" S E L F   E X P R E S S I O N
I S   N E C E S S A R Y   F O R
L I F E.
I F   W E   D O N' T
E X P R E S S
O U R S E L V E S
W E   B E C O M E   I L L. "
Gabor Mate

" T H E   D I F F E R E N C E
B E T W E E N   A R T I S T S
A N D   O T H E R   P E O P L E
I S   T H A T   A R T I S T S
H A V E   A
S K E T C H B O O K. "
Mary Bergs

" A R T   S T E P S   I N
W H E R E
C O M M U N I C A T I O N
B R E A K S   D O W N. "
Elizabeth J. Spencer

Last month another portion of the Inside the Dress process was completed as the Society for Arts and Healthcare met in Edmonton. I had an opportunity to explain the history and significance of the exhibition to conference goers who opted to take part in the immersion tours of the University and Stollery Children's Hospital.

I enjoyed being able to describe the process and to link our work to some significant issues related to the creative process and health. In particular I noted the benefits of social support and friendship. I believe these factors enabled the artists to continue to create in the midst of a variety of stressful life events that were faced during the year we worked together.

Artists often have difficulty continuing to create in the midst of the inevitable bumps in life. I believe our commitment to be in e-mail contact on a monthly basis was a significant support. I certainly looked forward to the monthly communications. I took comfort in sharing what was happening in my life, and kept myself on track by checking in regularly with my colleagues.

I also took the opportunity to describe the extraordinary exercises that the artists were asked to complete as a part of the Inside the Dress process. I suggested that the exercises would have application if other settings. I was pleased that several people bought the catalogue specifically for the information about the exercises.

Cutting-edge Canadian work in arts and healthcare was featured in several conference plenary sessions. The speakers represented a growing number of Canadians who are leading the way in the development of this exciting field.

Gabor Mate, a family physician from Vancouver and the author of When the Body Says No, discussed the physiological connection between life stresses and emotions and the body systems that govern nerves, immune apparatus and hormones. According to him knowledge of how stress and disease are connected is essential to the prevention of illness and the facilitation of healing.

T. Jock Murray, the former dean of Dalhousie Medical School, discussed the Medical Humanities program at Dalhousie. The program is designed to enhance the well being of medical students and staff. He described how the work of artist Robert Pope is used to help medical students understand the experience of illness from the patient's point of view.

Ross Gray, a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Sciences Centre and Vrenia Ivonoffski, the artistic director of Act II Studio at Ryerson University have collaborated on a program of research-based theatre since the mid-1990s. They described two of their projects. The first described the experiences of women living with metastatic breast cancer and the second examined men's health issues related to prostate cancer.

The Society for Arts in Healthcare (SAH) was founded in 1991. It has more than doubled its membership in the last two years. There are now more than 1200 members including artists, arts therapists, arts administrators, hospital CEOs, nurses, doctors, therapists, architects, interior designers and students. This was the first international conference of SAH.

Susan Pointe, chair of the conference planning committee, did an extraordinary job of producing the conference. I am impressed with her vision, her organizational abilities and her drive. I am grateful to her for the opportunity to bring the work of Inside the Dress to this prestigious conference.