Aesthetic Breast Surgery (eBook)

The Art Featured in This Book

Many of the works of art that appear in this book—on the cover and on the first pages of each part and chapter—were created by the talented Canadian artists of Canada House Gallery of Banff, Alberta. Established in 1974, Canada House Gallery is one of Canada's most vibrant commercial art galleries. The unique and distinctive collection focuses on contemporary paintings, sculpture, and jewelry by renowned and respected Canadian artists. Recognized in 2002 by their peers, the gallery was accepted into the Art Dealers Association of Canada. Over the years, Canada House Gallery has earned a reputation for excellence in the Canadian art community. They have become a destination for art lovers throughout Alberta, Canada, and abroad. (1-800-419-1298; 1-403-762-3757; info@canadahouse.com)

TERRY MCCUE Born 1945 in southeastern Ontario.

Cover, Part I, Part II: “Gift of the Dance”

Terry McCue is an Ojibway Indian from the Curve Lake First Nation, in southeastern Ontario. Terry moved to Alberta in 1976 and continues to call it home. For 19 years, Terry worked as a facilitator, conducting workshops across Canada to train substance abuse workers in Native communities. During that time he worked as a freelance illustrator, producing a variety of works, including posters, book covers, and illustrations for addiction manuals. He used this work to continually develop his skills as an artist. Terry's work can be found in private and corporate collections in Canada and the United States.

Terry is a self-taught painter, who spent time in his youth watching his cousin Arthur Schilling and learning from him. Arthur still influences Terry's paintings. Terry's paintings reflect the four principles that sum up his philosophy: “Humanity is an integral part of creation. Humor is spiritual sustenance. Respect for the natural world, and our place in it, is the key to personal understanding. We are magical beings living in a magical world.”

SUSAN ELKINS Born in Banff, Alberta.

Chapter 1: “Shape and Colour”

Susan Elkins loves color. “It would be easy to describe the work of Banff impressionist painter Susan Elkins as surreal, dreamlike, and otherworldly. But in fact, her vision and her work are grounded in truth: true colors found within a scene or landscape,” wrote Rob Alexander. “It's an abstract approach,” says Susan. “I'm looking at patterns and colors coming together. In nature there is no outline. It's to achieve the feeling of the natural light or the richness of an indoor still life. It's a great way to study colors coming together; it's like music, with notes coming together.” Susan studied with American painter Henry Hensche, who taught his students at The Cape School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, that shadows have color, a lesson Susan Elkins has not forgotten.

LES THOMAS Born 1962 in British Columbia.

Chapter 2: “Figure Painting 04-3347”

Les Thomas, a highly accomplished artist, has received many awards for his work and has been featured in several publications; his paintings are in public and private collections in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Thomas's paintings tend to play with the relationship between culture and nature. The special encaustic wax finish that he applies, he explains, “may very well pertain to memory, and the manner in which we hold visual experiences within the capacities for recollection. Think of the last time you encountered a bear on the roadside, or craned your neck to watch a mountain goat or sheep on a steep and rocky slope.”

ELISE FINDLAY Born 1987 in Banff, Alberta.

Chapter 3: “Perspective”

Elise is the daughter of author Elizabeth Hall-Findlay. Her mother reports: “She could never sit still and was always creating sculptures and paintings, even as a young child. She would imbue her art with a sense of humor and creativity that surprised me. I always tend to do the same thing (as evident in my surgery), but she was always making something new and different. This sculpture was created on the ASPS/ASAPS Baltic Cruise in 2007. One of the tours offered was to visit a sculpture studio in Talinn, Estonia. While Jack Fisher and I struggled to follow the model's curves with our clay, Elise immediately struck out, creating a work of art instead. She has now completed her degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a double major in sociology and comparative religion. She is currently contemplating further study in the visual and creative arts.”

LESLIE ROWE-ISRAELSON Born 1954 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Chapter 4: “Looking Down From Heaven”

Leslie Rowe-Israelson and her twin sister, Melanie Rowe-Prosser, spent their childhood in Victoria, British Columbia. For the past 20 years, the twins have lived and worked in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. The beauty of the mountains, particularly in Banff National Park and Jasper National Park, is their passion and inspiration. It was in the mountains that they discovered their other shared passion: glass would come to consume their thoughts and dreams. Through dedication, this passion became their visual language. Part of the dedication has been through training and dialog with other glass artists. From 1985 to 1994, Leslie and Melanie attended the world-renowned Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. To express their artistic “voice,” their visual language has required the development of unusual techniques involving sand-casting, mosaics, and pâte de verre. Because of the time-consuming nature of the creation of each piece, it becomes a contemplative process that both Melanie and Leslie find rewarding. Leslie's work had found a home in national and international collections such as that of a previous Canadian Prime Minister, the Fairmont Hotels, and the King of Jordan.

ROSE-AIMÉE BÉLANGER Born 1923 in Témiscaming, Quebec.

Chapter 5: “I Am Woman”; Chapter 8: “Camille”

Rose-Aimée Bélanger creates wonderful figures, full of life and humor, in sandstone and bronze. Her subjects come from the people around her: her family, friends, and local characters she has met over her lifetime. They are shown in familiar attitudes, in repose and at work: women holding bouquets, dreaming, relaxing, reading, picking berries or mushrooms, and coddling their children; men at work, or taking a lunch break. She sculpts people with realism and candor, people of her own milieu. All her figures seem to be alive and not posed. They are tender and understanding, exuding an aura of calm and serenity. Shapes have become inflated, giving her figures gracious yet heavy forms. Almost a paradox, she exploits this with much style and success. Her extraordinary aesthetics give the impression of lightness. Shortly after graduating from École des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, Rose-Aimée put her career on hold to devote her time to being a wife and mother. Some 30 years later, she resumed her sculpting patiently and gradually, with great determination. To begin again in your late fifties after a lapse of many years is rare. However, she has done so with panache. Still burning with zeal and energy, she is now into her eighties, looking forward to her next project, her next show. She is definitely a master of bronze figures.

KATE HANSEN Born 1977 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Chapter 6: “Krista and Colum”

Kate Hansen graduated in 2001 from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan with a BFA in fine arts, with a focus on painting. “I have been interested in painting people for as long as I can remember,” she says. “I am fascinated by expressions, the dynamism of the figure, and the undertones of skin.” Her grad show, a series of figurative oil paintings, was at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina. She was married in 2002 and moved to Crowsnest Pass in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. She continued to paint, exhibiting several times with group shows at the Crowsnest Pass Art Gallery. In 2007 she gave birth to her first child and began to work with conté crayons instead of oil paints. Her series, “Madonna and Child,” was inspired by the birth of her son. In 2008 the family moved to Courtenay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and their second child was born shortly thereafter. Kate continues to create and exhibit artwork while caring for her family. This particular image, “Krista and Colum,” was repeatedly removed by Facebook from her website for being pornographic.

JOHN MACDONALD Born 1964 in Prince George, British Columbia.

Chapter 7: “Video Stills, Shower II”

John Macdonald is an accomplished artist from British Columbia whose large-scale oil-on-canvas works have been collected and exhibited nationally for more than a decade. Informed by the traditional as well as the avant-garde, his work depicts figurative subjects engaged in an...