today i read

it is the day where we talk about mental health, and i am not sure i want to talk about it, i am having a lot of thoughts about it, and i don't want to engage any of them right this minute. so. other people can talk. this is good, sad, helpful, true (sorry so tiny, click it, click it):

{sarah nicole pricket}

* snp tumblr ask january fifth

that is all.

blue

{alice & olivia spring 2015, photos courtesy of alice & olivia by way of style.com}

pre - uk 2014 part 2

the day before the day. pay attention to reflective surfaces.

today i read

 {durga chew-bose for adult magazine}

 

* the miracle of love streams

 

durga starts with a quote from cassavetes, and I will end with the end of it, because: yes.

 

"Finding tears coming into my eyes during stupid conversations is a miracle. And after so much of my life has been difficult, repellent, and a turnoff, I find that still being able to love is a miracle."
——John Cassavetes, Playboy magazine, July 1971

live on coffee & flowers

oh hallo, please come in. yesterday i completely re-orged my ensuite bathroom and i love it love it love it. so clean, so orderly. so pretty, so sassy, so jokes. uppity women unite. warning. adult language and nudity. and flowers. and ladies gettin' beheaded. and flowers, did i mention flowers. and boobs. xoxo!

in love with the hook

 

 {i see monsters, e & h}

EDMONTON! i have a show in the works art and design festival, and i'm pretty thrilled about it. 'in love with the hook' is up at manulife place, or site #7. (check out the full festival layout at the link above...)

and you absolutely MUST also visit site #9 and site #11 to see brenda draney and jill stanton respectively. those of you who knew me back in my undergrad days will remember brenda as being a studio-bestie, but she is also the greatest thing, and won the rbc canadian painting competition in 2009 and was longlisted for this year's sobey art award. like. huge dealz all over. and jill was a year or so behind me at u of a and is doing some of the coolest, grittiest, graphic-novel-like things out there. i don't know how to describe it effectively so just go seeee it. i'm sure the other shows are fan-freaking-tastic too because edmonton is just oooozing with talent. i so wish i could be in town to catch the festival. but i can't. so. YOU! DO IT! thanks, edmonton. (and thanks mom&dad for being such a great help in getting my work sorted and handed over to the appropriate folks. you're lifesavers. pineapple flavour.)

send it up

yes. exactly. awb is so fantastic. all of edmonton go to his show please. june 9th to august 18th at the art gallery of alberta.

ff

over the last few weeks, as i spend hoards of time scrolling through images on tumblr, i have been thinking a lot about nudity. something i haven't engaged in much since i was in art school... the thinking. i essentially see nudity in two ways.

one where it is this totally whatever thing, such a regular and mundane thing. anatomy. part of learning colour and light and flesh as an artist. it becomes universal and boring, almost. i hated drawing and painting nudes by the end of my art school career because it was so booooring. i felt like i could only tell an interesting story when there were clothes involved. and otherwise they were just studies. technical. and so the naked body was very 'meh!'.

but then, too, there is the politicalized/objectified/sexualized/empowered/inhibited body. (hey look! it s almost only ever the female body that ends up in this second category...) where body politics are so real and so polarizing... and of course such a huge part of feminism. bodily autonomy  is such a massive goal for women. how we handle our bodies. whether we have the freedom to choose both internally and externally how our bodies go through the world. when we are still slut-shaming and putting in women's hand the responsibility to not be sexual victims rather than attempting to progress the idea that maybe men should be responsible for whether or not they objectify and victimize. nakedness, then, is a very big thing. a short skirt is dangerous. is an act of rebellion.

so it is very conveniently timed that the following piece came my way this week:

*topless jihad day

and i thought YAY but also hmmmmm... how do i feel about women getting their tits out for a cause? the part of me that thinks of bodies as kind of silly things and nudity and really not a big deal thinks 'yeah! shake it up, ladies. ra ra! show the absurdity of women's breast being such a scandalizing thing when they are JUST BREASTS! just flesh. haha. wooo!' but the part of me that worries about the 'male gaze' and what bodies we deem appropriate to look at (aka skinny, conventionally pretty, young) and the degree to which these women are becoming, always, again, objects.

and then, YAY OH YAY! a really aces conversation on a facebook wall in response to the response to the above piece. allow me to quote some of the cool folks on the facebook machine. (THANKS JENN DUNCAN AND PALS!)

jenn said:
'As a woman, my main issue is with this persistent idea that by turning our bodies into objects -- even if we're the ones choosing to do so -- women will somehow break through age-old cultural taboos, customs, and laws that keep us socially and legally constricted.
... 
What remains interesting to be is what it means when women use their bodies as part of a subversive tactic. Is this an attempt to desexualise the body or are women using this to shock and sexualise the debate? What are the implications of these tactics?'

to which the replies ran as follows:
adele wessell:
'I'm really torn on this. For the first time in ages I haven't known how I felt about a protest action. Aren't they saying ths is my body and don't they get such a huge media response that might contribute to highlighting different issues than are normally reported...? At the same time I also find it hard to imagine people taking the bare breast seriously and it also not attracting a whole lot of creeps who like the femen Facebook pages for very different reasons. Is the measure of a good protest strategy the outcome or the debate. I've struggled... Not sure.'
jess duncan:
'I fully share your perspective. Women should own their bodies and attempts to de-sexualise the female body are fundamental to feminism, so long as they also respect sexuality, but I don't really think this is about that. I just get stuck on using the feminine body as a tool in political protest seems to reinforce so many of the challenges they are fighting. It's a tension inherent to late capitalism taken to a corporeal level. It's not their bodies on the line, it's their boobs and they don't control how the images are used which is where it gets more messy for me.'
emma hooper:
'I agree with Jess Duncan here, especially as all the footage I've seen (and since I notice this, I've been looking up lots) is of, well, hot girls. Where are are the women over 40's breasts? Is this, in some way, reinforcing the idea that a woman's body should be free and her own... so long as she's young and hot: aka not her own at all? I understand that there is a certain demographic drawn to protest, and that's fine, of course. But there's one striking picture of a cute 20-something topless girl protester next to a fully clothed 60-something woman protester. What's the message there?'
desmond leo:
'Societal change is quite often dictated by the extremes because those extremes set the boundaries for which to gauge the appropriate middle (so to speak). I absolutely applaud the case of the Fems using nudity as protest because it redefines the playing field. When one side of the argument is literally threatening death because a woman is improperly dressed (not even because they're naked), what else can you do but challenge that control with complete defiance? As for why there are not many older women who are naked and protesting in the same way - it is not because young women tend to sexualize their bodies - it's because the younger generations are still bold and ideological enough to challenge such ingrained institutions. Sure, in a perfect world, mature discourse would be the way to go. However, many of the freedoms we currently take for granted were at one point "extreme" and we only have those freedoms now because at one point a group of men/women decided to challenge that standard by "dressing naked" (figuratively speaking).'
cathleen kneen:
'Jess, I wouldn't go tops-off for the same reason that I quit smoking pot: If I am going to make a political statement, I want it to be clear and difficult to misinterpret. It is certainly true that media pick up on such actions, but I have never been able to trust the media to adequately communicate my message.' 

and there was more, too, said. but those are the ones that sum up nicely and ask the questions i like to see asked. i am very glad that this kind of discourse is happening in my world.

and now i will direct you off on a slight tangent, but one that has been a relevant backdrop to my thinking. snp wrote about nudity vs nakedness, and the conventions of beauty. (i love what she says about how she is never as happy being complimented on her 'natural' self rather than on her made-up dressed-up self. about the biased and very much rammed home idea of conventional beauty... 'natural' beauty... what we deem 'worth' looking at.) 

*no body is too nude for a billboard 

AND THAT'S IT FOR THIS WEEK! hahaha. that's all. did you make it all the way down here? my money is on mom, dad, and chris having dropped out way back around the first link... but if you did make it here. CONGRATULATIONS! YAY! i will give you a cookie next time we hang out. how's THAT! ha HA! 

happy friday, every bodies! 

wendy

emma sent me a comic-thing (more on that one later) which reminded me about wendy. wendy is a mess, yo. she just can't get it together.

(wendy is a great cartoon character created by walter scott. wendy is one of those awful art-scene types with the partying and insecurities and the drugs and the drinking and oh man, what a disaster, wendy! wendy is brilliant. i have thought about making a cartoon-zine-project a few times... i'm still thinking on it. but oooof, it would have to be good. i need to decide what exactly i want to do and say in such a thing. and also get un-scared of raw-awful-things. i'd hate to make something lacking in any edge. anyways. thinking. on it. wendy, wendy.)