Scar Art
Enter the Scarred for Life GalleryEvery so often a life can be changed by meeting one person. For me that person unexpectedly arrived at one of my art openings in 1998. It was a very Los Angeles affair. I was in a light weight conversation with celeb guest Henry (The Fonz) Winkler and Candis Bergan when she rolled into the gallery, A beautiful woman who's grace only seemed enhanced by her wheelchair. She wore a stunning black dress with a low back. I couldn’t help but notice the long scar that graced her back.

I had never thought much of my own scars. I had focused my thought and my art more on the damage done internally to my bones, but in her case I became focused on the scar. How rods had be inserted and removed. how each operation on her back left additional marking. How the scar made visible the exact place her spine had been damaged. Her scars were not just a marker of her ability but rather a road map of what made her life unique. It wasn’t just a scar. It was her scar. Something that no one else had. No only did it make her physically unique but emotionally. It occurred to me that if I currently had nothing to say about my medical condition maybe I should make a statement about how I viewed other people’s lives and condition.

Scars mark a turning point in peoples’ lives; sometimes for good but often otherwise. Each scar comes with a story. Why is it there? Would the person have died without surgery? How did the “scaring event” effect them emotionally? Scars can mark entering into or out of a disability. Going from cancer to health, limited mobility to full movement. They freeze a moment in time, a car accident or gun shot.

Scarred for Life Catalogue PDFThese mono-prints, taken directly off the skin of my model - subjects are portraits of those events that changed their lives. I accentuate the details of the scar with gouache and color pencil.

My hope is to turn these lasting monuments, often thought of as unsightly,
into things of beauty.

-Ted Meyer