Krystle MaY Statler

Benign Fruit

 


Photographed by Rebecca Gustavson, 2021, This piece, Benign Fruit, is a testament to the difficulties Black women and men face in seeking medical treatment and the power of awareness for our collective breast health. This piece was featured in the Black Women for Wellness Exhibit,  October 1–31, 2021 at the Aziz Gallerie, 3343 W 43rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90008.

 

Text on the canvas reads (not pictured): 

At 14, a benign tumor

THE SIZE OF THREE RIPE APPLES

in my right breast was removed.

At 23, a recurrent benign tumor

THE SIZE OF A PEACH

in my right breast was identified.

In each doctor’s visit since, I describe

THE PAIN OF A PEACH

and they reply:

“These things are normal

for women like you.”

“I know the pain seems bad, but

you just have fibrous breasts.”

“This might just be something small

you learn to live with.”

 

Original artwork by Krystle May Statler
Title: Benign Fruit, 2021
acrylic ink, metal, glue and 15 sonograms on canvas
11 x 14 x15 inches

 

Inflammable

 

It’s been eight years since the doctors stuck

needles to test for cancerous cells in my

fibrous breasts. I should be grateful the results

list a benign diagnosis but those results

also mean carrying the peach-sized

mass as I’m told to

monitor the pain for a few months, watch if

anything changes (it worsens). Why don’t they

believe me? They say, “you could learn to

live with it; these things are normal for women like you.”

Each check-up I wonder how much longer until my peach rots.

Krystle May Statler (she/her) is a Black multiracial artist living in Los Angeles and received her MFA from Otis College of Art & Design. She’s a co-founding editor for every other, a Los Angeles-based collective that publishes literary broadsides by writers from around the world. She serves as the Book Production manager for World Stage Press. Her artwork is featured in the Black Women for Wellness (Benign Fruit, 2021) and New Black City: A World Without Police (Trigger Fingers, 2019) exhibits. Her poems and essays are featured in 1455’s Movable Type, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, Cultural Weekly or are forthcoming. Her debut book, Losing Blood, was a finalist for the 2021 CAAPP Book Prize, judged by Douglas Kearney.

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Connection

DIRECTOR'S CUT Connection: The Primary Impulse of Art Why do we tell stories? To inform, to inspire, to connect. The miracle of art is the way it enables us to express things at once inextricable from ourselves and more encompassing than the sum of an individual...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: I’m With You Performed by The Quentin Walston Trio

Quentin Walston I'm With You   “I’m With You” is uplifting, catchy, and motivating. Jazz composer and pianist Quentin Walston wrote the song for his trio as the second of four movements in his latest album, “The Good Book Suite”. Inspired by Scripture and his...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Two Poems by Denise S. Robbins

Two Poems by Denise S. Robbins Fight before a Flight   They turned the lights off in the twenty-seat airplane. The man next to me, texting vigorously, has a foot on my knee. A single light shines on the man in front of me reading about pop psychology. The foot...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: An Ode to The Men’s Cookbook Club by Rebecca Heslin Haller

Rebecca HEslin Haller An Ode to The Men’s Cookbook Club   Four years ago, on a snowy New Year’s Eve in rural Pennsylvania at the wedding of dear friends, an idea was born over vodka sodas and whiskeys on the rocks: The Men’s Cookbook Club. The concept, simple....

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Zoom Call with an Old Friend by Susan E. Wadds

Susan E. Wadds Zoom Call With an Old Friend    “The flowers are for you.”  – after Kim Addonizio   Back against the door, feet braced on the parquet,   I don’t speak what scares me, instead I say the other things—   the success of new bread, the red nubs of...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Inflammable by Krystle May Statler

Krystle MaY Statler Benign Fruit   Photographed by Rebecca Gustavson, 2021, This piece, Benign Fruit, is a testament to the difficulties Black women and men face in seeking medical treatment and the power of awareness for our collective breast health. This piece...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Conscious Connection Requires a Fitness Plan by Hayley F. Hoffman

Hayley F. Hoffman, MA, LPC Conscious Connection Requires a Fitness Plan Conscious connection is the difference between creating safety in my relational space and selecting survival. We are wired with two biological imperatives: connection and survival. Survival is the...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Seventy ‘Til Spring by Martha Schumacher

Martha Schumacher Seventy ‘Til Spring   70 more days 10 more weeks Just 10 more Mondays Then spring breaks through   I’m done with other counting and countdowns: C19 cases Midterm elections Virtual assemblies by the thousands: business meetings, family...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: La Ville Lumière By Sandy Lutton

Sandy Lutton La Ville Lumière   Anticipation fills my day Thinking of you and I alone to explore A city that encourages such adventure Excitement flowing through our veins Anticipation fuels my imagination Waiting breathlessly for the day to arrive When we walk...

Movable Type Issue No. 9: Tones and Spaces in Emily Dickinson’s “Two things I have lost with Childhood—” by Christina Seymour

Christina Seymour Tones and Spaces in Emily Dickinson’s “Two things I have lost with Childhood—”   Two things I have lost with Childhood—the rapture of losing my shoe in the Mud and going Home barefoot, wading for Cardinal flowers and the mothers reproof which was...

Pin It on Pinterest