Stateside loves to hear from listeners with ideas for stories and people we should cover. Here's a great tip we got from Stateside listener, George Bollinger: Crowns of Courage.
The art of decorating the body with henna is truly ancient, going back over 5,000 years.
The intricate henna tattoos might be applied simply for their beauty, or they can symbolize passages in life.
Such is the idea behind Crowns of Courage: celebrating women who are fighting cancer by giving them elaborate, beautiful henna tattoo crowns.
The project began in Grand Rapids in 2016, and was later showcased during ArtPrize.
Amanda Joy Gilbert, the creator of Crowns of Courage and henna tattoo artist, and Becky Richard, a breast cancer survivor and one of the women who has been crowned, joined Stateside to talk about the crowning experience.
Listen above to hear where the idea came from, what kind of reactions people have had to the henna tattoos, and what's in the future for the Crowns of Courage group.
Support for arts and culture coverage comes in part from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.
(Subscribe to the Stateside podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or with this RSS link)
