Stories and Scars

Placenta Accreta
… after birthing my son, I started to bleed heavily. The doctors made an emergency decision to save my life: they gave me a hysterectomy. I remember the first time I saw the scar, I was in the hospital room with my baby boy nursing at my breast, and I couldn’t help but be angry at my body. The gift of creation, of life, my uterus, had been ripped out of me. I struggled for years with issues surrounding feeling like a woman since I had lost my ability to create.
It is six years later, and when I look at my scar now, I see that it has physically changed along with the emotionally traumatic fears I initially projected onto it. Today I see beauty, I see strength, I see survival…

From Ted Meyer’s “Scarred for Life,” in which he pulls monoprints directly off bodies. The exhibition is a moving combination of words, design, graphic photography and abstract, primitive images.
We all have our scars, but can we transcend them without art?