group of artists asked by Albany to create works about cancer. She was to display art about breast cancer in a store- front. Rawitsch had already started work when the project was can- celed. \I'm a Type A go-getter,\ said the slender young woman who moves with quick bird-like mo- tions and talks rapidly, hopping with alacrity from one subject to the next, never lighting too long. \It's about healing\ When she was first thinking about breast-cancer art, Rawitsch thought of bras. \It just came.to me...I ran into my bedroom and got one out of my closet,\ she recalled. With just two tries, she was able to transforming a bra into a bird. The unhooked back strap became the wings, and the cups, with a tuck or two, sewed to- gether became the body of the bird. No part of the bra was dis- carded; the hook in back became the hook from which to hang the bird. \It was like bras were meant to be birds,\ Rawitsch concluded. Looking at a bundle of them nesting now in her kitchen, she said fondly, \Some are like baby chicks and others are like flying hens.\ Rawitsch sent out a mass e- mail with the subject heading \Request for Bras,\ describing her project. The response was astounding. \I sent it out on a Monday,\ she said. \Tuesday I started getting calls from all over.\ Women she didn't know sent bras, some of them with personal stories about themselves or about people they had loved who had survived cancer or who had died from the disease. So, Rawitsch decided to con- tinue on her own, expanding to include all cancer, not just breast cancer. \To me, it's about healing,\ she said. \The effects are univer- sal....Bras are intimate, just like the experience of cancer. Birds represent being set free, tran- scending....\ Rawitsch used to worry that people would \be offended that I'm touching bras or using bras.\ She said, \I want to make sure people get it's not a silly thing.\ She also said, that, after sew- ing so many hundred bras into birds, \I'm not even fazed by bras. Ill be sewing on them in a waiting room or announcing in the grocery story, 1 got five more bras.'\ Opening day Rawitsch's exhibit has ex- panded from the original store- front as the bras keep on coming. She plans to accept as many as are donated. The one-time e-mail has taken on a life of its own as recipients copy it and share it with friends, Rawitsch's small Albany apartment is filled with hun- dreds of bras — some of them already transformed into birds. On Saturday, she opened a box that has just arrived from Cin- cinnati, Ohio, packed with bras.' aon. to 2 p.m. at no or low cost to women who qualify. Appoint- ments should be made in ad- vance by calling 1-888-423-36. An information tent will be set up, filled with booths stajfed by local cancer-awareness organi- zations. Rawitsch secured the 20- by-80-foot tent in case of rain. \It's going to be like a festival. The street will be shut down,\ she said of the block at 2217 Fifth Avenue in Troy. The Enterprise — Melissa Hale-Spencer Emily Rawitsch opens a newly-arrived box of bras Saturday. She will transform them into birds for her art installation, \Tran- scend,\ which opens Friday, April 7, at Pi Naturals, Inc. in Troy. The day, which she describes as a festival, will raise cancer aware- ness and celebrate life. The bras arrive in bursts from new places. \People talk to their friends,\ Rawitsch said. \When it hit Missouri, for a week, I was getting all these bras from Mis- souri.\ She's gotten bras, so far, from 21 states and two foreign coun- tries — one from England and one from Germany. \Most of them are from people I do not know,\ she said. \They are all strangers.\ Some of them are fancy white lacy bras bought for a wedding day, others are sexy with leopard spots or black lace; still others are utilitarian plain white; while oth- ers are flowered or dotted. They will be displayed in an exhibit which opens Friday, April 7, at H Naturals, Inc. in Troy in the shop's gallery-style space. Her friend, Josh Mcintosh, who designs sets for theaters in New York City and television shows like Law and Order has volunteered to construct a scaf- folding that will display the soar- ing birds. \His mom is a breast-cancer survivor,\ Rawitsch said. Rawitsch applied for and re- ceived a small grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, which will pay for the structural material, she said. \My vision is the birds will start in a cluster to transcend out to the ceiling,\ she said. \I want them to be set free.\ April 7 will be filled with events to raise awareness about cancer. Bellevue Woman's Hos- pital is supplying a mobile mammography van from 10 Rawitsch even got the churches on the street to donate their parking spaces for the event. \Everything's been donated,\ she said. \I'm focusing on the healing. The other groups can speak for themselves as to what they can offer.\ The installation's unveiling will take place at 5:30 and run till tor at the Guilderland High School Journal and lives now in New Hampshire, where she works editing, Elizabeth Rawitsch is folding 1,000 paper cranes for the April 7 opening \for people to take in memory of Mom,\ said Rawitsch. \My mother was an incredible sewer, quilter, basket weaver. I've been sewing since I was five,\ said Rawitsch. \I made clothes for my dolls as a kid and made my own clothes in high school.\ Like her mother, she was a Guilderland High School gradu- ate. After graduating in 2001, she started her college education at 'The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated from The College of Saint Rose in 2005 with a bachelor of fine arts de- gree in graphic design. She works now as a graphic designer at Spiral Design Studio in Albany. \My rnom passed away when I was still in .college,\ she said. \I'm glad I got to, be here to spend two years with her.\ In putting together the open- ing day for \Transcend Rawitsch has used the leadership skills she honed as her class president in high school and since in roles such as being on the board of directors of the Troy- Cohoes YWCA. She has used the organiza- tional and networking skills she's developed at her current job for Spiral. Rawitsch has also used her moxie. She describes, for exam- ple, asking the owner of a local liquor store, Capital Wine, for 50 cases of wine. \He said, 'Are you nuts?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'That's a lot of wine.'\ After she explained her pro- ject, the store owner contacted a supplier in California, Barefoot Cellars of Modesto, which made the donation. \I've really been wracking up all my contacts,\ she said. \I'm not afraid to hear no.\ She explains the outpouring of support by saying, \Curses can be blessings. I have not met someone yet who has not been affected by cancer...Cancer leaves you feeling helpless...I'm giving people something to do.\ Reviving \a lost art\ The project has taken up all of her spare time for months, but Rawitsch has no regrets. woman called to say her sister was just diagnosed with cancer. Her birthday was coming up and things were not looking too promising. For her birthday, they gave her a bra to send into this installation as a gift.... \I got another call from a woman who was just diagnosed and she said, 1 hope I can come to your opening. I might not make it that long.' \I really didn't anticipate this when I sent the e-mail.\ Rawitsch feels a personal con- nection to the women whose bras she is transforming. \In the beginning, I was stub- born. I wanted to sew them all myself, every single one.\ But now she has friends help- ing her. An accomplished seam- stress, Rawitsch can sew a bra into a bird in about three- quarters of an hour. Her friends take longer. \My mom was always.a part of sewing circles,\ she said. \It's kind of a lost art. It's been great having my friends help. We're sitting here in my apartment,\ she said, gesturing to the white- walled space filled with modern art and clean-lined furniture, \sewing talking about intimate things...There's something really powerful and meditative about the process.\ Her mother, she said, used to say that sewing was her religion so Rawitsch feels she's connect- ing to her when she's sewing for this project. Spiraling dream Rawitsch's dream is to take her birds on the road, much the way the AIDS quilt travels from city to city, raising awareness, offering healing and hope. \I could see this as a project that, every time 'its shown, it's larger and larger. It could turn into a full-time job,\ she said, stressing this is a dream and she's very pleased with her cur- rent work and the support Spiral has given to her project — in- cluding setting up a website: www.brabirds.org . Her father, Peter Rawitsch, helped her put together packets to send to celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey. 'T need to find someone to fund the project — a company or a celebrity,\ she said of making the installation national. Rawitsch has applied for a copyright on the bra birds to pro- tect herself as an artist. \I went into this hoping not to lose too much money; I've never 'This project is using everything I've learned in 22 years of life.' 9 p.m. A $10 donation is sug- gested. The money will be given to Gilda's Club of the Capital Region, which offers support for those living with cancer, and for their friends and families. E Stewart Jones, the Troy law firm, will match up to $5,000, she said. Rawitsch, who anticipates the event will draw 700 to 1,000 people, has put it all together herself. All she's still looking for are volunteers to help on the day of the opening — setting up, wel- coming people, and cleaning up. \This project is using every- thing I've learned in 22 years of life,\ said Rawitsch. \I came from a creative fam- ily,\ she said. \My mom and dad both taught first grade.\ Her sister, Elizabeth, was edi- \I'm getting a lot of satisfac- tion out of doing this, out of help- ing other people,\ she said. \Some of these bras come with handwritten letters, two or three pages long,\ she said. \These women tell me their stories. Sometimes there's a note, and I tuck those inside and sew them in.\ Her artisfs statement for the installation says, \I transform each bra into a bird to symbolize rising above and being set free. I place the name of the person being commemorated inside as a private homage.\ Reading some of the letters or taking phone calls from some of the bra donors, Rawitsch said, \It's emotiohal....there are times I would break down in tears.\ Recalling one telephone call from a stranger, she said, \One had a goal to make money off of this, and I don't want anyone else to use it that way,\ she said. Asked what she thought her mother would think of her pro- ject, Rawitsch said, \I'm sure she'd be so proud.\ Her eyes fitted with tears as she answered and, ever the or- ganizer, she Said, \I'm planning on having boxes of Kleenexes at the show....This is like art ther- apy....\ Then she went on, completing her answer to the question, \Peo- ple don't know how to open up. They're scared. I'm finally okay talking about the emotional side of it....Everything I'm doing is in the spirit of my mom. Every- thing she did was 3*0 positive...I'm like my mother; I'm not afraid to talk from the bottom of my heart.\
