wswcreative

In my quest for creating the Bliss in Suburbia, one of my goals is finding the diversity. The first and foremost reason is so my son does not experience the exclusion of the typical white “burb” upbringing, but also because diversity is a major component that incites my creativity.

There are so many film and recording star icons from the past millennium that I want to recreate with the diverse group of woman I see daily in “Mayberry.” There is Audrey Hepburn (we do have a Tiffany’s in town) and Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Carmen Miranda, Marlena Dietrich …the list is endlesss. Unfortunately, there are very few universal black icons that exist before the 80′s. There’s Josephine Baker, Leona Horne, Dianne Carroll, Dianna Ross (and a few other Ronnie Spector girl group types) and of course Claire Huxtable. My favorite is the 70′s character Foxy Brown played by Pam Grier. Foxy Brown was the embodiment of all that woman could be. She was sexy, intelligent and a staunch upholder of justice. She not only changed how we thought about black women, but gave power to all of us. With all of those values it was only natural to be obsessed with recreating this image. Since the obvious is never a given for me, I figured that someone who was not the ordinary Suburban Mama would be the perfect candidate.

Alexis bravely stepped into her boyfriend’s life in burbs to wholeheartedly become part of his kid’s life. She cooks for school dinners, helps with homework (you have to see her paper mache empire state building she built with his son for a book project…it puts my paper-chain snake to shame), schleps both kids to after school activities and does all this in heels.

via Foxy Brown.