Our first peek inside Book 2!

Book2: Pages 1-2 by UrbanHeirlooms
Originally uploaded by etsyjournal.

This is the first scan we've received from a participant. These pages are the first spread in Book 2 and were created by Dana Osborne-Biggs (urbanheirlooms on Etsy).

Here is what Dana would like to share about her contribution:

My Etsy Journal contribution is entitled "I Decide".

The text reads, "You don't get to tell me what beautiful is...I decide."

I've always been impressed by the African women who deliberately (and decoratively) scar themselves as an expression of beauty. Most other cultures see scarring as something heinous, to be ashamed of and hidden or corrected, if possible.

So I stitched a line drawing of a woman's torso, complete with surgical scars (on breasts and abdomen) as an example.

Behind the torso is a page from a vintage book on fashion design and techniques on how to dress your "problem figure".

The Adinkra symbol across that page is the "love eye", an appeal to look on our perceived imperfections with love and compassion. The symbol behind the woman's head on the first page is the Adinkra symbol for forgiveness, an atonement for looking on ourselves or anyone else with an unkind eye.

The text on the second page (torso page) reads, "He laid his head and found paradise on a part of my body which had received the bulk of my contempt. As he slept, I wept..."

Often, those who love us are not as critical as our perceived flaws as we are. It takes courage to see beauty in unlikely places.

Dana Osborne-Biggs