Cultural beauty is a form of fashion within your ethnic group that was contrived from the ancestors before you were born.  My maternal great grandmother's fate was decided and presented to her at the raw age of two years old.  From that age until she was seven, her mother (my maternal grandmother) wrapped and unwrapped her feet everyday in order for her feet to be permanently shaped to three inches in length which is smaller than your cell phone.  This is the most painful and torturous practice that we've done to our bodies for cultural beauty.  Hundreds of thousands of women suffered through this tradition.  Foot binding was banned in 1940.  However, there are still some stragglers that lived in remote villages and are still alive today with bound feet.  It was considered "erotic" and beautiful as a ballerina.  They took small swaying steps as they painfully walked every step of their life.  They were not able to go very far either and always stayed close to home as their partners reveled.   Each woman adorned 16 pairs of "lotus slippers,"  four for each season of the year.  I have created several pieces of artwork depicting this type of bodily mutilation and modifications which are forced and not their own decision.  I will be setting up a crowd funding call to action donation site which will raise awareness to all aspects of cultural beauty and to assist to continue the creation of artworks by me in this area of interest.  The women in the Victorian era who wore corsettes to have a slim waistline, the women in Myanmar (Burma) with the golden rings around their necks, the Aztec tribal babies that have wooden boards shaping their heads to be triangular in shape (there is an exhibit on the Western coast of Oregon that I will travel to see) and the African women that have jewelry expanding their lips and earlobes, high heels, slender bodies, breast augmentations, and children in beauty pagents.  Currently, we are attracted to bodily piercings, tattoos, cosmetics, hair treatments and...and...BUT these are our own choices or it can be construed as peer pressure.  Coming soon!

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