Student marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month with art project

  PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – A University of Maine at Presque Isle art student is marking Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October with a unique art installation.
Jessica Carpenter, a 20-year-old junior from Fryeburg, has altered a pine tree in the middle of campus to symbolize the loss many women and men face because of breast cancer.     Working with the stumps left by branches that had been cut off the tree, Carpenter used non-toxic paint to “create the suggestion” of breasts. Visitors can tie pink ribbons to the tree’s remaining branches.
“Symbolically, this will mean something to the people who have had breast cancer or who have a family member who has lost a breast,” Carpenter said.
The art student said she came up with the idea after one of her art professors gave the class an assignment to “do something you’ve always wanted to do but have always felt held back in doing.”
Carpenter said she had passed the pine tree many times and had always wondered what she could do with it. The tree is located on the walking path between Folsom-Pullen Hall and Emerson Annex.
“The knots on the tree look like breasts. They were branches that were cut away,” she said. “It just made sense that this is what I should do.”
Because of the installation’s strong awareness message, Cary Medical Center decided to sponsor Carpenter’s project. Officials gave her a gift of $75 to help pay for her art supplies.
Carpenter is hoping that the installation will help both to spread awareness and allow people to show their support for those whose lives have been touched by breast cancer.