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.

The after-effects of shopping.

I am seriously thinking of starting a movement against the fashion industry’s insistence on seductive, body-conscious clothing. I want to look fashionable and not like my grandmother. I need to look professional — I can’t show too much skin, cleavage and the like. Yet, all I can find is see-through and/or low-cut shirts — a small-chested woman shouldn’t have to worry about cleavage! Not to mention if I’m spending $20-30 on a shirt, I don’t wish to have to buy another shirt to wear under the shirt I just bought! That is stupid. And see-through T-shirts are dumb. If I’m wearing a T-shirt it means I just want to wear one shirt, not two.

As for dresses, don’t get me started on 25 inch dresses for young women! Who wears?! When your 5’9″ do you know where the seam of a 25″ dress goes?! Let’s put it this way, I’d be arrested for indecent exposure. Sure I can wear leggings under my shirt, eh dress, but do I want to have to wear leggings in August?

Can someone in the fashion industry get a clue?!

Maybe I should just start my *own* fashion line called “not a whore by Melanie Ducharme.”

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?

Purchase. Purchase.

Today’s piece is the result of my cleaning the drawer of doom. Said drawer of doom is where I put receipts, clothing tags, the directions on how to set my watch and buttons, lots and lots of buttons. I kept the buttons because I may one day figure out what shirts go with which buttons. I used the clothing tags as my testament to consumerism. Sure I wasn’t one of the hundreds of people at the Providence Place Mall yesterday carrying at least three bags of stuff – I had none. But judging from the huge collection of clothing tags I would have to say I do have a crazed desire to own lots of fabulous clothing.

Also, looking at the range of sizes for clothes in my own wardrobe could be a statement on how no one knows what size they actually wear! Yet some people are obsessed with wearing small sized clothing, and being skinny. Unfortunately, the clothing manufacturers purposely make clothing large so people will feel good about their bodies and themselves.

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.

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.

Bustin’ out…

I was watching the latest episode of Pretty Little Liars on Hulu (because I’m addicted to the show) when this advertisement came on for a lingerie store. Said store is targeted at young women and teenage girls. Which makes pretty much everything they sell a bit questionable to begin with. But now, now Ladies, we can look two cups sizes bigger! No more stuffing your bra and hoping it doesn’t fall out during cheerleading try-outs. Now there’s a super-size-me bra for all your lack of large breasts needs.

I admit, I like breasts as much as the next dyke, but this is just f’n insane! When watching this ad, I’m not sure if I should be really turned on, creeped out or deeply offended. The ad features an attractive young woman bouncing around in a room full of flowers wearing nothing but this super-size-me bra and panties. Allegedly, not only will the bra make you look like you have big fake breasts, but it will give you “double whoa.” uh-huh. The ad is somewhere between being sexy, yet cute… and possibly wrong and disturbing since this ad is just as much for men and women as it is for a thirteen year old girl who wants to look like a D-cup.

In honor of this breast-obsessed insanity, I drew this…

Our Breast Obsession.

I’ve been thinking about breasts. But not in the naughty way that you’re thinking that I’m thinking. I’m trying to understand society’s obsession with large breasts, with making breasts look bigger—and presumably better—with padded, push-up, gel, water, foam, what-have-you bras. It’s as if there is an unwritten rule that says: bigger is better, even if you’re already a D cup. I once read on a Bust.com forum for “small-busted women” numerous comments from the small-busted who claim they won’t leave the house without wearing a push-up, padded bra!

Walk into any store that sells bras and you have to wonder, why do women feel they need bigger breasts? Sure, big breasts are fun and showy, but when did we, as a society, start telling every woman that her breasts are inadequate unless they’re porn sized. There is so much padding and lift and underwire that bras feel like the poor gal’s breast enlargement. And there is little choice not to buy into this when shopping: Go to anywhere that sells bras. There are at least several push-up bra options. Even some of the wireless bras have padding. Kohl’s has more push-up bras than any other store I’ve ever seen! Kohl’s sells a bra that claims to make breasts appear “two cup sizes bigger!” I was stunned when I saw this. Who, I repeat, who feels that her breasts are so inadequately sized that they need this bra?! Even making breasts look one cup size bigger seems completely ludicrous to me considering many of these sorts of bras go up to a C cup, and some go up to a D cup. Why does a C or D cup need to look bigger?

I thought this was 2010. I thought we were liberated. The feminists of the 70’s who burned their bras must be shaking their heads sadly to see how far we, as women have come. We’re here, we demand equality, we vote, and we wear Wonderbras that make us all look like D-cups.

Hey, I love breasts as much as the next dyke, but I’d like to feel like I’m not wearing my big-fake-boobs bra. Besides, what if someone sees me minus this bra? They’ll wonder what happened to those huge jugs I had yesterday.

edited by AC Martínez

Just like family, your stuck with it.

Freud would’ve had a field day with the anxiety I used to have about having my period. The plotting and planning that came with the event: what to wear to accommodate bloating and/or accidents (black is fabulous for this purpose and always a classic). I’m surprised that I got decent grades because not only did I have insomnia, but I’d be filled with worry about ruining my clothes and/or when to use the ladies room, with its two stalls that weren’t broken. There was five minutes between classes to get from one end of a large two story building to possibly the other side and through over a thousand students. How one gal was expected to use the ladies room during this this time, is beyond me. Teachers weren’t always the most helpful, if you raced to class, sweating and slightly out of breath so that you could get a pass before class started, they’d make you wait until they took attendance. Occasionally they would forget all about you and start teaching class! Once they started, you couldn’t ask then, because then you were “disruptive!” Did i mention that tampons and maxi-pads don’t have that all day at school protection every female would prefer? Maybe the anxiety started with my first period and I was wearing prissy white pants — as if adolescence wasn’t a pain in the ass to begin with…

I had breasts when I was still wearing feet pajamas. I wore them until Emily’s slumber party, it was either 4th or 5th grade. In packing my belongings before the party I was torn between my cozy feet pj’s and a nightgown that always wound itself around my waist in my sleep. I chose the feet pajamas. At 5pm that night, we all crammed into Emily’s bedroom to change into our pj’s. There was about ten of us. The reaction when they saw the feet pj’s was, “Oh my god, Melanie!” The horror, they all wore nightgowns like ladies… I was like a big overgrown child! I just imagined Emily’s family asking the following day, “who was the girl in the feet pajamas?!” I believe I rid myself of every last pair after the party, but never the shame. Thankfully no one ever mentioned it in school the following Monday.

My first period was at age 12. It was a fine spring day. I was sporting my brand new white denim capri pants (it was the 80′s). I recall I had bought them with my allowance, at Ann & Hope in the women’s department. It was one of the first articles of clothing, that wasn’t childrens’, that I fit into! I was the last one of my friends still shopping at kids r us, and I couldn’t wait to graduate to adult clothes and adult bras (the adult bra took a bit longer). That day, I recall swinging at recess. I recall coming home, removing my pants and noticing that someone was murdered in my pants…

My mother told me not to tell anyone… as if I would have it announced the following morning at school, along with “The Pledge of Allegiance.” I guess she never anticipated my having a best friend who liked to look through the contents of my purse, “Does this mean you have it?!” She asked in an excited stage whisper, holding onto the pink wrapped maxi pad. We were at a school assembly, seated towards the back of the auditorium, she was holding it not up in the air, but at a level so that I could see it and maybe the people behind and around us if they cared to pay attention. She seemed more excited about it than I was—she didn’t have it yet. I could never understand the excitement and glory that the Judy Bloom book or or the new agey chics place on it. I’m not that excited even now. I’m fucking wide eyed, yet tired at 2, 3, 4am. My breasts ache, I have dark circles under my eyes, cramps, and a backache. I’m bitchy and most importantly: I’m bleeding! I don’t plan on breeding anytime soon, can’t I just shut it off when not in use, like a light switch?

I could go on birth control, which one, costs money to go to the dr to get it — $40 co-pay to be exact. Then I’d have to pay for the prescription and there’s the possibility, I could still be irritable and bitchy, those meds don’t come without their laundry list of “side effects.” They’re kind of funny when I see the medical commercials, but not so much when they happen to you. Aunt flow, just like family, your stuck with her until menopause—then a whole new world of fun happens.

In Utah, Miscarriage = Criminal Homicide

No Joke. Its funny that the person in the article mentioned that the people of Utah don’t want to be considered the joke of the US…

I worry about the overzealous religious fanatics that use their religion as an excuse for intolerance, bigotry and just plain stupidity. I may have not paid a whole lot of attention in catechism, but I know Catholicism didn’t teach people to be intolerant, women hating bigots, that its people blaming their religion for their own idiocy. I used to just outright hate and fear Catholicism until I thought about it – its not the religion/church, its the people running and/or following it, not the concept of the religion/church.

The US is going to hell in a hand basket when any state starts taking away the rights of a human being…

From the article:

Utah is not a state known for its legislative sanity.  This, after all, is a state that recently made headlines for proposing to honor gun manufacturers on Martin Luther King Day and for considering the elimination of 12th grade to cut back on education spending.

Well, it just got a whole lot worse.

Utah just became the first state in the U.S. to criminalize miscarriage and punish women for having or seeking an illegal abortion. Utah’s “Criminal Miscarriage” law:

• expands the definition of illegal abortion to include miscarriages
• removes immunity protections for women who have or seek illegal abortions
• treats women as presumptive criminals and leaves them open to criminal prosecution