By Elizabeth Valk Long

Just before she was invited to be one of the six women artists who created illustrations for this week's major story on estrogen, Ruth Marten cut off all her hair. "I wanted to see the encroachment of age," she says, striking one of the themes of the story. "I wanted to see how much gray hair I had and clearly see the lines on my face." Like many women her age, Marten, 46, is being encouraged by her gynecologist to try hormone-replacement therapy. She's resisting, and yet, like so many women, she's sorely tempted. Her 80-year-old neighbor has been on estrogen since age 40 and is "so buoyant it's remarkable," says Marten.

The ambivalence Marten feels about the controversial treatment is echoed by the other illustrators -- Anita Kunz, Roz Chast, Karen Barbour, Polly Becker and Sandra Dionisi -- whom associate art directors Sharon Okamoto and Janet Parker commissioned to interpret the topic for Time. "I think a lot about aging," says Kunz, 38. "It's such a youth-oriented culture." Chast, 40, who submitted the tongue-in-cheek cartoon titled The Picture of Doreen Gray, says the idea of an antiaging pill "gives me the creeps" but concedes that she may feel differently in 10 years.

The artists' enthusiasm impressed Okamoto, who designed the pages on which their works appear: "To approach six top women illustrators in one week and have them all say yes is pretty wonderful." The women, for their part, think it's pretty wonderful to get challenging work in what is still a male-dominated field. "Drawing for a living is a tough business for everybody," Chast says, but adds that the career does offer certain advantages for women because they can set their own hours, work from home and spend time with their children. (Chast has two: a son, 8, and a daughter, 4.)

The editorial-illustration business seems to be going through its own change of life. "When I started out in the '70s, my work was considered so strange, I used to make a living doing tattoos," says Marten. "The field is much more creative now." Kunz adds that taking a drawing from an outline of an idea to publishable art in two days (the standard turnaround time for newsweeklies) has its own peculiar rewards. "I like it best," she says, "when it's over." We know how that feels.