'Butternut Squash made a spectacular entrance at Willow's Ball. It is highly unlikely that her sumptuous silk robes will be trend setting, but in true Butternut fashion, they will leave and indelible impression.' The True Tale of My Life as a Geisha
Yes, this is an actual picture of me, in 1990. In the US we have body image issues usually having to do with our weight. In many other countries the issues seem to have more to do with skin and hair color. In the 1990's, while I was living in Japan, fair skinned Western women with blond hair and blue eyes appeared to me to be the ideal image of beauty for the Japanese. Advertisements of all kinds would feature fair skinned blue eyed people for even the most traditional Japanese products. During this time, I quite easily picked up a few modeling jobs just for fun. The Japanese telephone card above was made as a gift to me for participating in a bridal fashion show. In this show there were at least ten western women and no Japanese women modeling antebellum style white wedding gowns and Japanese kimono on a runway. The audience was entirely composed of Japanese women and their mothers choosing gowns for weddings. In my opinion, I make a rather frightening looking Japanese bride. The make-up artists seemed very disturbed that they could not paint my naturally blond eyebrows black and create an acceptable expression. Pretty as I may have been in my natural state, the result of changing my hair and brows was rather grotesque. When I sent this card home to my grandmother in Lancaster, Ohio, she said, "My how you've changed!"
I'm sorry to tease you with the Geisha bit. I did study tea ceremony, flower arranging and traditional dance in Maiko Villa where they have Geisha in training, but I have always aspired to the art and corresponding meditation of these practices, for myself, and not for the entertainment of men.
