Artist aims to create discomfort

When Terran Echegoyen McCabe told her father that she recently described herself to a reporter as a liberal, atheist, feminist, he said: “You better watch out. You might get your house bombed.”

McCabe said that sentiment sums up the problem with our society.

“Freedom of speech, thought, and being who you are is OK in the United States as long as you stay in the small box that’s laid out for you,” she said.

Creating art allows McCabe to share her thoughts and frustrations with others and, perhaps, cause change.

“My hope, when you see my work, is that you think for just a second about why I created what I created, or why it makes you uncomfortable and maybe, slowly, things will change.”

McCabe, 30, was born in Texas where her father was in the military. She spent time in England before her family settled in the Nine Mile Falls area when she was 9. At Lakeside High School, she found she had a knack for art, but she never thought of pursuing it.

After graduating from high school, McCabe joined the Air Force and spent the next four years in Japan, forecasting the weather for her fellow airmen and women. Then she and her husband traveled to Australia where she took undergraduate classes, including art. They returned to the Spokane area in late 2009 and she joined the Air National Guard.

In July 2011, she gave birth to twins and, in spring 2012, she became an online sensation when photos of her, in uniform and breastfeeding her twins, went viral. The response was not all good.

“Here I am, using my breasts with their intended purpose, and I get degraded and stomped on; people telling me that women shouldn’t be allowed in the military, that I might as well be a pedophile for nursing 9-month-olds, and even comparing it to deification or masturbating in public,” she said. “People were really angry at me for disrespecting the uniform that I wore proudly for seven years.”

Now, McCabe is a stay-at-home mother and an artist. Since her time in Australia, she has created portraits in charcoal, favoring ethnic features and faces with character, deep lines, and years of experience behind their eyes. After the heated discussions over her breasts, she began unabashedly illustrating the human body: studies of breasts including one with milk dripping out of it, the curve of a hip, a man’s naked torso with the nipples censored, and a hand flipping the bird as it covers a body’s privates.

“I don’t have to follow any rules or be kept in a bubble because society tells me I should,” said McCabe, who said she will keep drawing and painting for the rights of others, regardless of the censorship she has experienced. She has two daughters after all.