Zippy Lomax

Zippy Lomax Photographer/Videographer specializing in Brand Cohesion, Event Coverage, Portraiture & Macro

it must be said; CATC may well be saving my life. 🙏🏼coloring mandalas i originally drew in b&w is perhaps the best medic...
03/16/2026

it must be said; CATC may well be saving my life. 🙏🏼

coloring mandalas i originally drew in b&w is perhaps the best medicine for me while housed here. 6 weeks so far — so many sleeps; so many medicinal mandalas.💜

life 🫒

my lil' sister is in need of urgent support; she and her boys are facing eviction, unless they can pay their past due (a...
07/03/2024

my lil' sister is in need of urgent support; she and her boys are facing eviction, unless they can pay their past due (and current) rent by Friday, July 5th.

Rachel works harder than most people I know and still struggles to keep up. Between April and October last year, she took just 4 days off. Then she caught covid – her whole family got sick – and she fell behind on rent and bills.

I know there are families facing far worse right now, and our feeds are full of gofundmes to save them. It seems likewise out-of-place to add yet another fundraiser to the mix, but this is also a valid ask; for those below the poverty line here in the US, it's incredibly hard to keep up with the soaring cost-of-living.

While this feels like woefully too little, I'm doing all I can to ensure my sister and nephews remain housed.

Please donate if you can – every dollar counts! And share if you feel comfortable doing so. Thank you!

While it feels so wrong and tone-deaf to post about this now, I really don’t have much choice. I’d been waiting for a le...
03/18/2024

While it feels so wrong and tone-deaf to post about this now, I really don’t have much choice.

I’d been waiting for a less horrendous moment, but weeks have turned to months, and my financial circumstances have become dire.

The stark truth is that I don’t know how I’ll pay rent next month, much less cover bills. Though my GoFundMe never reached its goal, I still managed to stretch those funds over 13 months.

As I’m not yet able to productively work, I have to find other means of surviving. Turns out being alive is damn expensive.

So, it’s time; I’ve been sitting on this inventory for years, not having the bandwidth to manage whilst navigating cancer and its aftermath.

Having poured so much love (and money) into the creation of these designs, it’s been a source of great sadness, knowing these threads have yet to find the bodies meant to wear them.

Perhaps you’re one of ‘em, ready for a cozy new jacket or sexy lil’ onesie. Just in time for the Eclipse Festival. 😏

*link in comments

today’s better than yesterday — and it looks like the forecast has improved moving forward — but it’s still very cold an...
01/14/2024

today’s better than yesterday — and it looks like the forecast has improved moving forward — but it’s still very cold and will be through tomorrow.

pass it on:
More warming shelters were opened on Friday night: here’s where people can go without a referral. Pets welcome. Free rides available by calling 211.

- Salvation Army: 5325 N. Williams Ave. Portland
- Cook Plaza: 19421 S.E. Stark St., Gresham
- Friendly House: 1737 N.W. 26th Ave., Portland
- Ascension Catholic Church: 743 S.E. 76th Ave., Portland
- Powell Shelter, 7332 S.E. Powell Blvd., Portland
- Market Street Shelter, 120 S.E. Market St., Portland

01/26/2022

Tryin’ on new bras — feelin’ pretty effin’ cute, despite my disheveled hair and puffy eyes.

This was the first moment of playful acceptance; the soft embrace of a new, curvier self — buoyed by the supple swell of glorious cleavage!

Precisely what I asked for. 💕

Before my mastectomy, I had some good laughs with my rockstar surgical oncologist, Nathalie (Dr. Johnson), about getting ‘upgrades’, giggling at the thought of ‘ordering up some decent cleavage.’

Enter my incredibly skilled plastic surgeon, Shannon (Dr. O’Brien), who regularly works alongside Nathalie in the O.R. Apparently they’re like long lost sisters!

I honestly feel like I won the lottery, somehow landing in their loving, capable hands. I could not have received better, more attentive care. Annnnd — I kind of adore them both.💜

I may have lost my natural breasts, but — Nathalie ensured I got to keep my own skin and ni***es — and Shannon has built me some damn fine replacements.🤩

I’m still getting used to it; the novel treat of two big(ish) C’s, in place of a threat from one. 👀

I don’t know their names yet. I call them ‘BoobSacks’🤣 — My New Girls — The Twins — P***y & Frida.

Perhaps I should call them S & N, for the badass women who gave me them. 💕⭐️
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01/22/2022

It’s been a melancholy sort of day; this strange anniversary.

I’m grateful to be alive & cancer-free, AND…I’m also grieving the loss of who I was — before everything changed on this day last year.

This clip was taken from the FB livestream in which I shared my breast cancer diagnosis. I wasn’t prepared for how hard that would be.

As I remember those surreal first few days of grappling to make sense of the words ‘Breast Cancer’, it feels prudent to share this tender moment.

I’m a bit late in sharing — I’ve been preoccupied with surgery prep, then recovery — but here’s our annual collection of...
12/17/2021

I’m a bit late in sharing — I’ve been preoccupied with surgery prep, then recovery — but here’s our annual collection of ‘Hat Portraits’!

After the year I’ve had, I’m sincerely grateful to have spent a few days with beloved family, especially after missing everyone last year. 💕

I do so love this enduringly sweet tradition of ours! 🍂

Seeing these images for the first time inspired such uneasiness that I considered the session a total failure, producing...
10/13/2021

Seeing these images for the first time inspired such uneasiness that I considered the session a total failure, producing zero ‘acceptable’ images.

Rather than subject myself to further unjustly critical self-examination, I asked friends to help memorialize my breasts the night before undergoing a bilateral mastectomy. (Yes; I’ll share a few of those later.)

Only recently did I dare revisit this series, and found I could appreciate its raw poignancy. Through a slightly more compassionate lens, I see a pensive tenderness in my unsettled expressions. A sort of delicate, transparent, unmasked beauty.

While it is difficult to square the glaring differences between the young girl I imagined I was with the middle-aged woman I now perceive, I suppose this is true for anyone who’s ever aged in a human body.

Perhaps it’s only my ability to recognize time’s inevitable influence that has increased. Or, Chemo really did age me about a decade or so.

Either way, I’m slowly learning how to lean into the discomfort — resisting the temptation to retouch bits I find ‘unsightly’; to ‘fix’ or soften or erase the ‘old’.

This is me, at my most naked and vulnerable — fully exposed — in all the ways that truly matter.

I’m choosing courage over cowardice — allowing all to view these intimate glimpses — trusting you’ll see what I’m only just beginning to; immeasurable strength, hard-won wisdom & unshakable grace. 🙏🏼

This series of self-portraits — taken in the few days leading up to my mastectomy — convey much of the discomfort I was ...
10/12/2021

This series of self-portraits — taken in the few days leading up to my mastectomy — convey much of the discomfort I was feeling then.

I can see the inner conflict between the part of me that so wanted to honor ‘the breasts that were’; as they naturally developed — before they were forever changed — and the part that recoiled at the thought of being so seen, *even if only by me.*

The 8 rounds of chemo wreaked havoc — like nuclear bombs — leveling everything, forever changing my physical and emotional landscapes.

After 4 infusions of Taxotere & Cytoxan, administered in 21 day cycles, I was switched to a more aggressive treatment; the strongest chemo ever created (Adriamycin) and more Cytoxan for an additional 4 rounds, given every two weeks.

Whatever systems had slowly begun their delicate recovery towards the end of TC, buckled when the AC hit them.

No part was spared — from brain to skin to heart to nails to hair — so complete was my annihilation.

I felt….and still do…undeniably awkward. Like I’m bumbling around in an ill-fitting suit; a borrowed garment belonging to someone older. Someone heavier set, with softer edges and darker spots.

She doesn’t feel like…me. Not really.

I feel…unfamiliar — both in and out.

Still fumbling my way through the wasteland — picking my way through the fall out — discovering that which remains as I slowly come to know this new shape.

While I’m not sure such specificity matters at this point, I feel inclined to share a few details.At first, all I could ...
10/12/2021

While I’m not sure such specificity matters at this point, I feel inclined to share a few details.

At first, all I could think about were these new terms — an entirely new language — carrying heavy, life-changing meaning.

• Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, Grade 3
• Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, High Nuclear Grade
• Hormone Receptor Positive
• HER2 Negative
• Ki-67 (Growth Rate) 70%

I learned all I could about my diagnosis, shedding quiet tears as I realized how aggressive it appeared to be. Yet, somehow, such intellectual understanding comforted me, making the physical experience easier to endure.

It’s been through a lot, this miraculous body. Cancer is simply its most recent adventure, but one that has changed more of me than anything that came before.

I’m alive, and grateful for being so. But the cost of that truth has been undeniably high. Though I’ve maintained a decidedly level-head about everything, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit how uncomfortable I am in this present iteration of ‘self’.


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PO Box 11175
Portland, OR
97211

Website

http://vimeo.com/zipporah, http://instagram.com/zippylomax, https://TikTok.com/zippylomax

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