One Cancer Down by Tina Berezhnaya

I am a cancer survivor - after surgeries and a long period of rehabilitation I can again use my left hand. I lived through this painful period without losing my sanity mostly thanks to my inclination to count and log everything. As a result, I created this is art object about the experience from pearls, corals, and silver wire attached to metal spokes that held my hand together after cancer removal surgery. Large red corals are 3 major surgeries, 5 spokes are the metal pieces that held the bone autoimplant after the cancerous bone was removed, 25 purple beads are the stitches and 6 large majollica beads are the scars after the surgeries, 238 small pearls are the days between the cancer diagnosed and the day I was told I'm in remission. The silver wire is pain - as it's uncountable and omnipresent, it is all over the piece.