The Internalization of Oppression... My Art

In my own art, I'm currently working on a series exploring the process and effects of the internalization of oppression. I started this a few months ago with this ink sketchy-drawing. I've finally realized that the medium I was searching for was watercolour, so I'm going to redo this this in watercolour and do a few more like it in watercolour as well. This is the sketchy thing that started it:

The figure is naked and exposed... and ashamed of her body and by the deformity she perceives in it. She is passive. I tried to show this by positioning her arms behind her and her eyes closed. The imperfect sketchy technique I used was meant to communicate distress and hysteria. But I think that will come across better in the next version, with the watercolour. I also attempted to show her mental distress in the text. I held the pen at the top when writing so as to get a shaky, unstable effect. The words "No. SHE IS NOT DISTURBED BY HER OWN WRETCHED, DEFORMED, UGLINESS." are meant to be slightly sarcastic, but mostly evoking a sense of denial. As if, even though she believes these things and believes that society expects her to accept these things, she also feels pressure to pretend like she's okay with being "ugly." She feels pressure to suffer silently and bear it as an unavoidable truth.

I plan to do other watercolour portraits in this same format to the captions "She thought she could tear the ugly away. If not, she might at least have a beautiful skeleton." (This one will be about the way the sexualization of young women encourages them to see their worth only in their beauty, and how this has the potential to lead to self-mutilation. It will be a portrait of an ambiguous girl's face with her hand on her face, ripping into her skin) and "At least her heart was not ugly, They told her. When she dug it out to see if They were right, she found it to be just as repulsive as the rest of her." (A similar theme as the previous one. This would be a girl with an open ribcage, holding her beating heart in both hands)

I've also created a collage about the internalization of oppression. This piece focuses on the various way the beauty industries lead us to self oppression, and while silencing us, also make money. These pictures of it in process, before everything was glued down. I'm currently planning how to re-mount it, because I don't think the first round was very successful.

And because I know the quality of these aren't good enough for fine details, here are some close ups:

And...

Oh, also...

One more...

And I'll get some better, fine-detail-quality pictures up of the redone versions. For now, any critiques on these first-versions would be greatly appreciated!

Cartoon Commentary on Bikinis and Burkas

This is what I love about art- it comes in so many different forms, and each one has the ability to make you think. Here, Evans makes an interesting point about the different faces of patriarchy... and I'm still thinking about it, even though I saw this cartoon at least a week ago.

It reminds me that feminism is not limited to our own little community bubble- although communities are very important to work with. Feminism is not dead in the western world. There's still so much we need to improve in our own community. But we also need to remember that there's more to the world than the U.S.A. And the rest of the world is just as deserving of equality and basic human rights as we are. However, in the quest for feminism, we can't try to force anything on another culture. So when we enter into a conversation with another culture about human rights (or anything for that matter) we must go into that conversation understanding the other culture and respecting their right to be different. It is only through a respectful and informed conversation that the oppertunity for progress (for both sides) can be made.

"Embodiment"

Friday the 13th was the 2011 Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Student Colloquium at PSU. I've always been skeptical that Friday the 13th could be unlucky, but after dragging my friend around on a wild goose chase around campus for at least a half hour or two, looking for the building where the social justice art show was and just not finding it... I was rethinking my stance on superstition.

I did end up making it to one of the events, though, and it was a pretty rockin' one too, so the day wasn't all disappointment. The keynote speaker, Molly Landreth, was presenting/discussing her photography on the same floor that I had my french class, so I managed to stumble into that just by sheer dumb luck. She's a local(ish) artist (I consider Seattle fairly local) whose current project is called "Embodiment," which is a series a portraits that document and attempt to un-marginalize the queer community. After watching her presentation, I was struck by the way she captures her subjects... it just feels so honest. I also love her ability to evoke different moods, which range from quirky/fun to serious to sweet/intimate/tender. If you look through the photographs on her website, you'll see what I mean. Do it. Now. http://mollylandreth.com/

Her discussion about her work was, dare I say, equally as interesting as her work itself. In telling her story she said something that stuck with me. She said that she had to allow herself to take herself seriously. She had to believe that her voice and work were important. She said that it took guts at first, but was also really empowering. And that's how she made it. I think that's a really inspiring and important idea... as an aspiring artist myself, I often don't consider my work worthy of seriousness, because I'm just starting/not good enough yet/too young/ect. I have a lot of artist friends who are similar. And I think this is holding us back. Maybe this is something we all need to remember. So I'm telling you, my adored and valued reader, that your voice is important. And I believe you have an obligation to yourself to let it be heard. So whether that be art, writing, activism, or whatever else it is you're doing... do it loud and apologetically. Allow yourself to take your work seriously. Don't lose your sense of humour, but never hold yourself back.

Jumping Down A Feminist Rabbit Hole

Feminism isn't just about suffrage, equal wages or abortion. It's not just for lesbians or women who don't want to shave. It's about ending all forms of oppression and discrimination that plague everyone on the gender and sex spectrums. Women and men who want to break out of restrictive gender boundaries benefit equally from feminism.

I've always identified as both a feminist and an artist, but it wasn't until about a year ago that I started to realize how the two overlapped. In studying art, I started noticing the ways modern artists were still objectifying women just as much as the old masters did. I adore these artists, and I've nothing against nudity in art, but seeing the way in which these (mostly western) artists depicted women... it made me thirst for gender equality (aka feminism) in art. Time and time again, women have been portrayed in art as naked objects that the viewer has a right to see exposed and the artist has a right to use as a tool in their art. She is passive and accommodating, with an innocent and eager-to-please smile on. The body type illustrated is idealized and expressive of the time's standards of beauty. She is the epitome of femininity. This wouldn't be so frustrating if the gender boundaries were ever at all blurred a little. What I was beginning to thirst for was simply some diversity in the people represented. I wanted to see men represented in art just as often as women. I wanted to see diversity in body types and beauty. Diversity in the ways people were used in art- less passivity. I wanted to see the ambiguous, to see boundaries between the masculine and feminine blurred. Once I became aware of what was missing in the art I was studying, I started to see feminist issues everywhere else in my own world. It was like falling down a rabbit hole, and once I did, I couldn't jump back up.

This thirst for gender equality led me many different places in the art world and the world of feminism. Over the year or so that I've been searching for the places where these worlds collide, my thirst for feminism in art has intensified and also expanded. I intend to use this blog to share the places my search has and is currently leading me. Sometimes I'll post my own feminist art/poetry, but most of this will be dedicated to the exploration of what's already out there and deserving more attention. I want to discuss under-appreciated feminist art, but I also want to explore feminist issues in pop culture and go down some of the other roads that my thirst for feminism has lead me down.

It's time now. Come with me, we're not falling, but rather jumping purposefully into a feminist rabbit hole! 1... 2... 3.... JUMP!