Lovely Doll.

Lovely Doll
Lovely little doll, daughter, sitting on the velvet couch. the daughter with the dark eyes sitting there digesting every action. (“but she’s so quiet!”) never spoke unless spoken to. Oh what a good little fucking angel I was. wanting to spit in the face of authority that shrunk my insides, took the butterflies of life and spit out creeping cockroaches. the authority always taking my heart.

the little anorexic-looking ballet girl dressed the way Mom intended at age 9,10,11,12, 13. doing/saying (mostly) what was expected of me. swallowing it all – chocking. Oh what a fucking little angel in pink, wishing to explode, to express those untold words, worlds that I could barely keep under my tongue. Oh what an up roar when I wore men’s clothes: “I thought I had a daugher!”

Oh and my anger/upset feelings are of no concern, as a matter of fact I was told to “be quiet,” as I always am if I express any emotion that is too excited. (what a moody little girl at age 32.) just medium emotions here, we don’t do any extreme of emotion that would be too… eh, extreme. that would be having an opinion, that would mean I have one, that I matter, that I think – have the gaul to think I matter, to exist. to exist as something other than a play doll that came from my mother’s womb. that would mean I do more than what I am told, that would mean I think! thinking would make me a person who reasons, who has butterflies in her tummy for things that maybe matter to me. that have personal symbolization. I’d be human! I’d err. I’d also kick, scream, laugh, cry, reel, fuck, breathe. I’d be a puzzle to unravel and that would mean I was more than a doll, dressed like a ballerina, twirling when you wind the music box

proposing.

Proposing – not so much for marriage but for art exhibits… I tell many non-art people that its not so much about what you do as an artist, its your artist statement. You can exhibit a car door (as one student at UMASS did for one of my classes), and as crazy as it sounds, if you can bullshit your way through why you have this car door, why its a piece of art, and the statement its making makes people (even just one or two) nod and say, ‘ah..’ you’ve done your job as an artist. Artist statements and proposals are hard. You sit and stare at it for hours, the thought process and coming up with a concept, I find, is more difficult than the execution. The execution is the fun part.

So here’s the beginnings of yet another proposal.. I have the idea, its forming it into a art-world marketable product that is the difficult part. If I don’t get this exhibit, at least I have the idea in a legible written form opposed to a bunch of scribbled sentences here and there in my sketchbook:

I feel that society still mostly frowns upon a woman who stirs up any sort of controversy, is aggressive, assertive, or exhibits any behaviors that doesn’t correspond with society’s preconceived notion of how women (and girls) are to behave. After studying gender socialization in college I have become interested in how behaviors that are okay for males are a no-no for females and vice versa. Gender socialization gives us ideas about what it is to be ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ in society and within our culture.

Currently working on a series of paintings, based on the quote:”well behaved woman seldom make history.” I want to create portraits of real and fictitious ‘bad girls,’ ‘bitches,’ and the misbehaving woman. Thus far I have completed one for an upcoming Lizzie Borden exhibit at Gallery X. I have sketches and drawings in the works for more portraits for such figures at the Queen of Hearts, Medusa, and Queen Elizabeth I. Furthermore, I have been considering painting the portraits on domesticated items such as cutting boards, serving trays, kitchen tables, ect. elevating these every day domestic items to an art form.

Beauty Processes

I am currently reading “Look at My Ugly Face” by  Sara Halprin. It makes me think back to many things… My mother worrying (more than me) about my appearance. She feared ridicule from my classmates, if I didn’t look a certain way, like she experienced due to her overbite. My classmates still picked on what they thought “easy prey,” the skinny (read frail), big eyed, quiet/shy girl. Yet I had boyfriend after boyfriend, while my Mother’s obsession with how I looked reached manic proportions. I recall her once vigorously brushing out my curls after a mud hair treatment to make my hair, I don’t know, less frizzy, less curly? She claimed my hair “was in knots.” I think the “knots” where just my curls. The result of her brushing my curly hair was that it frizzed out. She proclaimed the product a failure to make my hair “normal.” What was “normal” I couldn’t have told you. She made me try hair product after hair product in hopes of a miracle cure to my wild curls.  Nothing short of shaving my head will cure them.  Along with her obsession with my hair, my mother also became concerned about skin care regime. She would buy skin product after skin product claiming the few pimples I did get as a tween/teen were due to the fact I washed my face with Noxema. One of the products she made me try, burnt my skin so that it was red and blotchy for a few days.

I learnt early on what a hoax/joke the beauty process was. I think somewhere around 15, I rebelled against it all. I found grunge/alternative music that made it appear that it was okay to look like crap if even your a girl. The girls in the Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” video looked perfectly accepting of how they looked. I wore men’s clothing, I ditched the make-up, I wore mismatched clothes on purpose (that drove my now ex-boyfriend insane). I made the most of my long frizzy curls in barrettes, braids, splitting my hair into sections and making a bunch of knots on top of my head like Bjork in the ‘Big Time Sensuality’ video.

bjork

I began emulating male artists as much as females. No one scoffed at Eddy Vedder with his unkempt hair – maybe his mother did, but I didn’t hear about it. People, for the most part, thought he was cool back in the 90′s. My ex-boyfriend wanted to be him, and I kind of did as well. I had reached the point where I didn’t want to simply just attract men or women. I wanted them to like me for my beauty and brains.  And most importantly, I wanted to be on equal footing with men and boys. I could ask boys out – a concept that nearly drove my female family members insane, while my female friends cheered me on. One would think that my family knew right then, I was never going to grow up to be a stereotypical woman. Yet… it took years for my grandmother to stop telling me about places I could go to meet nice guys.  And my mother has finally stopped encouraging me to wear the eye make-up that makes my eyes itch. I suppose itchy eyes are just part of the female ritual I was supposed to be part of… I wanted to be beautiful, there’s a part that still does, but sometimes its such a pain in the ass, and not always worth it.

remember what and who you are voting for…

just because they have a vagina doesn’t mean they are good for the country… you may want to take a look-see at this if you own a vagina or care about those who do…
Palin and the Politics of Rape

androgyny

I feel we are not entirely ‘female’ or entirely ‘male’ more like we are hovering somewhere in between. I identify with being ‘female’ but grew up with boys. One these boys played Barbie dolls with me – I never told anyone, I knew the ridicule he’d face, it was the unwritten and unspoken agreement between us. Yet I owned toy cars, and played football with the boys. Everyone knew that. That was somewhat acceptable as long as a threw on a dress every once in awhile, and I had that Barbie collection at home. We are products of gender socialization, a culturally and socially constructed idea of what it is to be masculine or feminine within society and culture.

Please make a donation to RAINN (reference: GBBMC2008 + my name with your donation. )The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline with a nationwide partnership of more than 1,100 local rape treatment hotlines, providing victims of sexual assault with free, confidential services around the clock. The hotline helped 137,039 sexual assault victims in 2005 and has helped more than one million since it began in 1994.

far from ideal…

Author Rachel Simmons in her book “odd girl out: the hidden culture of aggression in girls” interviewed girls and women about how girls and women are aggressive towards each other. Its different, as any girl or woman can tell you. So in her interviewing process she asked a group of girls aged 13 – 17, one quarter were nonwhite, what qualities would you consider the ideal or perfect girl to have. Then she asked the same group what qualities would the ‘anti-girl – the one no one wants to be’ have.

Ideal Girl
Very thin
pretty
blonde
fake
stupid
tall
blue eyes
big boobs
fit
manipulative
romantically attracted to someone with status
perfect
happy
helpless
girlie
dependent

Anti -girl
mean
excessively cheerful
athletic
brainy
gay/lesbian
independent
strong
masculine
professional
dark features
artsy
opinionated
not social
not skinny
Promiscuity (slut)