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The Beauty Problem
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 8:10PM 
In amongst the juggle of of consulting, coaching, photos and PhD I've been catching up with Anna who is trying to gain some insights into the beauty problem. Now (perhaps always) an artist and illustrator, Anna is reflecting back on her career as a model and attempting to understand the impact of beauty on her life.
We are using photography as our method of inquiry - and this is a problem in itself because as we try to uncover some of the the less superficial aspects of Anna and her world she still looks conventionally, well, great... All of the fashion stereotypes begin to surface - a beautiful women with no make up... grungy girl with messy hair... scruffy chic... I'm sure you are starting to get the picture!
You might be curious about how beauty could be a problem at all. Anna describes how, from an early age, she was treated as different, special, and then how men would be (predictably) interested her as a sex object and women would take the unsympathetic stance of 'What's your problem? Just look at you....'
Of course, the sort of beauty that fuelled Anna's previous career is usually temporary; youth doesn't last forever and even models begin to change with age. So I guess that this transition, perhaps a fall from grace, might become the subject of our work. But at this stage we are simply improvising our way through the inquiry figuring out how photos might help understand some aspects of the issue and blind us to others.
The improv theme brings me back nicely to the Ian Sanders book Juggle which I've been enjoying as I have been tearing around the country. With short chapters like 'Enjoy living a blur' and 'Celebrate your multi-dimensional talents' it could have been written for me. But there are more challenging sections too such as 'Managing your identity' and Don't be a workaholic'..... Ah, yes... oops.
It's an easy, uplifting read which celebrates multi-dimensional careers - on that basis alone, it's worth a link in the resources section!
Reader Comments (11)
What a fascinating introspective project. Is she putting together an exhibit?
Indeed, I think it will run in Manchester next month. I guess that we won't have done too much inquiry work by then - this project will be longer term.
Hi Steve - this reminds me of an image that leapt off the page at me this morning on cool iris called "learning the art of oneself". I can't work out if it's the same person or twins or what? It definitely evokes questions in my mind about our visual identity, our sense of self, how others sense of our beauty might be inherently linked to our own sense of beauty or ugliness...? Hmm... looking forward to how your project unfolds... am sure it will have a refreshing impact all of its own! L :)
See http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaliegarrett/4344439859/
@Loz That is a captivating shot! If I'm understanding the comments correctly, both images are the artist herself.
It will be interesting to see how the Beauty Problem exhibit goes. Steve, perhaps you can give us an update on that on the progress of the longer aspects of the project.
Digressing. Re your previous blog on captioning photos. Had a real 'caption makes the difference moment' (but also what is happening in your own ewnvironment) on Tom Chambers blog. His work is INTENSE too. Really incredible stuff. It's like, you can't look away.
http://www.facebook.com/tom.chambers.photography#!/tom.chambers.photography?ref=mf
I really enjoy Tom's work - as you say, you can't look away... I like Tom's view that, for an artist hoping to encourage inquiry, the caption can be limiting. That sounds like an arena in which to play a little....
Totally aside but speaking of play, it ended with Tom playfully suggesting that he and a commenter meet up at another artist's exhibit and finish it in the streets so to speak - picturing cameras at high noon. :-)) His sense of gallows humor and defusing wit are thoroughly evolved.
I received questions yesterday about how I was finding information that I was discussing. Referenced this blog. Noticed you have a twitter link but was wondering if you ever considered a Facebook link. I want to share updates on The Beauty Problem with friends on FB who are examining media on that subject with regard to TV, video, music, printed ads. But none of us can think of an artist coming out of the field of modeling doing an examination of it through photos! Interest peaked a bit.
Hi Marena,
You'll see that I've added a facebook widget - it's not great but it might do for now...!
I do see it! Looks finey to me. :-)
You are familiar with the book, "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie . .." other shoe drops. Now if everytime you put up a new topic on this blog, you had it automatically post to your Facebook status or went to Facebook and manually posted a link to your new blog topic; your friends on FB would know right away to come visit your blog. :-)) :-)) It's how I and others keep up the artists we like to follow. Although some follow through Twitter.
I'll bet right now you're thinking ... Good thing for me you can't throttle me by the neck through Facebook, huh?
Have a question related to the exhibit. This is just a completely "what if" thing, long shot. Do you think your client has ever considered developing the exhibit to the point it could become a traveling exhibit for communities looking for artistic endeavors for Women's History Month or International Women's Day? Her theme is timely.
Women 35/45 and over may soon be one of the largest demographics in our countries. The problems we encounter with others defining our beauty - sexuality and soul - is something that the media rarely examines unless it's the butt of a sitcom joke ... Just thinking how needed these types of photo-dialogues are for this demographic.
You write on the most compelling topics in a open, compelling way. Thanks for that!
It's the 'automatically' part I'm struggling with - I think that the squarespace technology can do this but I haven't cracked it yet...!
I'm not sure of Anna's plans for the work though as you say, the theme is timely. I'm hearing stuff on the UK news that would make you think that feminism had never happened; we have a long way to go with feminine identity. (Probably the same for males too though...)
Thanks for your kind words on the writing; that's great for my motivation!
Hi Steve. This morning Jim sent me a link to a fascinating artist, Daisy Boman, which reminded me both of your "beauty" inquiry and also links back to the fabulous Jeff Monday's use of dots - http://www.articagalleries.co.uk/artists/daisy_boman/profile.asp - she basically uses tiny, ceramic faceless figures who climb, interact with each other, fall, crawl, run, telling us stories about life, human destiny and universal feelings. Hope it offers you something to your inquiry... Loz :-)
Cheers Loz - I like these words on Daisy's site:
"Their language is unique. Faceless, they ask us to look at them for what they are, not for what they look like. Their movements, situations and attitudes speak for themselves."
Mmm.. what/who is behind the face...? And could we ever see them?
Steve