Tuesday, October 21, 2008

WOMEN'S HERITAGE MONTAGE SERIES




Medicine Woman. Etching image size 16 x 20."

Today I am very pleased to have found an etching completed several years ago, and which is completely sold out. My single remaining print has been in storage. This would be an image I would like to offer as another edition of giclee prints in a different size, about 12 x 15."

Medicine Woman was created to honor women who practice both traditional and non-traditional healing arts. Women, as food gatherers learned about the healing properties of various plants, and so began the practice. Many traditions developed over thousands of years, often including magical lore and rituals in the ways of applying their knowlege.

In the middle ages, men tried to wrest this knowlege and the powers of healing away from women, sometimes naming such wise women as witches, even persecuting and killing them if they persisted in practicing healing. Midwifery was one of the last of the healing arts permitted by women in that period. Male doctors began to be the only people left who had medical knowlege.

It was not until the 1800s that the medical establishment opened a medical school to a woman. Elizabeth Blackwell applied at 28 schools before being accepted at Geneva/Hobart College in New York in 1847, when she was sponsored by Dr. Joseph Warrington, who was highly esteemed, and probably because no one dared offend him.

Images and Writing are the exclusive Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

1 comment:

Judith Angell Meyer said...

Medicine Woman is amazing. You are going to have quite a lovely show.

~J~