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Everybody's Beautiful: Using Art To Promote Self-Healing
By Annette Ridenour

For many women, becoming comfortable with shape and size of their bodies is not an easy thing to do. But now there's a new sculpture series called "Real Women" that hopes to help that process by using the power of art to challenge our blind adherence to rigid cultural ideas of body image.

Real Women consists of 13 small bronze sculptures and poems portraying women in diverse sizes, shapes, and cultures that span eight decades of life.

Why can't women look at their own or another woman's body and see the beauty of the life force and expression of personal character? Instead, we focus on large thighs or belly, or looseness and wrinkles associated with forbidden age, forbidden fat, or forbidden skin color.

These sculptures invite us into a personal dialogue with our own beauty and, in doing so, become powerful healing tools. Art like this promotes self-healing because it reconnects us with feelings of self-worth. I have observed women looking at these sculptures and know it to be true. Real Women is truly a touching tribute that unveils and celebrates the diverse beauty of women's bodies.

Where can you see Real Women? It will be touring the country as part of a national exhibition called "The Changing Face of Women's Health" that is sponsored by the National Health Sciences Consortium. The first stop on the tour is the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore. You can also see selected images on the Real Women website at www.realwomenproject.com.

At the exhibit opening in March, I was pleased to hear U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher praising Real Women "as the exhibit that will keep women's health on the top of the nation's agenda." Jill Eikenberry, actress and breast cancer survivor, was also there, and voiced her appreciation for the exhibit and support for the importance of recognizing the multitude of problems women internalize in their quest for body perfection.

In addition to "The Changing Face of Women's Health" exhibition, we are also offering Real Women as a traveling exhibit. For a small fee, healthcare organizations can host this exhibition for two months. Or, for those interested in having a permanent exhibition at their institution, 29 sets of the Real Women series are also available for purchase.

I'm happy to report that with the help of the San Diego telecommunications giant QUALCOMM, Inc., a permanent exhibition of the series will be installed in the new Scripps Women's Center in La Jolla, California.

All in all, it has been truly heartwarming to see the interest the collection has generated so far. It is just another example of the healing power of art.

Annette Ridenour is president emeritus of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare and president of Aesthetics, a San Diego, California, design group that is representing the Real Women collection nationwide. She can be reached at info@aesthetics.net.