Not Lost Not Sold Not Given
collage (altered Polaroid photo, fragments from old books, and catalogue clippings)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Category: Ladybusiness
It Didn’t Seem Right to Us, Either
It Didn’t Seem Right to Us, Either
collage (altered Polaroid photo, illustration from Gray’s Anatomy, and catalogue clipping)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Do you ever feel like the world is just a little too interested in your ladybits?
It Was Always Adam’s Apple & Eve Reworked
Eve Was Born of a Peculiar Rib (reworked)
collage (dress pattern, fragments from old books, T pins, oil pastel, gears, brass brads, sand paper, and poplar tree leaf)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
It Was Always Adam’s Apple
collage (book and magazine clippings)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
I felt like the poplar leaf in Eve was popping out too much, and that it either needed to be toned down or to be balanced in the opposite corner. So I played around with adding gesso, then oil pastel, which helped. Since this is a creation myth, I though some sand paper would be appropriate. And then I remembered the little gears I recently got from Ms. Lea, and applied them with some tarnished brass brads.
The lower image uses a graphic from a biology book, the back page from an Anthropologie catalog, and a magazine clipping. Like most of the glue book type collages I\’ve done, it was a stream of consciousness exercise. This one turned out pretty well, I think.
Eve & Shame
Eve Was Born of a Peculiar Rib
collage (dress pattern, fragments from old books, T pins, and poplar tree leaf)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Shame?
collage (altered Polaroid photo, fragments from old books, and magazine clippings)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Brought to You By…
I watched 16 Children and Moving In last night. I’ve mentioned that I like a good horror story? Well, not only is the thought of having kids–much less 16 of ’em–horrifying, but the family the show was about squicks me out, too. The Duggars are ultra conservative fundamentalists, belonging to what is known as the Full Quiver, or Quiverfull, movement (Providentialism, if you’re Catholic).
Full Quiver proponents believe that children are a blessing from God, and that all forms of contraception–even NFP–are an abomination. Quiverfulls demonstrate their submission to God by maintaining “continual openness to children.” God alone has the power to “open and close a woman’s womb.” Any effort to interfere with his plans is a usurpation of his divine power.
Quiverfulls adhere strictly to biblical patriarchal values, wherein the male is the authoritarian head of household and the woman submits to him in all things. Women pursue traditional roles as homemakers, nurturers, and teachers. Quiverfulls–the mothers, anyway–commonly home school their children in order to limit their access to outside influences.
Quiverfulls believe they are raising an army for God. To them, children are weapons in a cultural arms race. They see it as their duty to out-breed the brown heathens of the world, and they’re not shy about making their motives clear. Quiverfulls fear a world in which white, Christian men are not at the top of the food chain, and they aim to make sure that doesn’t happen.
So, anyway, this is all a lengthy, round-about way of getting to my point: One of the sponsors of the show was NuvaRing. I about peed my pants laughing.
Little House on the Prairie: Fin
Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder, circa 1885
I mentioned a long while back that I was working my way through the entire series of Little House on the Prairie. Well, I finally finished season nine. One of the reasons it took me so long to finish was that I was busy moving. I also got distracted by having cable again. Mostly, though, the final seasons were increasingly depressing and disappointing and I just didn’t want to watch them. And then there was the fact that I’d recently re-read the books, and while the early seasons of the show departed significantly from them, the final seasons were all kinds of made up.
So, my final verdict is that the early episodes are great, but the later ones are kind of craptacular.
Dream Anatomy
Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams…, Amsterdam, 1690. Copperplate engraving with etching. National Library of Medicine.
Govard Bidloo (1649-1713) [anatomist]
Gérard de Lairesse (1640-1711) [artist]
In a discussion elsewhere, the subject of collecting and drawing bones came up. One person thought it was “really weird” to stop and draw/photograph roadkill, but sometimes that’s the best (or only!) way to get a good look at some animals. This sort of thing is nothing new. Artists and scientists have, for hundreds of years, been observing and rendering the anatomy of humans and animals. As I was Googling for examples, I came across this exquisite on-line exhibition from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health: Dream Anatomy.
The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, Birmingham, 1774. Copperplate engraving. National Library of Medicine.
William Hunter (1718-1783) [anatomist]
Jan van Riemsdyk (fl. 1750-1788) [artist]
Git Along Little Froggie
I woke up one morning last week to find a Spring Peeper fastened to my kitchen window. He was an itty bitty thing, no bigger than the first joint of my thumb. It was about 5am and I wasn’t really awake yet, so I didn’t get a very good picture of him. I should have turned on the porch light and used the macro setting.
Check out those adorable little suction pads on his toeses!
Non-sequitur: I often get frustrated that no one ever asks my opinion about current events. Because, you know, my opinion is Very Important. Or something. Anyway, last night I got a polling call from what I assume–based on the questions–to be a group associated with the John Hostettler congressional campaign. I was asked a few general questions about my political leanings, and was disappointed that none of the options allowed for Pinker than Pinko. Hrmf. Democrat will have to do, I guess. The race in my district is between Hostettler (R) and Brad Ellsworth (“D”[1]). I was unable to state to the poller’s satisfaction which of the Lesser of Two Evils I would vote for, because neither is an option for me. Yuck. Hostettler suffers from everything that is wrong about the Republican party, while Ellsworth is an forced-birther. I just cannot bring myself to support either of them.
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[1] The conspiracy theorist in me is alarmed at republicans masquerading as Democrats, and I think that is what is happening in Ellsworth’s case.
Patriarchy Blaming at the Grocery Store
I went into town this morning to run some errands. Stopping at the grocery store was at the top of the list. It’s Babbs’ 75th anniversary, and the place was packed. It was worth dealing with the wall-to-wall crowd, though, because their produce is really nice (e.g. beautiful green peppers that were grown locally for 50¢ each–mmmmmm).
There were long lines at each of the check-outs, so I had a bit of a wait. The old guy in front of me was chatting with a friend about how it sucked to be 80 years old. He just can’t do the things he could when he was 70. They commiserated for awhile, then, when the old guy’s turn came, he started bantering with the cashier, who must’ve been 16 but looked more like 13. The old guy hassled her about this and that, but she didn’t take any shit from him. Good for her! As he was loading up his things and she began checking my items, she told me to feel free to run over him with my cart. I said I was seriously considering it. He turned around and said, “God gave women such beautiful bodies, with pretty hair and eyes and all those curves. And then he had to go and ruin it by putting a mouth on you.” Hivemindy! I was thinking just the same thing about offensive, dirty old men!
Yaknow, I don’t know which is worse, men who think they have a God-given right to leer at women (or, worse, under-age girls!) or men who exert their white male privilege in order to put uppity girls in their places. Lucky me, I didn’t have to choose, because this asshole was a two-fer!
Shrine
Shrine
ink jet print on vellum, luna moth wings, chicken vertebrae, cicada shells, and pigmented beeswax adhered to board
The writing under the photograph is from Letters to Esther, taken from a letter written by Richard Glendening. It contains a highly romantic passage likening the innate goodness of women to that of angels. Men, conversely, are of a baser nature. It might have been a nice theory in 1920, but it holds women to an impossible standard while selling men short.
red paper boat 