Images can help the creative process. Artists, writers and other creatives use Mood Boards to help them in their work.  Discover how Author and Story Performer Yang-May Ooi has been using Pinterest to collect pictures in a Mood Board for her current project, Bound Feet Blues.

For Bound Feet Blues, I’ve found it helpful to collect images of bound feet and the Chinese cheong sahm (long dress) as well as other images – no matter how tangently – that relate to the various themes I’m exploring:

# Chinese women’s lives in bound feet

# bound feet – the process and implications for a young girl and woman

# shoes and how they express – or restrict – who we are

# the ideal woman

# what if we cross gender barriers and dress as men?

# love and marriage

# the messages I absorbed from my Chinese heritage and how they shaped how I tried to live my life

# who is the real me?

 

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You can follow my Mood Board on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/StoryGuru/bound-feet-blues-solo-performance-piece/

Bound Feet Blues – Solo Performance Piece

Black high heels feature in my story about women, identity and empowerment Bound Feet BluesContrasting the tiny delicate beautiful shoes of bound feet women and their mutilated feet underneathRed cheongsam with slit – much more demure than the one I had.

I also talk about the power of men’s shoes and how, as a child, I was fascinated with what it might be like to be a boy. Photos of cross dressing movie stars like Julie Andrews and Katherine Hepburn were also helpful to get me thinking about this theme.

I will be adding more images as I develop the piece further.