Artifact 5: The Art of Personal Adornment
Objectives:
– Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
– Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
– Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations.
When I think about my dress code, I have to say I did dress very differently based on the certain occasions and places, and I think the way I changed my outfits is depending on the environments and fashion trends. A quote I totally agree from the reading is “Attractiveness, then, affects self-concept and social experience.” (P.2) And I also believe the self-concept and social experience affects one’s attractiveness as well.I cannot conclude my dressing style just simply by saying it’s about girly, simple, sport, or comfortable, because I like to wear different types of clothes and adornment, and I care about details and quality of my appearance.
I wear perfume everyday, and I have total four ear piercing, because I collect earrings so I do have many pairs that I can change my earrings to match my clothes and make up everyday. I wear nail polish if I have no studio work, and I always dye my hair into different browns or dark brass color along with the season changes, I like wearing rings which either has good quality or handmade by myself.
Basically I would dress myself mostly depends on what I will do in the following day. For example, if I had to work in studio for more than three hours, I would choose to wear simple shirt, cardigan, black legging with boots, bright yellow backpack and wear a little bit make up such as foundation, eyeliner, mascara and lipbalm to illuminate myself and cheer myself up. I cannot wear heavy make up since some of my works required wearing mask and goggle, and I should wear apron and gloves for most of the time. So being simple and comfortable is what I would look for in the studio for the security reason. However, even though I cannot dress up too much and I do not wear any rings or bracelets in studio, I always want my appearance to be cheerful and positive, so I would customize myself with stylish and unique designed aprons and gloves to make myself looked better.
If I had a date in the following day, I would definitely wear more make-up such as pink blush powder, eyeshadow and more colorful lip color, straighten or curl my hair, change my legging to different patterns or colors tights, skirts or layering up dress, high heel or plat shoes. I think I also dress the different way when I was in Beijing. For instance, in the past summer break in Beijing I almost dressed up everyday, because I went to some formal and social occasions, and also some parties with friends. Unlike the school life in Eugene, I feel totally ok if everyone around me was suiting up and dressing up in Beijing, so I would change my dress to adapt the environment.
In my opinion, a girl needs to be elegant from every tiny details and this is how my mother taught me. She is a kind of career woman that I only see her wearing casual clothes on weekend and vacation and I barely see her wearing pants. Different style and high quality dress is always her best friend. She did not pierce her ears and no tattoos, but she have been wearing necklace for more than thirty years. She cares about the way people look at her, but I think she cares more about how she looks at herself, because she always tells me to be positive and cheerful no matter how others look at you. So I believe that my mother has great influenced me on how I respect myself and how I customize myself by making myself differently and caring about those little details.
Also I do think my peer community influenced me as well, since I am an art student, I have to say most of my classmates are very stylish. Many of them have colored hair such as pink or purple, beautiful and exaggerated tattoos and the way they dress up is unique and different.I believe they want to express themselves by dressing whatever and they are very confident. I believe that to be different and to be themselves is the core beliefs and values.
Reflection:
This week’s assignment is about the art of personal adornment, and because of this assignment I started thinking of how the individual’s body decoration and physical beauty connects to the personal values. More important for me, I realized that how the whole society and culture influenced people’s belief of physical appearance.
After reading my original post again and considering of how I dressed, I noticed that my dress code changed significantly based on the occasion and more obviously, between China and US. Because I felt in China, the environment or the society cares about one’s appearance more than US, especially in the big cities such as Beijing or Hong Kong, people will gain more respect when they dressed up or suit up. I believe the reason why I felt this difference is based on my culture background and the past experiences of living in the states.
Sanders states this in the article, “People construct their appearance in a wide variety of ways to control their social identities, self-definitions, and interactional prospects.” (P.3) In another word, I think sometimes how we dressed is determined by what role do we want others to look at us. So the physical appearance is really about identity.
Future goals:
(A photography from magzine)
Recently I read some fashion magazines from ELLE and Vogue, and I read both of the Chinese version and American version, so in the future I really want to do some research on how Chinese culture and American culture influence people on how people dress up and how the two different culture interact each other.
Bibliography:
Table of Contents:
Artifact 1: First Blog Post- JR and His Exhibitions
Artifact 2: Life Values Assessment
Artifact 5: Personal Adornment Reflection
Artifact 6: Creative Spirituality
Artifact 7: Art, Games, and Technology Research