Be Beautiful Drawing

Beauty is so important in our culture. If you are beautiful, people tell you, and if you're not they make extra sure you know. Everyone judges everyone else based on their appearance, everyone is held to an unattainable standard. But what do you do when you're so far away from the standard that you can't even try to comply? I wanted so badly to get into makeup when my friends did, but I couldn't share shades like they did, I couldn't even find a foundation that matched me (I still don't have one, but I stopped looking long ago). I was never going to be tall, I was never going to have shapely slender legs, I was never going to look like the girls on the magazines because I was never going to be white. So what do you do? You make your own standard. You turn your back on the crowd that's pushing itself toward a goal you can never reach and find your own way. I love my muse for this piece so much, she has more pride I think than I ever have. The predominant culture would say that her natural hair is out of control, that she's thick and thin in all the wrong places, that her skin is something she should be trying to "fix" and that's a low-down, dirty, leave-it-in-the-past lie. She knows it, I know it, and I dare you to look at her and not know it too. This artwork was featured in my exhibition, "GRRRLS Like Us" at the Cherry Hill Village Theater in Canton, MI

Drawing:Pencil on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:26 W x 40 H x 0.1 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.