How It All Began

BEAUTIFUL Just The Way You Are came out of a disturbance - a deep disturbance at the ease with which our culture can rob our humanity through such common mechanisms as popular culture, education, media, and fashion. In spite of major advances of the women's movements of the twentieth century in critical areas such as suffrage, labor, and education, the last thirty years have also seen a persistent, and in some cases increasing, devaluing of women that is supported, promoted, and disseminated by an exploding infrastructure of media and technology. Violence against women and distortions of body image are not abating. Glaring inequalities between men and women persist, yet "feminism" is a word avoided by many. The pressure for girls and women to make themselves into sexual objects for consumption by others is stronger than ever, with a growing list of methods to achieve it. Pornography has become mainstream while becoming increasingly degrading to women. Self-objectification is construed as empowerment. Self-degradation is confused with self-determination.

As an artist, my previous work has included discrete sculptures, drawings, installations, and collaborations with large groups. As a daughter of Chinese immigrants my experiences related to identity, culture, and oppression have worked their way into my art. My years as an educator and my life as a parent have given me a wealth of opportunities to understand how we are formed by our culture.

BEAUTIFUL Just The Way You Are belongs within the tradition of art-making as political statement. It takes advantage of the power of a graphic image and repetition as well as the power of collective action. The magazine rack is only one of many locations where we are taught the lessons of our culture, but it is one that is ubiquitous throughout our towns and cities and reaches every stratum of the population. At the magazine rack words and pictures work together seamlessly, like a good children's book, to teach and tell a story of who we are. The covers shout their messages with surprising confidence that we will know these commands are for us. Before we are ten, and then without pause throughout our lives, we internalize the lesson that our bodies are how we will be first judged as individuals, and that there is a body type that we must attain to be judged worthy of attention. We learn that the female body can be used to sell anything - tangible or intangible - to women, men, and children. The use of a motorcycle, a deodorant, a vacation, a necktie, or a beverage implies ownership of the woman's body pasted into the advertisement. Although all humans are born with beauty and power, our early unquestioned self is quickly corrupted. We adopt an anxiety in navigating a path towards a culturally dictated state of beauty and power.

BEAUTIFUL Just The Way You Are seeks to intervene in the space between all who stand before the magazine rack and the engine of advertising and mass culture. In that space of daily life it places an alternative.