tsunami 2

tsunami 1

going somewhere?

union suit me

More fooling around in the sketchbook. "Let Munsingware Union Suit You." Ah, the "union suit" - so many connotations. The advertising image of discreet yet tantalizing female forms takes advantage of that old catch-22, the purity/sensuality dichotomy, woman as virgin/mother/whore. The ad is of course for underwear, and it's a lovely drawing in early-twentieth century style.

As I get older I've come to appreciate anew the weight and density of these cultural "screens", layers through which women are seen and judged. The dichotomy and contradiction, of course, as well as the underwear. And while I've become more interested in and attracted to some of the garments associated with the female archetypes (aprons on the one hand, garters on the other), I fully realize the tendency of society to desire the symbolic female form over the complexity of the internal woman.

That said, I'm not a neo-feminist. I live in relationship with others. When I want to, I can use the language of a woman's body to my advantage, and I do so often. My body has never conformed to a contemporary notion of beauty, though I get close enough. I'm too tall, my hips are too wide, my thighs are too big, and until recently my hair was too short. Growing my hair long has catapulted me into a whole new realm of desirability, as has losing 25 pounds. I don't mind. It helps me feel better about myself -- versus swimming upstream. I've become a Christian too, and I doubt very much that God cares how much I weigh.To the point though, if people occasionally do what I want them to because my looks persuade them, so be it. I won't complain.

I've known men who wanted androgyny in a woman, but these guys are mostly closet bisexuals and underdeveloped college students reinventing the virgin for the 21st century (or rather, believing they have, though the flat-chested gamine took her place in the Western gallery of desirability long ago; and even androgyny has gone by the fashion wayside now.) Having very short hair never made me a prepubescent runway waif. I looked like a woman already in the 8th grade.

But I struggle still with that notion of purity, of goodness. More on this later. 

Updates: March 2011

- I'll be one of two Jurors for an annual exhibit of local artists at Crossview Lutheran Church in Edina. This is in conjunction with a CIVA show there, "Picturing the Parables."
- Gave a short lecture yesterday on the Arts in Worship, at Northeast Community Lutheran. Link coming (maybe) and perhaps a few images.

Haven't been sewing much lately, and in a stubborn turn of events the creative mind refused to generate any worthwhile interpretations of the "watershed" theme (entry deadline tomorrow), instead preferring to collage in one of the sketchbooks. See below.

 Both have in common some birds, and some empty space. A place where something could have been said, but wasn't. Behind the pink square; inside the muslin pouch. Substitute images there -- empty nest. Emptiness.

But an approach to something too, my continuing obsession with found objects and dead things, detritus. Picked up or observed on walks. My private life at street-level.

rain quilting

I'm watching a video over on Stephanie Forsyth's Fiber Nation, in which she demonstrates free-motion stippling; and I immediately notice, since the volume is up, that the sewing machine makes a very comforting noise -- like rain falling, a sound we go without for months and months in MN. No wonder my son used to love being in the sewing room while I worked -- it's probably the warmest room in the house, and small, and that sound.... The "white noise" effect, so calming when is just a nice steady straight stitch.

drat

Four projects on the table all of a sudden...stalled out on the bed quilt for the moment...a deadline of This Saturday, another at the end of the month...and the journal blocks a bust too...my mind bouncing around and the past three days, not much to show except YET ANOTHER new journal (Japanese book Moleskine, mmm) and a sketch for one of the works in progress... I drive myself nuts, I really do. Drat.