Amethyst Sky
2.22.2007
Bloggie Blog Blogness...
Beauty, What Is It?
".. that quality or group of qualities in a thing which gives pleasure to the senses or pleasureably exalts the mind or spirit."
"Beauty is the result of the harmony between the size and shape of whatever is being viewed."
"Each of us possesses the fertile soil in which to plant and enjoy either beauty or its antitheses, ugliness, as we see fit."
Humanity's primary concern when it comes to the term 'beauty' is the visual impression of a woman, who through all the fickle changes of tastes and standards has forever been the ultimate object of beauty to artists throughout the ages. Whether soft round and pampered or lithe slender and windblown, whatever contemporary standards or personal tastes dictate, woman is synonomous with beauty. Creativity would probably be nonexhistant if everyone agreed on what was beautiful.
I have been musing over my obsessions with the female form and specifically, glorified and flawless images of women. I have a few ideas of why I maintain this obsession and why it only seems to grow larger as the years past. Firstly, I find the shapes of the female body asthetically pleasing of course. Curves in my mind are far more visually stimulating than straight lines. The nude female to me, is the ultimate beauty.
More importantly I think, it partially has to do with my upbringing. Alot of the time I am referred to as "fatty",overweight, unattractive, or other various insulting words by relatives. This is probably because one of my sisters is as thin and tall as a model, and the other is super skinny because she is obsessed with dieting and is a marathon runner as well. Both of these women pass for a certain race. Though we have the same mother, a woman from Barbados (a carribean island) and a father that is irish, we each look different. The model clearly seems to be an African-American woman, the other a white woman.
I am a strange mix in between. People have always asked me, "what are you?". It is a difficult thing to answer. I do not know that I have ever been able to find my place, or claim to be more of one thing than the other. In elementary school people described me to be African-American because I look closer to that I suppose. In high school girls would make jokes and call me a white girl because of the way I speak and act. My personality and the way I carry myself caused their idea of me to be a white woman. On forms where you may only mark one ethnicity, it has been engrained in me that because I look closer to an african american than a caucasian, I am to put that. I have however stared at that section of forms many a time and thought "Should I just put other?" Other just feels unfullfilling... Anyway, outsiders usually ask me if I am from a spanish or portuguese speaking country or area. But that's not even close.
In some of my reasearch from past projects I found I am not the only person of mixed race that has issues with beauty and identity. There is a whole hidden culture in the united states that seems a bit lost about who they are and have trouble with their self image.
From the time that I was small I was always show images from magazines, or movies of beautiful flawless thin graceful women of one race or another and I think I started to idolize them. I collect images of models and pin up girls and put them on this unreachable pedestal. It's only most recently that I have begun collecting those of women of mixed race. (Adriana Lima) These women are no longer women, they almost become these pieces of art that you hang on a wall, admire, and wish you could reproduce yourself.
A more recent reasoning for the photographing of my own body as opposed to photographing others in a beautiful manner is my fiance. He usually tells me how 'gorgeous' I am and how I am what he finds to be 'attractive'. Taking photos of myself and showing them to him and recieving praise is I think a bit addictive, though I would rather pull a tooth than to agree with the compliments. These figures, these photographs are to me, not really me, but whom I wish to be viewed as, a sexual, beautiful, object of desire, something to put on a pedestal, to admire and praise. Selfish perhaps, but it is this unspoken desire I believe hiding under the surface that , which each passing semester that urges me to do more and more pieces heading in this direction.
Anyway, this blog entry is getting to be a bit long. I'll talk in class further of the ideas and consepts that I have come up with because of the things I have been reading and thinking about over the past week.
----
Mulatto.org Two forums for peaople of mixed race where interesting discussions happen.
Mixed Folks.Com Another site for people of mixed race who have trouble coming into their own.
Artists I was looking at - Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, William M. Graham, Laurel Nakadate
".. that quality or group of qualities in a thing which gives pleasure to the senses or pleasureably exalts the mind or spirit."
"Beauty is the result of the harmony between the size and shape of whatever is being viewed."
"Each of us possesses the fertile soil in which to plant and enjoy either beauty or its antitheses, ugliness, as we see fit."
Humanity's primary concern when it comes to the term 'beauty' is the visual impression of a woman, who through all the fickle changes of tastes and standards has forever been the ultimate object of beauty to artists throughout the ages. Whether soft round and pampered or lithe slender and windblown, whatever contemporary standards or personal tastes dictate, woman is synonomous with beauty. Creativity would probably be nonexhistant if everyone agreed on what was beautiful.
I have been musing over my obsessions with the female form and specifically, glorified and flawless images of women. I have a few ideas of why I maintain this obsession and why it only seems to grow larger as the years past. Firstly, I find the shapes of the female body asthetically pleasing of course. Curves in my mind are far more visually stimulating than straight lines. The nude female to me, is the ultimate beauty.
More importantly I think, it partially has to do with my upbringing. Alot of the time I am referred to as "fatty",overweight, unattractive, or other various insulting words by relatives. This is probably because one of my sisters is as thin and tall as a model, and the other is super skinny because she is obsessed with dieting and is a marathon runner as well. Both of these women pass for a certain race. Though we have the same mother, a woman from Barbados (a carribean island) and a father that is irish, we each look different. The model clearly seems to be an African-American woman, the other a white woman.
I am a strange mix in between. People have always asked me, "what are you?". It is a difficult thing to answer. I do not know that I have ever been able to find my place, or claim to be more of one thing than the other. In elementary school people described me to be African-American because I look closer to that I suppose. In high school girls would make jokes and call me a white girl because of the way I speak and act. My personality and the way I carry myself caused their idea of me to be a white woman. On forms where you may only mark one ethnicity, it has been engrained in me that because I look closer to an african american than a caucasian, I am to put that. I have however stared at that section of forms many a time and thought "Should I just put other?" Other just feels unfullfilling... Anyway, outsiders usually ask me if I am from a spanish or portuguese speaking country or area. But that's not even close.
In some of my reasearch from past projects I found I am not the only person of mixed race that has issues with beauty and identity. There is a whole hidden culture in the united states that seems a bit lost about who they are and have trouble with their self image.
From the time that I was small I was always show images from magazines, or movies of beautiful flawless thin graceful women of one race or another and I think I started to idolize them. I collect images of models and pin up girls and put them on this unreachable pedestal. It's only most recently that I have begun collecting those of women of mixed race. (Adriana Lima) These women are no longer women, they almost become these pieces of art that you hang on a wall, admire, and wish you could reproduce yourself.
A more recent reasoning for the photographing of my own body as opposed to photographing others in a beautiful manner is my fiance. He usually tells me how 'gorgeous' I am and how I am what he finds to be 'attractive'. Taking photos of myself and showing them to him and recieving praise is I think a bit addictive, though I would rather pull a tooth than to agree with the compliments. These figures, these photographs are to me, not really me, but whom I wish to be viewed as, a sexual, beautiful, object of desire, something to put on a pedestal, to admire and praise. Selfish perhaps, but it is this unspoken desire I believe hiding under the surface that , which each passing semester that urges me to do more and more pieces heading in this direction.
Anyway, this blog entry is getting to be a bit long. I'll talk in class further of the ideas and consepts that I have come up with because of the things I have been reading and thinking about over the past week.
----
Mulatto.org Two forums for peaople of mixed race where interesting discussions happen.
Mixed Folks.Com Another site for people of mixed race who have trouble coming into their own.
Artists I was looking at - Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, William M. Graham, Laurel Nakadate
Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]