Just Perfect.

Along with my crazy photo project, I am diligently sketching for new paintings. If only I were diligently making money to buy canvas for said paintings. Nothing says “starving artist” like searching through older works to see which one isn’t that great so I can paint over it. I found one on chipboard that Utretch failed to cut to anything resembling a frame size. I was able to get two smaller pieces for two new paintings! I’m recycling!

This drawing may turn into a painting for a series of works, or not. I was thinking about the concept of being “perfect.” I was thinking about how media and society dictate what the “perfect woman” is or isn’t. What does that look like? What message is that dictating to women and young girls?

This is the career woman, she “wears the pants.” She is also walking a fine line, you don’t want to be a “bitch” for being “too aggressive” or the “slut” who sleeps her way to the top either literally or assumed.  However, this woman may be successful, yet she is completely helpless. She is faceless, and therefore without a mouth to speak up for herself. Also, she lacks arms to defend herself or help herself. In the eyes of some, she is “perfect” she can’t speak up and be a “bitch”and she lacks arms to do anything that may otherwise compromise her “perfect” image/perception.

Only in Two’s

There will be no happy or sad love poetry today. There will be no special someone who reveals themselves like some sappy “girl movie.” There will be no flowers, chocolates or even a hot sassy date later for me. But there will be art… particularly this collage that I started last night and finished this morning:

This piece will possibly be part of a series (or not) depending on if I have time this semester to work on it and/or I just decide it was a bad idea. I was thinking of calling the series “The Domestic Lady.” Here is what I wrote about it in my sketch book:
The home always on the mind
The mindless busy-work tasks
How are we different from our fore-mothers?
How are we alike?

Tis the season to get more stuff

I reworked a sketch that originally was going to be about how women haven’t come far enough out of this restricted Victorian ideal… sexy, alluring models sell women womens’ clothing – just like in the Victorian era only we have more T&A, we still are paid less and some people think all we’re good for is making babies (like the government and those right winged folks who want to control my ovaries and every other womans’). Then,  I started to think about consumerism. So she is apparently thinking of faceless models in low-cut dresses, wine glasses, and flowers.

In the spirit of material objects… comes Jesus Christ Super Sale. I was listening to songs tagged “Jesus Christ Superstar” today on LastFm while doing some holiday decorating.

What I was thinking when making this image, is that it’s ironic that a religious holiday is also associated with mass consumerism.

new! and upcoming!

Today is the day! We’re hanging the House of Icon show at Gallery X… I’m somewhere between being so excited I’m like a kid with ADHD on Christmas Eve, and so exhausted that I could curl up anywhere and nap for about seven hours. The exhaustion is probably the time change, we fell ahead and now I’m all messed up. My body thinks its an hour later than it really is! What sadistic bastard came up with changing the time in fall and spring?!

And in more good things… here’s some art I didn’t have time to scan and post this past week. I feel it is very Halloween inspired, but fun just the same. The last piece was clearly inspired by watching Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween night.

Some girls…

I finally got around to scanning some work I did a week ago and one that I did last night.

The first two are my fierce looking chicks. I think the first one kind of reminds me of the girl with the dragon tattoo.

The following drawing was inspired by a woman in an online personal ad who so subtly mentioned that she isn’t looking for “skinny anorexic looking girls who look like boys” as if all us “skinny anorexic looking girls” just wake up in the morning thinking, “I’m not going to eat today!” As a “skinny girl,” I found it insulting even if I don’t identify as butch or as a boi. Hey everyone likes what they like, but there were far nicer, less bitchy ways of putting it… way to impress people too.

Macho Men

I’ve been reading about homoerotisim during the Victorian era… of course the book is more about the homoerotisim (is that a word?) between women during the Victorian era. It’s clearly inspired me nonetheless. Maybe my next image will be a homoerotic one between women.

The book I’m reading is called Between Women: Friendship, Desire and Marriage in Victorian England by Sharon Marcus.  The chapter on marriage is pretty interesting. I think the whole chapter on marriage should be sent to the government, see them try to say gays shouldn’t marry then! Okay maybe the whole argument that what was socially acceptable then should be now isn’t the greatest argument. But fact is, women then could have open, marriage-like relationships with another women and it was socially acceptable. How pathetic is it that its the 2011 and a gay couple, depending on where they live, can not marry each other, legally?!

Mini paintings.

One of the exhibits I am planning on putting work in is a mini art exhibit. The works are not allowed to exceed six inches… considering how large I typically work this was quite the artistic challenge. I rose to the challenge. I did two, 4×6″ pieces:

Best ending line of an overheard argument “Jesus! Why Don’t you Get a Job?!”

Vice (Thirst)

I was thinking to myself about being Macho. It’s like the masculine ideal. How in some circles it’s still the way to be. I wish I could say it’s just older people, but I feel (and fear) there may be some younger people who have this extreme view of gender and how one acts and shows how “manly” they are. The idea of being “manly” is by drinking, fighting, having sexual prowess, being the war-hero, being the hunter, the bread-winner, etc.

This is one of the ideas I had come up with…

girls.boys.both.neither

I started reading Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap by Peggy Orenstein. I had read sections for one of my classes this past semester, and I liked it so much, I bought the book — true story. The author went to two different middle schools in the early 90′s and observed girls. Her ideas were based on this article that said that education is failing girls especially in math and science. Thus far I find myself agreeing — yes this was my experience in school during this same exact time period.

At one point the author talks about the specific questions she asked girls, such as “Why is it great to be a girl?” I thought to myself: “why is it?” I couldn’t come up with an answer myself! It made me ashamed to call myself a feminist. But from a young girl’s point of view, really, why is it so great? Then again, is being male better, worse or equal? And to be more of a devil’s advocate, what is so great about being human? Humans are so messy… we have so much baggage that we inevitability carry with us through life. And in this day and age we all want what we want and we want it now.

This introspection brings me to drawing/painting (its mixed media)number one. And my thoughts on “what is so great about being a female?!” ::

Then I thought about how you need not chose to be a messy, baggage carrying victim be you male or female or both or neither. You can grow, you can evolve, you can be what ever you wish to create, what you imagine…

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