Category Archives: Entertainment

CELEBRATING THE ART OF SURVIVING

Want to see some lovely ladies in some crazy lingerie? No, it’s not the burlesque companies in town, but several women who will strut their stuff and share their breast cancer stories as part of the ArtBra KC 2012 event. Artists from all over Kansas City will take the seemingly ordinary bra and create pieces of art for the May 4 event.

This year, 90 bras will be made while breast cancer patients and survivors will model the top 25. The top 10 bras will then be auctioned from the runway. An 11th bra, the Kansas City bra, will be special, Event Chairwoman Sharon Butler Payne says. There are also four mannequins decorated and other artists from Hallmark are making 25 pieces exclusively for the show. Home in the Northland’s fashion editor, Sharon Snowden-Hake, is leading the charge and staging the show.

The show has moved to the Midland. “We also share the stories of the models as they walk the runway,” Butler Payne says. “It’s always so emotional. It’s not really about the bras, but the women and their survivorship. We are not just for those who come to the University of Kansas Hospital. We know women who need help all over the city. Through ArtBra KC, we can make sure women, from all the corners of our metropolitan area including those north of the river, have a place to find some comfort during this time.”

Proceeds benefit the Patients in Need Fund at Missys’ Boutique which helps uninsured and underinsured patients receive the boutique’s cancer-related services and products at no charge. ArtBra KC is a major benefactor of this fund, contributing more than $95,000 in 2011. Butler Payne and Newell were hoping for $20,000.

Butler Payne dealt with breast cancer a few years ago as did Judy Newell, the manager of Missys’ Boutique. Her own daughter-in-law Melissa Malter Newell succumbed to the disease. Missys’ Boutique is named in memory of Newell and Ann Wilcox O’Neill, both affectionately known as Missy. Linda Wilcox, mother of Missy O’Neill, is an active volunteer at the boutique. The boutique is located at the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Care Pavilion in Westwood. It’s part of The University of Kansas Cancer Center.

The boutique is a sort of one-stop destination to help women find their wigs, prosthesis or post-mastectomy garments. “We are here to be advocates and helpers for all women,” Newell says.