
DATE: Tuesday, October 28, 1997             TAG: 9710280037

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson

                                            LENGTH:   87 lines

TRANSFORMING TRAGEDY INTO BEAUTY PHOTOGRAPHS DOCUMENT FRIEND'S BATTLE WITH CANCER AND HER ULTIMATE TRIUMPH

WHILE THE woman is the same, the differences in the images of her are striking:

The ugly bruises versus the smooth contours of her bald head.

The stark radiation marks across her breast against the swing of a pink scarf on her shoulders.

The cold, black outline of a woman enclosed in a CAT scan machine, versus the hopefulness of the same woman dressed in red, looking skyward.

The photographs not only trace a sweep from tragedy to art but also the journey of two women. One facing breast cancer, the other struggling to handle the possibility that a close friend might soon die.

Martha McClelland and Elizabeth Agresta.

The idea that propelled them into a two-year photographic project began like many things women do: Over dinner. In October 1994.

McClelland had been diagnosed seven months earlier with breast cancer. And while she was doing everything she could to beat it back, there were signs it might not retreat. For the first time, she was thinking she might not make it.

And so she decided, whether she made it or not, to ask her friend to document her battle.

Agresta, on the other hand, was doing her best to keep the proper distance. She had just lost a friend to pneumonia and was struggling with the idea of losing another. How could she help without getting too close?

Photographing the ravages of cancer was just about the last thing she wanted to do.

But because it was her friend, and because she thought it might help her friend, Agresta took a deep breath and took out her camera - not realizing at the time that the gesture would, eventually, help herself as well.

That night, after a late dinner, Agresta spent several hours photographing McClelland. First, there were the bruises on her breasts, the catheter used to pump in chemotherapy drugs. The ugliness.

Then she told McClelland to take off the turban she wore. To turn around. To put a pink scarf around her shoulders. And to dance.

And in a second, McClelland was transformed from a tragic figure to a beautiful one.

Agresta showed McClelland a Polaroid photo she had taken to test the light.

``Martha saw that she was beautiful, that she was not her damaged body. She was more than that,'' Agresta later wrote in a journal. ``Without really knowing it, our project began.''

And so began a journey, through hospital hallways and CAT scans, through biopsies and chemo sessions, through blood infections and radiation treatments. And even though McClelland was often sick from steroids and chemotherapy, the project gave her something she'd been lacking: energy.

And a reason to keep fighting.

And by the time the two friends came out the other end, with McClelland's recovery in the summer of 1996, they were both different people.

One had overcome cancer, the other fear.

Together they had taken tragedy and turned it into art, transformed loss into opportunity. Replaced anxiety with creativity.

The two have now taken those photographs, joined them with poetry penned by McClelland, and interspersed them with music by another friend, Susan Thomas.

The show, called ``In the Spirit of Healing'' has been presented to caregivers, cancer patients, medical professionals and many others in the hopes of showing them how to transform their own despair - regarding whatever kind of pain - into a thing of beauty.

They emphasize that the show, which includes only one photograph of McClelland with hair, is not so much about being cured as it is about healing, which can be done, even in death.

``I tell people, you can turn anything around,'' McClelland said. ``It's a choice. In the midst of pain and suffering is love. And love is stronger than death.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

1996 ELIZABETH AGRESTA

Martha McClelland...

1996 ELIZABETH AGRESTA

McClelland...

WANT TO GO?

What: A performance of ``In the Spirit of Healing''

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, 2200 Parks Ave.,

Virginia Beach

Cost: The performance is free and open to the public. Call

425-0000 for reservations.

After the performance, audience members will be invited to