Cupertino resident Scherrer, mother of three, runs a small photography business specializing in artistic black-and-white portraits of pregnant women and newborns.

Lawnsby, a San Jose mother of two young boys, typically favors painting garden scenes and flowers using pastels and watercolors.

But with their traveling exhibit Got Breast Milk, the two are heading into potentially controversial territory. However, recent attention from the Santa Clara County Health Department shows that the trip is well worth it.

The exhibit, which presents photographs and paintings of nursing mothers, explores common conceptions about breast-feeding—among them, where it's appropriate to nurse and how long children should breast-feed before weaning. The artists say one of their main goals is not only to unseat long-held biases but to normalize images of breast-feeding so women can feel more at ease nursing their children in public.

"The American culture has such poor breast-feeding rates. Seventy-four percent of new mothers intend to breast-feed, but after nine weeks, only 17 percent are still doing it," Scherrer says. "The thing that really fires me up is that it's a common thing for women to get harassed if they're breast-feeding. Americans can't seem to put breasts in their proper context."

Scherrer's business concentrates on photography, and she is staging an exhibit of home-birth pictures on April 10 at Louden Community Center in Santa Cruz. But she is also a student midwife and a doula—a woman who assists another woman during labor and provides support to her, the infant and the family after childbirth. After photographing Lawnsby nursing her younger son, she came on board with the project.

Lawnsby developed the idea for the exhibit after the birth of her first son four years ago, when she discovered that nursing her child in public tended to create a socially awkward situation.

"People were embarrassed and they would look away—you know, just visibly uncomfortable, and you can feel the tension is in the air," she says. "I felt very defensive and on the spot, because my baby's crying and the only way he's going to stop is if I feed him. I'm not going to go to the bathroom to feed him, where it's dirty. And it kind of offended me that people would think it was inappropriate for me to feed my baby wherever I was."

Discussing the issue with other mothers, Lawnsby learned that she wasn't alone in her experience—and decided she wanted to make a statement. Having Scherrer photograph her was the first step, and she was hoping to use the image as a basis for a self-portrait to include in the exhibit.

It was surprisingly easy to recruit models from among their friends, both say, and the women's stories came to serve as an inspiration. One mother was advised not to nurse after breast-reduction surgery but succeeded anyway, and another used a surrogate mother but felt so strongly about breast-feeding that she took hormones so that she could nurse her child. "The stories showed a commitment to get past the obstacles," says Scherrer.

Balancing Scherrer's edgy black-and-white photographs with Lawnsby's flowing pastel images, the two opened their show at a San Francisco gallery last year. The exhibit at the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center in December was the second stop for the show; eventually the two hope to take it national.

The show has already hit a nerve with one curator, who refused to exhibit a photograph that showed an older baby nursing without a shirt on. Scherrer recalls a group of men walking by the images displayed in the storefront at the art center. "They were pointing and laughing, but I was pointing and laughing at them," she says.

Scherrer says these attitudes have discouraged American women from breast-feeding their children out of shame, to the detriment of the babies, who are taking formula instead. "It shouldn't be an alternative," she says, pointing to a study that showed that breast-fed children have $1,500 less in health-care claims over the course of their childhood. "Breast-fed babies are less obese, have less diabetes and less allergies."

Publicity over the Santa Cruz Mountain Art Center exhibit brought Scherrer and Lawnsby's efforts to the attention of Kathy Sweeney with the Santa Clara Valley Breastfeeding Task Force, who has recruited the duo to present at a task force meeting on March 19. "One of the public health nurses brought them to my attention, and I thought the task force would be interested in seeing their artwork," she says.

Sweeney hopes to glean some tips on heightening breast-feeding awareness and possibly plan some events for August, which is Breastfeeding Awareness Month in California as well as the month for an international breast-feeding week. "I'd like to have our own art exhibit, and I'd also love to have a postage stamp, so I'm always looking for great artwork," she says.

The campaign to promote breast-feeding has simultaneously weathered hits and made significant gains over the past few years. California now requires employers to provide private space for employees to express breast milk. However, national breast-feeding campaigns have been derailed by formula companies in addition to testing the conservative sensibilities of the American public.

But both Lawnsby and Scherrer say if controversy is what it takes to get people thinking about the issue, they're more than willing to take the chance. "If controversy happens, I'd be happy," Scherrer says. "It'd spotlight the issue even more."

The meeting of the Santa Clara Valley Breastfeeding Task Force is March 19 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Valley Health Center at East Valley, which is located at 1993 McKee Road in San Jose. The event is open to the public. For more information on Christy Scherrer's photography, visit www.bellymotherbaby.com.