Marlisha Stewart, artist
Michael Mergen, faculty advisor
In our society there are unrealistic standards of beauty for women. In my series I Am Beautiful, I explore beyond these confines and aim towards shifting the paradigm of what is considered to be beautiful.
Growing up, I have always struggled with my body image. As a child, other children constantly picked out my flaws: my eyebrows were too bushy, or my arms and legs were too hairy. I tried many rituals to rid of my many somewhat flaws.
I soon realized that all of the magazines, advertisements, movies, and even my peers could not determine my level of beauty nor the beauty of others. There is a wide range of features that exist with women. Tall verses short, thick verses skinny, smooth skin versus stretch marks and bumps, birthmarks, kinky hair, small breast, the list goes on and on. We are all beautiful in every single way.