I once overheard a conversation in a restaurant where a daughter, as she handed her mother a box of Instant Lift (a "quick fix” facial mask “to temporarily tighten pores, improve wrinkles, and rejuvenate saggy, aging skin”), said to her “I just want you to look your best.” Hmmm…

When I was in high school, my girlfriends and I would go to the mall and straight up the elevator to Weibolts Department Store’s "Ladies Lounge". It was a private place for us to talk, examine ourselves, fix our make-up and share dreams about the future.

As I grow older, I wonder about the value of beauty and how it affects our self-esteem. Is it better to have beauty than integrity? Do women still use beauty as currency to buy security (a husband or a job)? Can beauty buy happiness? How long does it last? Does it fade with age or transform to include spiritual properties and wisdom? Who determines what is beautiful? Is it, in fact, uplifting? Does it have transcendent properties?

In “The Looking Glass Lounge” I decided to explore the nature of beauty and self-worth in time and to look for the truth in fiction, reflecting individual voices of popular fictional female characters from various cultural/historical time periods. Mirrors - associated with vanity, reflection and self-analysis - seemed a natural medium for this exploration. (I think of the mirror as holding the spirit of the character and the vanity as holding the physical life and/or relics of the character.) An atmosphere that was beautiful and secluded seemed to be the perfect context for this investigation.

Each character in “The Looking Glass Lounge” brings a specific attitude to the space. This is more important to me than telling her particular story. The character selections were based on my own life experience and what I think are fairly common attitudes regarding self-esteem and beauty. In some ways I think of this congregation of characters as representing some of my past lives – imagined or real. Together I am hoping this installation creates a gestalt in which the viewer can feel comfortable in examining her own view of beauty.

Every day I look in the mirror and make some determination about how I look. I wonder how powerful are the statements we make to ourselves about ourselves when we look in the mirror; does believing it make it real?