Exhibit Raises Awareness of Breast Cancer

At first glance, the sloping lawn of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Sepulveda looks as if overnight it had been transformed into a national cemetery. Small white markers, perfectly spaced, stand in long rows on the freshly mowed grass.

But they are not gravestones. A closer look reveals not smooth, flat marble, but human forms in plaster. They are torsos of women. Some are healthy and a few are pregnant. Most, however, bear the scars and sunken chests that are the battlefield of breast cancer.

A cast of Harriet Oppenheim’s torso is among them. The 59-year-old Northridge woman had a mastectomy in 1976.

On Friday, she stood among the rows of torsos, crying.

“This many women are going to die this year in Los Angeles of breast cancer,” she said, tears falling from under her dark glasses. “It’s important that people know, that people realize the commonness of it. It’s an epidemic.”

The exhibit is the brainchild of Venice artist Melanie Winter, who wanted to raise awareness of the disease during October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The exhibit will remain today on the lawn of the VA Center on Plummer Street. Then on Sunday, Winter plans to take the casts to a Los Angeles Breast Cancer Alliance rally at the Federal Building in Westwood.

“People think breasts are offensive,” said Winter. “That’s why people don’t know about breast cancer--because people can’t say the word breast .

“It’s a body part. It’s just a body part.”

At first, she had wanted a slightly more radical celebration of the month.

“We had hoped to get these women to strip off their shirts and march on Sacramento, but that wasn’t going to happen,” she said.

Winter settled on the exhibit, which she calls the “National War Mammorial.”

Five weeks ago, she started calling friends and distributing flyers, asking women to bandage and plaster themselves at “plaster parties.”

“Get plastered for breast cancer,” proclaimed the flyer.

“The parties were such an education,” she said. “I’ve talked about nothing but breasts for the past five weeks.”

Winter’s aim was 1,300 casts, because that’s how many breast cancer victims the National Cancer Institute told her would die in Los Angeles this year. She’s not actually sure how many are in the exhibit.

“After 600 I lost count,” she said.

She had trouble getting a site donated for the exhibition. The city of West Hollywood turned her down, as did Pepperdine University.

Jeff Bliss, director of public affairs for the university, said that the lawn Winter requested is scheduled months in advance, and the university rents, not donates, the area.

When Winter called Ron Vincent, public affairs officer for the VA, she couldn’t believe it when he simply said “Sure.”

Vincent, for his part, was impressed.

“It’s not something you’re going to forget in a hurry,” he said.