Stardust - Survivor Melanie Joy SinghWe hate learning about great projects at the expense of women who have suffered enough in life, won their battle with the big-C cancer, only to take on a new deadly opponent. This was the exact sequence of events that brought us to the Facebook page of the Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project over the weekend.

For the cancer survivors who are part of The Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Profect: A Fine Art & Photography Essay of Survivors, their artistic journey is a self-affirmation dream come true.

For the citizen censors who are trying to take down these empowering BCABPP images of the women on Facebook and Flickr, the women’s artist reflections are … what? Threatening? Corrupting of the moral fabric of the country? Pornographic?

“Yes”, say the members of America’s morality police! These women represent Corruptresses! After beating their cancer and rediscovering their own beauty, the women and the entire BCABPP creative team are now facing a new opponent: America’s censors.

Meet Melanie Joy Singh (above), who tells her story of being a breast cancer survivor, after losing her breast at age 35. Today Melanie is also a ‘Painted Survivor’, proud of her artistic rendering “Stardust” by photographer Michael Colanero and artists Keegan Hitchcock, who has painted 21 of the 25 painted so far, and Luci Ungerbuehler, a new member of the creative team.

Breast cancer survivors from all around America have been driving and flying into Fort Lauderdale to participate in BCABPP, often a self-described emotional, psychological and transcendental journey to self love.

Proudly posting their images on the group’s BCABPP Facebook page, these empowered women and fantastic artists Colanero, Hitchcock came to our attention via the Daily Mail UK, who reported that BCABPP had run into the Facebook censors and strict rules about nudity.

FB rules are: “You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” Note that typically, someone must complain about the images to FB and that typically is one of the many social conservatives who spend their time trolling the Internet, reporting infractions.

‘African Sun’ (l) and ‘Tribute’ - Survivor: Dawn Verpaele

Mr Colanero was furious because the creative team has deliberately made the images child-safe. “I want them to be in oncology clinics and children’s hospitals. I’ve gone out of my way to make them non-sexual,” says the artist and photographer.