1: Maud Stevens Wagner, via Flickr user Sirkullay
2: Louis Vuitton, FW 2010, via Love Magazine
When I was eleven, I decided that I was going to get a tan. Not just any tan, but I wanted the even golden skin of my peers, who were blessed with Carribbean cruises and more melatonin. I’m naturally very fair and fairly freckled, so I may have been up against an insurmountable challenge. But I was tired, damn it, of being called a “ghost” or people asking if I was sick. To my eleven-year old self, being tan was equal to having money which was equal to being popular and having lots of friends. A simple equation.
Lounging on the porch, basking uncomfortably in the sun, I remember my uncle (a typically surly man who rarely spoke to me or my brother besides screaming at us) walking by and making a comment. “You know, you really shouldn’t try to get a tan; men don’t like that sort of thing, they like girls who are look natural. Some even prefer pale skin.”
I was gobsmacked by his comment. Struck by horror at his assumption that my actions were driven by a desire to attract a boyfriend, especially. I was terribly embarassed because I had very little interest in boys or having a boyfriend and was even more angry that he had suggested that I was “supposed” to look a certain way, for the sake of others.
Recently, I caught a comment on a friend’s Facebook profile, complaining about her desire to color her hair. The commentor in question lamented the lack of girls who appreciated their “natural beauty”, a phrase I find highly amusing.
What is natural beauty?
Most would say it’s someone (more specifically, a female, as we never pressure men to look natural) who chooses to not alter their looks. No hair color, no tattoo ink, no eyelash extensions, no makeup, no breast augmentations.
Our culture worships at the altar of physical “purity”, but will go to any means to create it.
We simultaneously coo and condemn celebrities and models who choose not to wear makeup. They are lauded as “brave” and “revealing” or seen as “sloppy” and “lazy”. Which is it? Is one’s attention to appearance a vice or virtue?
What’s more, is that any discerning eye could tell you that the majority of those au naturale photoshoots are not quite natural. Makeup artists are still on hand to apply a bit of tinted moisturizer and a youthful flush. Re-touch artists still erase the errant blemish to maintain the balance of beauty vs reality.
At the organization I work at, we teach a course called “What is Beauty?”; focusing on the realities of the fashion industry and how images of beauty are created while also encouraging the girls to define their own definition of “beautiful”, one that is inclusive of size, shape and race.
Why is it so rare that modified women are included in this definition of beauty?
Years ago, when I first toyed with the idea of getting a nose piercing, I remember a friend saying, “Don’t do it, you look fine the way you are!”. How many of us make disparaging comments about how others choose to modify their body? Why is it considered polite to not tell your friend that their new haircut looks awful, but it’s okay to say “You’d look so much better without all that metal in your face”?
Currently, I am relatively modified; a few tattoos that are easily covered, a pretty tame nose piercing, and rainbow-colored hair. Depending on the neighborhood I’m in (and the length of my sleeves) I can pass as semi-normal or a total weirdo. I’ve never considered the way I look, “unnatural”. Each new addition to my tattoos, each time I’ve been pierced or put more color in my hair, I have only felt more and more “natural”, a sense of relief and joy at expressing my body as I feel it should truly be. I’m a visual person, and what better way to celebrate visual art than adorning my skin with it? There is nothing more natural than the happiness I feel when I look in the mirror and see myself, colorful and illustrated.
Our state of natural beauty is one that is confident and happy, and who is to say what that should look like?
The way we choose to make ourselves, is the way we are meant to be, as long as it comes from a place of personal choice and not one that is influenced by the desires of others.
Here in NYC, we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground, only days after a blissfully sunny, 75° Friday. I prefer the sun, but the snow is a lot easier to handle knowing it will be gone soon.
I’m tempted to draw just about every look in this collection. Dior’s deliciously tropical (ooh, do we see a reoccurring theme, here?) Spring line is reminiscent of 50′s-era pinup girls in a technicolor South Pacific dream. I love the flouncy skirts and GIANT cat-eye sunglasses. The line avoids looking costume-y, and manages to seem fresh while still nodding respectfully to it’s inspiration.
NSFW Friday!
Due to popular demand on Facebook, I’m declaring today Not Safe For Work Friday! Hooray! This may or may not become a weekly thing, depending on my desire to draw risque artwork. Oh! Who am I kidding? I am always drawing inappropriate things.
Click on the image to see the NSFW version!
I’ve been working on this painting for the past week, which I intend to be the start of a series, an idea I’ve been conceptualizing FOREVER now, but haven’t gotten around to executing. Or, at least, deciding how I wanted to attack the idea. Well, you can’t explore ideas without making stuff, eh?
Inspired by my obsession with technology (you’ll see), psychedelia and mythology, and done in gouache and colored pencil on cotton rag paper, which has officially become my favorite surface to work on in the past few years.
And! If you want to see the piece in person, you can check out Greenpoint Gallery’s One Year Anniversary Small Works Show, which opens tonight!