Trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own... Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone from her 1950s rural village to the pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the henna artist-and confidante-most in demand to women of the upper class. Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a young girl in tow-a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman's struggle for fulfillment in society, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once fascinating, stark and cruel.

One glassine packet of powdered henna with applicator cone.

Nikita’s family takes pride in creating beautiful henna art, and she’s ready to try her hand at it—but it’s harder than it looks! Nikita is part of a long line of henna artists. Her grandmother even brought a treasured notebook of designs with her to the US when she moved here from India. But the first time Nikita tries to make henna art, the mehndi paste looks like an ugly blob, and she feels like giving up. Still, she continues watching her mother and grandmother make gardens bloom on hands and is intrigued by the beauty of it all. Will she find the courage to try again? New York Times bestselling author Varsha Bajaj’s poetic text and Archana Sreenivasan’s dynamic illustrations perfectly capture Nikita’s frustration, then pride, as she takes part in a beautiful family tradition.

The magical art of mehndi, or henna painting, has been practiced for centuries in India, Africa, and the Middle East, and now it has finally arrived in the West. Packed with inspirational photographs of traditional and contemporary mehndi, this complete resource offers everything you need to create your own beautiful henna designs, including: • dozens of practice exercises and sample illustrations • a foolproof recipe for mixing the henna paste • step-by-step instructions on how to apply your mehndi design • insider's tips from professional mehndi artists and more!

Cultural Anthropology integrates critical thinking, explores rich ethnographies, and prompts students to think creatively about today’s culture and society. Authors Serena Nanda and Richard L. Warms show how historical studies and anthropological techniques can help readers reflect on the nature, structure, and meaning of human societies. Updates to the Thirteenth Edition include a new chapter on race and ethnicity; emphasis on areas such as inequality, power, gender, race, and history; discussions of issues around medical care and public health; and new features that reflect changes in world culture. This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package. Contact your SAGE representative to request a demo. Learning Platform / Courseware SAGE Vantage is an intuitive learning platform that integrates quality SAGE textbook content with assignable multimedia activities and auto-graded assessments to drive student engagement and ensure accountability. Unparalleled in its ease of use and built for dynamic teaching and learning, Vantage offers customizable LMS integration and best-in-class support. It’s a learning platform you, and your students, will actually love. Learn more. Assignable Video with Assessment Assignable video (available in SAGE Vantage) is tied to learning objectives and curated exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life. Watch a sample video now. LMS Cartridge: Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site. Learn more.

Illustrated throughout with sumptuous colour and black & white photographs, this book covers contemporary African fashion in its widest sense taking in clothing, textile, and hair design, body decoration, and the work of models.

The term bodylore was coined for the American Folklore Society in 1989 to focus concerns with body language, costumes and accoutrements, movement, discourses, and representations, considering the human body as a cultural artifact rather than a natural object. Ten essays from various panels since then explore such topics as women in the American spa culture, body puns in Hamlet, quilts and women's bodies, and medical discourse. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

From wall art to jars and stationery, Mehndi for the Inspired Artist presents a step-by-step approach to creating a variety of mehndi patterns for artwork, illustrations, and craft projects.

Because clothing, food, and shelter are basic human needs, they provide excellent entries to cultural values and individual aesthetics. Everyone gets dressed every day, but body art has not received the attention it deserves as the most common and universal of material expressions of culture. The Grace of Four Moons aims to document the clothing decisions made by ordinary people in their everyday lives. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily in the city of Banaras, India, Pravina Shukla conceptualizes and realizes a total model for the study of body art—understood as all aesthetic modifications and supplementations to the body. Shukla urges the study of the entire process of body art, from the assembly of raw materials and the manufacture of objects, through their sale and the interactions between merchants and consumers, to the consumer's use of objects in creating personal decoration.