[BerkshireGrl]

I just came across an amazing art project tonight called "The Century Project". It is, in its own words:

Century is a chronological series of nude photographic portraits of women from the moment of birth through one hundred years of age.

While the biological continuum is an important part of the project and provides a vital framework for other issues, this is much more than a mere developmental chronicle.

Many of the photographs, for example, are accompanied by personal statements written by the participants themselves. These are often highly personal and intensely moving. The combination of words and pictures has proven to be very powerful based on all public and media responses to exhibitions and publications to date.

The subjects portrayed are, quite simply, real-life people. They are not stars or models. They span all ages, body types, and have a rich variety of experiences to draw upon and to share. CENTURY is about real women in real bodies, not the caricatures in the worlds of media and advertising.

It's on the web. Check it out. I think you will find it as amazing and powerful as I did.

[ellis]

Oh, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing that site... I'm still looking at the photos. They are so beautiful... the tears are running down my face...
How like you to find something so moving...

[cagirlygirl]

Sarah,

Wow! That was amazing. Thanks so much for sharing.

cheers!
paula

[badassgrl]

Very interisting!

[BerkshireGrl]

Originally Posted by ellis

Oh, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing that site... I'm still looking at the photos. They are so beautiful... the tears are running down my face...
How like you to find something so moving...

Ellis, you are quite welcome! :

I have been doing a lot of reading over the past week in body-positive sites and books, and I am trying something new for me. It sounds like sacrilege but I have stopped dieting... and I've found that I have stopped bingeing and purging. This is a big deal for me because I have been On or Off a diet since 1999... and have been making attempts to lose weight in less formal ways since 1989 when I had a boyfriend who told me I "could" have an awesome body if I just lost 20 pounds. At 38-26-40, I was doing ok I thought!

I have lost hundreds of pounds over the years, yet found myself gaining them back plus a few more afterwards. What the heck? Obviously something was not working in this process for me!

Now I haven't been at it long enough to say I'm cured or anything, but it's an interesting effect so far!

I think, for me, I have a very black or white view of losing weight. Severe perfection in restriction or all-out pigging out... pig-outs followed by the "fix" of purging.

The Century Project blew me away with the depth of feeling it stirred up in me. Seeing the spectrum of women, in all their naked glory, from tiny girls pushing their way out into the world at age zero, to a 94 year old spunky and sassy nudist, and all the joy and pain in between... WOW...

Getting healthy is a respectable goal, or even just getting thin for vanity's sake, nothing wrong with that... but for me, I found it so comforting to see the non-perfection of all these maidens/mothers/crones, in that age-old Trinity of women We are so very hard on ourselves sometimes, and put so much of our energy and minds on adhering to the structure of diet and exercise that we can get bottomed out.

Here is something that shines a gentle but searching light in on our psyches... I loved it and the work Frank Cordelle is doing is strong and spiritual and everyone should see it, imho.