SIGNS TIMES

OfThe

TABLE OF CONTENTSJoeseph Altuzarra // IBlood Red Illustrations // IIRead On. Barnes + Noble // IIIWinds of Change: Tony Morrison // IVWhy Women Smile // VI

Bloom + Boom // VII

Signs of Strength ft. Versace // VIII

In The Kitchen ft. D+G // X

“I WANTED TO SPEAK TO

WOMEN I KNEW AND THE

REALITY OF THEIR LIVES”

- joseph altuzarra

TABLE OF CONTENTS

II

F R E ER A D I C A L

MORE @

BARNES + NOBLE

R E A D

III

W I N D SC H A N G E

Tony Morrison on her book

Beloved, and what motherhood and

being a woman means to her

IV

W I N D SC H A N G E

of“One of the nice things that women do,’’ she said, ‘’is nur-ture and love something other than themselves -they do that rather nicely. Instinctively, perhaps, but they are certainly taught to do it, socialized to do it, or genetically predisposed to do it -whatever it is, it’s some-thing that I think the majority of women feel strongly about. But mother love is also a killer.’’

Mother love displaces the self, Ms. Morrison said. ‘’The precious interior, the loved self, whatever that is, whatev-er vocabulary you ascribe to it, is suppressed or displaced and put someplace else - in the children, in the lover, in the man. It’s always something other that is more valuable, more beautiful, more wonder-ful than the self - that’s too

bad, but that’s the horns of that dilemma. Sometimes people say, well, your children become yourself. But it’s not that. It’s just that they become... the best part of me. That’s what maternity is.’’

“I’ve decided to define that, rather than having it be de-fined for me,’’ she said. I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither. I really do. So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got big-ger.’’

Smiles are not the small and innocuous things they appear to be: Too many of us smile in lieu of showing what’s really on our minds. Despite all the work we American women have done to get and maintain full legal control of our bodies, not to mention our destinies, we still don’t seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups in our faces.

We smile so often and so promiscuously-when we’re angry, when we’re tense, when we’re with children, when we’re being photo-graphed, when we’re interviewing for a job, when we’re meeting candidates to employ-that the Smiling Woman has become a peculiarly American archetype.

“A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” What is it in our cul-ture that keeps our smiles on auto matic pilot? Since the average American woman’s smile often has less to do with her actual state of happi ness than it does with the social pressure to smile no matter what, her base line social smile isn’t apt to be a felt expression that engages the eyes like this. Ekman insists that if people learned to read smiles, they could see the sad ness, misery, or pain lurking there, plain as day.

Women are expected to smile no matter where they line up on the social, cultural, or economic ladder: College pro fessors are criticized for not smiling, political spouses are pilloried for being too serious, and women’s roles in films have historically been smiling ones. It’s little wonder that men on the street still call out, “Hey, baby, smile! Life’s not that bad, is it?” to women pass-ing by, lost in thought.

Many longed to be more like her, that perpetually smiling female. She seemed so beautiful. So content. So whole.

To limit a woman to one expression is like editing down an orchestra to one instrument. And the search for more authentic means of expression isn’t easy in a culture in which women are still expected to be magnanimous smilers, helpmates in crisis, and curators of everybody else’s morale. But change is already floating in the high winds.

“Why Women Smile” by Amy Cunningham

VI

VII

“IT’S ABOUT EXPRESSING

A WOMAN’SSTRENGTH”

VIII

“IT’S ABOUT EXPRESSING

A WOMAN’SSTRENGTH”

- Donatella Versace

IX

in thekitchen

“THE NEW GENERATION -THEY ARE INDIVIDUALSFIRST AND FOREMOST”

Domencio Dolce + Stefano Gabbana

X