“I began this book project unknowingly: After shooting some self-portraits with my 5-week-old son Sequoia accompanied by a blog about my newly-round post-Birth body, I was flooded with emails by mothers wanting to share their Incredible, Inspiring, & Sometimes Painful stories with me. It was then I realized I had to tell their untold stories, that a body of work begged to be created! Through Photographs & personal essays from these courageous mothers all over the country, I hope to offer a powerful healing tool for Mothers everywhere. Since inception, 1000’s of women have volunteered & the project ‘A Beautiful Body Project’ was born. Together we can redefine our culture’s idea of a beautiful woman. I have photographed and humbly listened to hundreds of stories now: Anorexia; childhood bulimia; a woman being told by her mother she was too fat to be a ballerina. Self-hatred; self-inflicted-suffering; Feeling unsexy because she perceived her nipples as imperfect; feeling unsexy because she lost too much weight after breast feeding; Feeling like there was something deeply wrong with her because she had only lost 5 pounds 9 months after the birth of her 2nd child; Sexual abuse; teenage & young adult drug addictions due to self loathing because she never felt beautiful; breast cancer after the birth of a long-awaited pregnancy; loss of a baby at birth with a wrinkly tummy & un-suckled breasts to remind her everyday of what might have been”.
“There are so many stories shadowing mothers in our culture. We are, however, also tremendously blessed with vast amounts of freedom as American Women: we are lucky to be able to shape-shift concepts and ideas in our country. We have the ability to choose to feel worthy, to believe we are beautiful and to act as women who wish to share beauty and joy in this world as an inter-connected community of people seeking a beautiful and peaceful life. It is my hope in 2013 to find a publisher for this book of powerful photographs & stories in order to inspire thousands of other mothers who are eager to feel validated by witnessing this exploration of vulnerability as a collective”.
