In a world filled with domestic violence, cancers, and immense self-doubt, there came a girl who started a campaign with dreams to bring confidence back to today's society.
Gina Bologna, a former Saginaw Valley cardinal, started #YourBodyYourCanvas in an attempt to change people's self image. Gina created her own website (http://www.sondography.com/) in hopes to getting her campaign out as well as having a gallery for the other photographs she takes. "It gives individuals who battle with vast insecurities to see themselves in a different skin."
Gina isn’t just someone who paints people’s bodies or a regular college student. While she loves her cat and enjoys most of her time at coffee shops, she is making a difference with every life she comes into contact with. She started this campaign for body positivity and she was given the chance to do this all over the country. While being an SVSU Cardinal, Gina was offered an amazing job in Manhattan where she fortunately got to paint people full time. She has painted a variety of different and beautiful individuals such as sexually abused victims, cancer patients, and people who are battling poverty. This campaign gives individuals a big first step to loving others and loving themselves which is extremely important in today’s society. “With everything going on in the world, I feel the need to bring beauty into the equation,” Gina said. She told me that the main reason why she does this is because she feels as though everyone is art and worthy of love that they don’t think they have or deserve.
From a Canvas' perspective:
Being from the outside of things, I didn't realize what the reasoning for this campaign was or why it meant so much to Gina to fulfill over this past year. Working with her really opened my eyes to the fact that you never really know what is going on outside of your own world. I wore a sports bra and shorts in front of a handful of other SVSU students with the thought of "are they judging my body?" or "do I look fat right now?" While Gina started to paint my body, I stopped wondering if people were staring at my legs or my stomach-- I started to notice how smooth the paint was on my skin, how the different colors looked amazing mixed together across my body. I started to look at my body and develop a different kind of love for myself. I didn't want to take the paint off; why would I want to when I felt so beautiful? During the process of taking the cracked paint off in the shower, I washed my body with more love and gentleness than I have before. This is when I realized that the love I have for myself grew just from one half-hour session with Gina. How could I thank her enough for putting such positivity into my soul? I will never be able to, but I am forever thankful for meeting someone with such passion for what they do.
While I was getting painted all that was running through my mind was the song “Scars to Your Beautiful” by Alessia Cara. Alessia Cara’s song is basically based around the idea that you and your body are more than your scars, whether the scars are mental or physical. In my shoes, I have scars on my body and in my mind. Our society is all wrapped around the fact that there is something wrong with us. Our eyes, our body, our personality, our life; anything. We all find something about ourselves that we personally don’t enjoy. I, myself, have many flaws and many things that I would like to change about myself until I met Gina— until she told me how flawless my face was as she put paint on it, until she painted the stomach that I thought was too big, until she painted over the burn scars on my wrists that only I notice, until she looked at me and made me feel as though I was more than just a person, but a canvas. A canvas that so deserves to be loved more than the owner has been willing to give. Every single person gets something out of this experience whether it be just doing it for the experience or truly finding yourself the way that I did. I am a confident individual but it has taken me the past 10 years to get where I am now with my self-confidence. Sometimes, I fall off the path of loving myself and who I am but it is things like what Gina is doing that puts me back on my right mindset.
Loving yourself and having a positive, healthy mindset takes time; it is a journey and a rough one at that but it is worth it.
Your body is your canvas, a beautiful and unique canvas. You get to decide what you do with it, make it yours.
