TWO SURVIVORS JOIN FORCES TO HELP OTHERS

Pier Fitts was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2006.  She had just lived through the deaths of her brother and sister-in-law due to suicide and her world was about to be rocked even more.  She found the much needed support in the Art community that she represented.  She founded the organization, Artbreakers, in the most hellish of times of her chemo. “I was completely compelled to give back to the community that I live in. To honor my dear friends and artists that I worked with, to honor the health care givers that guided me through this hell, the chemo nurses that I screamed and laughed with in the face of death”, states Pier. Today the organization is growing, poised to jump start a wonderful mixture of art and medicine that will benefit our hospital, and our community of artists. 

Gaye Jones, who was diagnosed in March of 2004, met Pier at a network luncheon.  Fitts approached her about posing for a body print for the Holborn Art Gallery’s series of Artwork featuring cancer survivors.  Although she was wary at first of someone besides her husband seeing her nude, especially after her mastectomy, she agreed.  In retrospect, she calls the experience the “most liberating, incredible thing I’ve ever done”.  Jones was also looking for a way to give back and had the idea of designing and selling “pink ribbon” fans and donating the money to charity.  The women, together with Hugh Holborn, designed the beautiful pink ribbon fans using Gaye’s body print in the design and they sell the fans with profits funding Artbreakers.

Founder Pier Fitts and President of Art Breakers Gaye Jones in a photo published in Folio Magazine.  Folio, the Saint Augustine Record and other First Coast news sources have been very helpful in sharing the story and goals of Art Breakers!

Art Breakers supports the needs of local cancer patients by raising money in many ways including the sale of the Pink Ribbon Fan.... 

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