Celebration of Healing, Granite Springs Press 2012

SAL BROWNFIELD, artist, with EVE HOFFMAN, writer

A Celebration of Healing is an art book, a book of stories bringing encouragement and confidence to those impacted by breast cancer and other serious illness.  It is neither a cancer “how to” guide nor a Hallmark card – rather a book giving permission to laugh, to cry, rage and to know one is not alone.  The twenty-one paintings and narratives build bridges between the physical and emotional needs of patients, families, friends and the medical community. They become a part of the healing.

A Celebration of Healing includes a wide range of breast cancer experiences and demographics.  Reader after reader, including those with different kinds of cancer, have commented, I wish I’d had this book when diagnosed.  These are my stories, my stories!  Others have suggested A stack of Celebration  should be in every doctor’s waiting room.

Available from the artist or writer; contact: evehoffmanassistant@gmail.com


Voices of the Celebration of Healing models as told to Eve Hoffman

~All the parts and pieces of my life are here, just not in the right place.

~There was a war going on inside my body and I wasn’t a participant.

~I felt poked and probed like a slab of meat.

~I felt like a little girl without my pubic hair

~Men get breast cancer. Pay attention!

~Panic in every headache. Do I gave a brain tumor now?

~I was told “you are blind” you don’t need to worry about reconstruction

~My husband insisted on cutting off my bandages the first to see my flattened chest.

~My husband left twenty-three days after my last treatment.

~At almost ninety how do I know I have it if I can’t feel it? How do I know if it’s gone?

~I didn’t know there was a lesbian cancer care initiative.

~Oncologist paced chemo so I could take the bar exam and I passed!

~I have a chest like a wren… now when I hug a man I can feel his heart beat.