For my practicum I co-facilitated a multi-generational group of women, with classmate Chelsea O'Neil, who strove to empower themselves against the debilitating effects of mass media advertising. This unique peer-based initiative was unique in its use of art to increase positive body image, self- awareness, self-confidence, and relational bonds. Every week about seventeen women met in a community based studio setting to engage in arts-based directives, thoughtful discussion, and deconstruction of truths espoused by the media.
While I knew that looking at magazines often left me feeling badly about myself, it wasn’t until I began co-facilitating this group that I realized I carried a degree of responsibility for allowing media content to decrease my self-esteem. Through leading this group I gained a more expansive awareness, which served to lessen the media’s impact on on my self-sense. I began to notice the subtle tricks used by advertisers to manipulate my self-doubt. I found myself browsing through magazines in check-out lines having “Aha!” moments. I wanted to tell the woman in line next to me why women are held to an impossible ideal of beauty – but of course, it makes us want to buy everything! The time to share these “Aha!” moments was in the studio.
We laughed, cried, got angry, made art, sang, danced, posed, and made fools of ourselves. Slowly we began to reclaim the tools that would strengthen us, the very tools that the media went to great lengths to obscure – our connections to one another and more importantly, our connections to ourselves.
- Taylor Siemon, Class of 2011
To learn more about the artwork created at this practicum site and
the experiences shared in the Naropa Community Art Studio, visit:
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