EVERYBODYBEAUTIFUL

These plaster prints were made in collaboration with master printer Cindi Ettinger. I took the photographs, Cindi made the prints, and together we made EVERYBODYBEAUTIFUL. 

I wanted a way to show my oversized NAKED photographs of nude older women so they would be more accessible in a culture that finds aging so unattractive and death so frightening. Also my ongoing search for a way to show photographs that would break with traditional fine art photographic prints made Cindi’s plaster prints a natural for this work.

Cindi and I manipulate the plaster images by coloring, adding hair and natural debris, weathering and burying them. We do anything that resonates with our experience of being female in a youth obsessed culture. A woman's body reflects the story of her life. Cultural and personal truth is embedded in our flesh and in the way we carry ourselves. 

EVERYBODYBEAUTIFUL is about the inherent beauty in older women. It acknowledges the entrenched ageism and misogyny that is every woman’s heritage. We aren’t youthful, but we are inherently beautiful - all of us. 

Cindi Ettinger works from an etched plate to print on plaster. The debris, hair and natural refuse is assembled into the plaster. The resulting prints are usually 4 x 3” to 8 x 5” or as small as 2.5 x 2”.

This work was presented in conjunction with (re)FOCUS 2024
NANCY HELLEBRAND: EVERYBODYBEAUTIFUL at The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA

A conversation with Nancy at The Print Center on was recorded Thursday, May 9 at 6pm.
To view it on The Print Center website click here.