Editorial illustrations for SCENA9 for a text about the double standard of relating to aging depending on sex.
The article talks about how society's standards teach us that men age better than women;
the same features can express wisdom, life experience and eligibility in a man, but in a woman we are taught they only express loss of value.
I've illustrated the woman as a flower vase that first is observing its own reflection and then it gets broken.
We see physical transformations as signs of degradation, we start to feel ashamed we can't control them.
We try to hide them at all costs, while shame tears us apart on the inside.
We should learn to see in the aging process a way of gaining value over time.
I remembered the Japanese technique Kintsugi- broken ceramics are mended with gold, making the restored object significantly more valuable. The golden cracks are left visible to the eye because the Japanese think that the history of the object adds value to it.
I thought it was a nice metaphor for how we should relate to the signs of old age, regardless of one's sex.
