Working to confine cancer

Challenged to make art out of underwear, Paul Palcko had to ponder.

"The hardest part was figuring out how to work on it, because, essentially, it's sculpture," said the editorial illustrator, 32, who chose oil paint and stuffed the corset with a blanket.

The result, gorgeously rendered in blue, red and gold leaf, with an angel's face gazing skyward, is called "Support" - and aptly named as part of the unique collaboration of area artists, lingerie designers, the burlesque troupe Bawdy Girls, and avant-gardistes who will gather tonight in Northern Liberties to begin a monthlong online auction of 18 fanciful "corsets for a cure," with proceeds going to Philadelphia's Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation.

A raffle, with tickets sold at the door of the former Schmidt's Brewery on North Second Street, and prizes donated by area merchants will benefit Andrea Collins Smith of Fishtown, whose blog about her battle with cancer is widely read.

Bidding for the corsets will kick off at the benefit reception, featuring the sounds of DJ Glitz, and the auction remains online throughout February, with winners notified at the end of the month. Based on prices set by the individual artists, opening bids range from $175 to $700.

Amy McConnell, co-owner of Delicious Corsets, the event organizer, which donated 18 white corsets as blank canvases for the artists' work, said she was inspired by the courage of her friend Smith, 38, a mother of six, who was diagnosed in May with end-stage inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and virulent form of the disease.

Fighting back with chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Smith, an inveterate rocker whose tattoos and piercings are too numerous to count, also began an online diary at www.punkrockmommy.org. Intended as an open letter to keep friends and family up to date, the insightful journal has drawn a following that goes well beyond Smith's immediate circle.

Fran Orodeckis, director of development for the Linda Creed Foundation, which is named for the songwriter who in the 1970s helped pioneer the Philadelphia Sound (and who died of cancer at 37), said outside fund-raising is enormously helpful to the organization, which operates on a budget of $350,000 a year.

In addition to educational programs about breast health, the foundation provides 300 free mammograms annually for women who lack medical insurance.

Of the vixens-not-victims sensibility behind "corsets for a cure," Orodeckis said: "Breast cancer is a terrible disease and we are hoping for a cure, but in the meantime you can't just stand in a corner and cry your eyes out. Life has to go on. If you can relieve the tension with a little bit of playfulness, that's a good thing."

With music and performances by the campy Bawdy Girls, playfulness seems assured, McConnell said.

Eight of the 18 corsets in the auction have been on display in the front window of the Art Institute of Philadelphia in the 1600 block of Chestnut Street.

Mounted on chest-high forms, the display includes works titled I Dreamed I Was Frida Kahlo in My Delicious Corset by Karen Karuza, a tribute - with a Maidenform-ad echo - to the Mexican artist, and Let's Put Philly On the Map, by the illustrator Michele Melcher.

"I thought that since Andrea . . . the folks at Delicious" and the Creed Foundation "are all Philadelphia-based, I would do my corset based on our city . . . with a punk-rock thrust," Melcher explained in the work's caption.

The maize-and-beige-tinted garment features a 19th-century map of Center City from river to river with a Dadaist dragon bobbing oddly in the Delaware.

The "Corsets for a Cure" reception, cosponsored by P.I.N.K. Vodka, Triumph Brewing Co. and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, will take place tonight at the offices of Tower Investments, 969 N. Second St., from 7 to 10 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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Go to http://go.philly.com/corsets for more information. The link to the auction will be activated at 7 p.m.EndText