Shawn Mulligan gently touches the edges of her powerful artwork, a simple cape worn during breast cancer screening that tells her personal story of courage and hope. This Arizona mother and nurse turned a devastating diagnosis of breast cancer more than a dozen years ago into an opportunity to live her life with a higher sense of purpose and well-being.
“Discovering the hero within oneself is an indescribable feeling of empowerment,” she says.
Shawn is one of several breast cancer survivors whose inspirational art was on display in the “Superheroes, Capes of Strength and Beauty” art installation at the Ventana Gallery on the Roche Diagnostics campus in Tucson, Arizona. Roche develops and provides cancer diagnostic systems to the global pathology market.
Using a cotton mammography cape as canvas, Shawn and other artists from across the United States created intensely personal and moving art that raises awareness as to the importance of early breast cancer screening and detection. Proceeds from the sale of the donated art provided mammogram screenings to Southern Arizonans who cannot afford them.