The Cotton Candymachine Studio Sale & Fundraiser for Tara McPherson

New York-based @thecottoncandymachine are currently running a Studio Sale and Fundrais(er) for @taramcpherson‘s surgery (Do read below Facebook-post embed) on thecottoncandymachine.com - featuring a variety of imagery - including the above featured 'Electric Lola' Artist Proofs for the first time ever (which alas is since listed as Sold Out), but there are much more to be had!

"She made her original debut in Brazil as the record cover for the singer Lola, and the original oil painting was exhibited in Italy at Dorothy Circus Gallery. She was also featured as a Print On Wood, and this summer as Tara's very first spray paint mural at 1xRun's 'Murals in the Market' in Detroit. (Visit the mural at Adelaide and Orleans in Eastern Market in Detroit!)"

Please note that they are currently only shipping domestic within the US at the moment due to major international shipping closures and parcel delays. If you’d like to place an intl. order to support, and be shipped at a later date when things open up more, please email Erica (orders@thecottoncandymachine.com) to discuss a plan.

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Hi everyone, I want to share this MRI of my neck and what’s been going on… In exactly one week I’m going in to have major spinal surgery to fix my neck. It’s like with many health issues, one day everything’s fine, and then you get this shocking news from the dr and your whole world gets turned upside down. I found out earlier this year that not only do I need surgery, but that my entire neck needs to be fused, from my skull down to my upper back to fix the instability. The heartbreaking part is I will never be able to move my neck again. ✨ Why? A perfect storm of issues… I was born with a Chiari Malformation, which is where the lower portion of the brain descends too far down into the spinal canal, and it started to cut off the flow of spinal fluid. It also caused scoliosis, and a very long cyst inside my spinal cord called Syringomyelia. I can literally say that my brain is SO big it didn’t even fit inside my skull!! 😂 I had emergency surgery when I was 14, and that created plenty of room for things to flow. But we didn’t know then that I had signs of instability and a connective tissue disorder. Immediately after that surgery my vertebrae started to slowly collapse, and began to pinch my nerve roots, and is now very close to compressing my spinal cord. No bueno!! ✨ On the bright side, I found out had they known about the instability back then, they would have done a small fusion during the Chiari surgery, and I would have lived my entire life thus far with very little neck movement. So I guess that’s better to have to fuse it all at 44 instead of some at 14. I sure had a LOT of fun dancing and playing and whipping my hair back and forth! ✨ So, I will be out of commission for a while this year, but ideally and hopefully, I’ll be back stronger and sturdier than ever before!!! Maaaybe slightly more Bride of Frankenstein-ish, so I hope you understand. I’ll keep you guys posted, and will keep sharing my art with the world while I heal. Thank you so much for your love and positive energy. ✨ #chiari #chiarimalformation #chiariwarrior #syringomyelia #scoliosis #cervicalinstability #klippelfeilsyndrome #cervicalkyphosis #hypermobility #stenosis #stupidspine

A post shared by Tara McPherson (@taramcpherson) on Jun 22, 2020 at 4:21pm PDT

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I want to first thank everyone for their amazing and loving comments on my last post. Oh my goodness you guys, I love you, thank you so much. It's supremely uplifting to read all of the positive notes, even if I am sporadicly tearing up in between, they are tears of joy! I swear! ✨ Sean has been printing at night, and Erica is back in the studio in the day, with proper distancing and safety measures, so it's feeling a little bit more back to normal which is so nice, even if we do have to FaceTime each other from different rooms! ✨ As some of you may have read, next Monday I will be undergoing some pretty major spinal surgery... a fusion from my Skull down to T2, with two consecutive operations, first from the front of my neck, and then the back, an all day surgery with a team of 4 neurosurgeons. Even though it's very heavy and personal, I realized it's important for me to share what I'm going through, not only for community support, but also so I can hopefully be a voice for anyone in need in the future. While I was researching my health issues and specifically this full neck fusion, I found so little information on it, and so few people have shared their journey. Fortunately I found a few extremely brave women who’ve openly shared their struggles and advice, and for that I am so grateful. They don’t know me, but they’ve helped me so much. ✨ So, before I begin the long journey of recovery, I want to do a big studio sale and put up a variety of prints to help raise funds for the hospital bills and recovery while I am out of work. If there has ever been a print you had your eye on, or wanted to get a sweet gift for someone, please take a look! We are doing free shipping too! This 1st pic is from tonight, signing prints, VERY carefully don’t worry 😉, the other pics from way back when... I could move my neck 🤖 Thank you, thank you, thank you. ✨ Please note that we are only shipping domestic within the US at the moment due to major international shipping closures and parcel delays. If you’d like to place an intl. order to support, and be shipped at a later date when things open up more, please email Erica to discuss a plan, contact in my bio. THANK YOU SO MUCH ✨

A post shared by Tara McPherson (@taramcpherson) on Jun 24, 2020 at 9:13pm PDT