To Keep A Breast

By Paulette Perhach & Ashley Gallman

This month, some of the biggest names in burlesque dancing will be in St. Augustine. Well, at least some of their key body parts will be.

As part of the 2007 St. Augustine Art Walk For Breast Cancer, Screen Arts teamed up with Keep A Breast Foundation to bring a special exhibitionist exhibit to the Casa Monica.

Breast Defense will feature plaster busts of women from the Burlesque Hall of Fame painted by artists famous on a local and national scale.

Rob DePiazza of Screen Arts said he liked joining with Keep A Breast because, “They use art to communicate, to raise money.”

The casts are meant to convey the empowering idea that “while breast cancer attacks all women without prejudice, it is the powerful individual presence in all women that will conquer it.”

Although previously Keep A Breast has used every-day women as models for the casts, this year they have the busts of women such as Kitten Natividad and Julie Atlas Muz, famous names in the art of burlesque.

The chosen dancers were selected at the Exotic World Weekend, the world’s premier burlesque gathering, and DePiazza has selected several famous artists to decorate their casts, including Iggy Pop, Mark Mothersbaugh, Derek Hess, and Kim Gordon.

“I intentionally chose artists whose styles are completely different to see a variety in the show,” DePiazza explained. “The nice thing about Keep A Breast is that they don’t mandate anything, so the artists can do whatever they want.”

Aside from the paintings they produce, the artists also will record their artistic process through photographs and video, which will then be made into a multimedia presentation to be shown with the exhibit.

Keep A Breast and DePiazza hope the presentation will add to the exhibit’s opening at Casa Monica.“We want to make it more than just a static art display,” said DePiazza.

“We might even try to line up a live painting where we get a cast and have somebody working on it.”

He said the artist’s interpretations of their canvas ads an interesting twist to the display.

“Each artist has their own style to begin with,” said DePiazza. “To see how they adapted that to the cast is going to be interesting.”

Once the opening of the exhibit is over, the casts will move to their long-term home at Gallery at Screen Arts for the rest of the month, and from there will travel to Los Angeles and finally to Las Vegas, where they will be auctioned.

The traveling component of the exhibit only not will raise awareness about breast cancer, but also increase the hype around the art so that the maximum amount of money can be raised when the casts are sold.

But the Screen Arts owner also is worried that the building notoriety of the exhibit will be one of infamy rather than activism due to the foundation’s use of burlesque dancers as models.“

There’s a misperception about burlesque being pornographic, but it’s not,” he explained. “It’s really an art form. It’s not a bunch of strippers with silicone implants in these casts. These are natural women.”

Furthermore, he pointed out that although the casts may initially seem to have a sensual element, the cause for which they were made banishes all such thoughts.“

I’m as dirty minded as anyone, but I don’t see pornography in the casts, and when you combine them with the intent to raise awareness about breast cancer it removes the sexual component,” he confessed.

Consequently, he hopes that any presuppositions about burlesque will be overshadowed by the tremendous awareness of breast cancer that the casts can create.

Opening Party:
Friday, Oct. 5
5 p.m. - 9 .p.m - Free

After Party:
Friday, Oct. 5
9 p.m. to Midnight
Admission is $20
Featuring live dj’s, cash bar. All proceeds to bene?t Keep A Breast.
For more info about the show contact:

Rob DePiazza
The Gallery at Screen Arts
228 W. King Street
829-2838
screenartsflorida.com

Other Shops:
Art by cancer survivors will be on view at various locations in downtown St. Augustine Oct. 5 during the Art Walk for Breast Cancer. The Red Train will stop at the following 11 locations. For more details on the event, go to artwalkfor-breastcancer.org

Linda Holmes - Cousart Gallery, 62 Spanish St.

Cass McKenna - Panache, 66 Hypolita St.

Hope Barton - Mullet Beach Gallery, 51 Cordova St.

Debbie Boon 1- 30 King Fine Arts, 130 King St.

Jean Troemel - Butterfield Garage Art Gallery, 137 King St.

Joyce Gabiou - Premier Properties, 88 Riberia St.

Eleanor Hughes - San Sebastian River Artists Gallery, 134 Riberia St.

Art Walk for Breast Cancer foundation tent; silent auction; spirit celebration - Holborn Gallery, 134 Riberia St.

Michelle Robideaux Pent and Keep A Breast Foundation’s Torso Exhibit - The Casa Monica Hotel, 95 Cordova St.

Carolyn Kelso - P.A.St.A. Fine Art Gallery, 214 Charlotte St.

Kate Cooney - The St. Augustine Art Association, 22 Marine St.