Rochester Hills, MI
Social Media: @thelipstickjourney; @annaslipstick
Survivor, Thriver, metastatic thyroid cancer
Twist on Cancer: I am on my fourth recurrence of cancer and this time it has traveled to my lungs, which makes me Stage 4 with distance metastasis. I have been stable (which has slowly become one of my favorite words) for four years, but I live in a weird loop of scan, wait, live life, repeat every 3-6 months.

I’ll never forget a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘There is no such thing as a dying person. There are living people and there are dead people.’ It’s so true. Cancer has taught me to truly live in the present and to really focus on what I want to do with my time and who I want to spend it with. I have also learned that while most people live and wait for the big moments, the magic happens in the moments in between, even in the mundane, if we’re looking. I have never been so grateful for time and the mundane. Life is for the living and I want to live until I die.

“You Are The Song”
24x36
$3000
Artist Statement: Illness forces the question 'Who Am I?' because the ‘who’ that we thought ourselves to be is forever changed in so many ways.

Anna was a singer. Cancer took her singing voice.

As I sat in meditation after listening to recordings of Anna singing, she popped into my heart brightly, loudly and as clearly as a gorgeous melody…

She said to me "I Am The Song."

She is.