Jingle McEver

Last week I was contacted by Morna McEver Golletz through Facebook. She asked for me to put a name to a pocket. And when Morna told me her mother was named Jingle McEver, I knew I needed to put more than a name to this pocket, I had to honor Jingle’s memory with a full blown and beautiful pocket. Jingle was mother, a teacher, a watercolorist and an inspiration. Later in life, Jingle became a Uniboober.

Morna said these things about her mother: 

“Her name is Jingle McEver. She’d be so happy to be doing this.”

and

“…she’d love that you’re from Brooklyn. Her favorite grandmother (and great grandmother and family) settled in Brooklyn after coming to America from Germany.”

“…my mom was an artist from early in her childhood. She taught art and painted, largely watercolors, until she could no longer. She was also a grand encourager of creativity and art in her five daughters.”

I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman who is so highly esteemed. I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman named Jingle. Thank you Morna.

As I get used to being a flat chested woman, I seek imagery of other like minded women. Jodi Jaecks made international news for fighting to be allowed to swim in her local pool without a top. Margaret W. Smith had a preemptive bilateral mastectomy because she tested positive for the BRCA2 mutated gene and members of her family had been treated for breast cancer as well. There is also the Scar Project which shows some mastectomies as well as some reconstructed images of women. And then there is the photographer Carly Ries who is working on a series of photographs of women who have gone through treatment for breast cancer. 

I am glad that women can have their bodies reconstructed after breast cancer treatment, many women need and want these options. But for those of us who do not, I am happy that we have some trailblazers who are putting images of their bodies out into the public realm. Seeing images of women who choose not to reconstruct their body is important, beautiful, simple, empowering. 

We, as women, are bombarded with images of how we should look, products we should use, exercise programs to loose weight, fashions that will only look good on size 0 models (0?? What. Who wears size 0? Should we dissolve into the ether next, become totally invisable?)  We see these images and headlines so often, we can forget that they are telling us to be something other than what we are. I have yet to see an ad by the ‘pink ribbon people’ that uses imagery of a single breasted or flat woman. This needs to stop.

It makes me happy that women are bucking the norm and going flat. Putting their images out into the public eye. Normalizing the choice that many women are forced to make in a lifetime, without pandering to the need to fit in and have an acceptable body image. It is about time.