Goddess of Time - January

January

This is the first picture in a little series I've been working on for the past three months. I call it "Goddess of Time" and there will be 12 pictures, each depicting an older woman in all her wrinkly glory, representing a month of the year (my intention is to make them all into a wall calendar at some point).

Like most women, I'm a little torn when it comes to aging. Aging is a privilege, for sure, but who really wants to get old, frail and sickly? And how come men are considered attractive and desirable at all ages, while middle-aged and older women just tend to disappear in favor of the new and more fresh-faced generations? The older woman is almost always invisible, only making appearances here and there as "old crone", "witch" or "someone's grandma" in popular culture, always in relation to somebody else, never just her own person. Who cares about her?

This project started as an exercise in drawing wrinkles, which quickly made me realize what a work of beauty a wrinkled face is. I recently turned 38 and I've been seeing signs of aging in myself for years already. As a way of helping me cope with it, I thought I'd try celebrating wrinkles in myself and others from now on. Our wrinkles are, after all, a sign of our maturity, longevity and wisdom, and the idea that they make a woman ugly needs to be destroyed. We shouldn't have to stress about society's ludicrous expectations that we must look like 19-year olds forever. A wrinkled face is so much more interesting than a perfectly smooth and flawless one, and may I add, much more fun to draw. Besides, we are so much more than our looks and our worth shouldn't be determined by them. The older woman needs to be given her time in the spotlight, not be hidden away in obscurity. She is not obsolete, she's not past her prime, and she's not just somebody's grandma. Women are magnificent creatures and goddammit, we should be allowed to age.