A Hairy Issue

The link below is what inspired this entry please have a watch. 

http://www.itv.com/thismorning/life/hairy-women-debate/

So I shave. I am not a hairy woman, I am not hairless and always smooth but I do de-fluff my pits, flower and legs roughly twice a week. Why? I honestly don’t know. Its one of those things that if you are a British woman you just do. I remember my first shave like my first bra. I remember my mum pointing out that I had some hair under my arms when I was about 11 and being instantly ashamed and desperate to shave the hairs off.

It’s the done thing I guess, if you’re a woman you have lively well-kept head hair and you get rid of your body hair and pretend it does not exist. I’m sure most women will agree body hair is a pain in there arse, we have it all over us and I fell like it’s a constant friggin chore. You shave, it feels lovely for all of five minutes then you are like a walking sheet of sand paper till you choose to shave again. Or maybe you are a brave sister and you wax, the results are better and last longer but it is expensive and bloody painful (especially in one particular area). Maybe you epilate or use cream who knows, all good methods. I wonder though if there are any women reading this who don’t do any of these things who just let there natural body hair run its coarse.

A couple of years ago whilst at university a friend had an idea for a project entitled “Un-hinged Minge” J. We were going to leave our pubes to flourish for six months at least documenting their growth and our experiences and then shave them of and make art with them. HAHA love it! So when faced with this idea my first worry was my sex life. Then my second thought was won’t It make me smelly as for some reason I thought that one of the reasons women shaved was for hygiene reasons, when in fact I don’t think that is true I’m pretty sure its purely for aesthetics.

My story with shaving is quite a simple one I always shaved my legs and armpits since puberty always it was just what girls did, but I only started shaving my vagina when I became sexually active, I think it was because I just thought that men expected women to have no hair down there when of coarse that is simply not true.

Hair in women can be a huge cause of low self-confidence, there are conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome witch can cause quite excessive hair on females that shatter the confidence of many women young and old. And women as they get older and reach menopause often experience facial hair, and many have painful cosmetic treatments to try and rid them of it.

The truth is hair is an absolutely natural part of our anatomy. Fine hair covers all of our body but It seems that women in Britain, America and no doubt countless other countries are given no choice about keeping there body hair tidy and in may cases at a bare minimum unless they want to be viewed as hippies, dirty, freaks or one of those bloody feminists. I think shaving ect has become learned behavior and in the past twenty years pubic hair has had almost as many trends associated to it as the hair we primp and preen on our heads. I must admit I feel much better with hairless legs hairless armpits and controlled hair growth on my lady bits. I do not think I would like to be a truly natural woman, but I don’t know, I think I would like my daughters to have a choice. Hopefully we will one day get to a situation where it’s a choice for a young girl and she does not automatically feel that all body hair that is not in vogue must be pulled out or cut off.

I remember watching this documentary a couple of years ago now. Its well worth a watch. I found some of the self worth placed on something as small as body hair very worrying. Its another obvious peice of evidence that there is far to much pressure on wimen to conform.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hairy-women

Marina abramovic

Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful.

What do you think?

Marina herself reflects on this 1975 performance saying that she thinks that art should not be beautiful it should be violent and disruptive. I dodn't know what I think. For this project I do hope to make beautiful art and photography from the female body and females testimonials, but that is not to say that the subjects them self's would say they were beautiful. The truth be told I believe art is an open book and no two people will ever take the same message from a piece. As an artist or curator you must accept you can only make the work in the way you want, and then put it out into the world to be endlessly re interpreted by the viewer. I guess the art is only yours for as long as the tools are in your hands.

you can only try your best ;)

So here are some of the sketches and bits and bobs I have done on the side. I have no formal training HAHA! still they are important to my thought process and the project and therefor important to your good selves. They were just taken on my phone as i don't have a camera at the moment, i will put higher quality images up when i can. :)

The Lovely Elizabeth

Hello everyone.

Here is a great new Flesh, Blood and female short film by Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a 25 year old BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) model known as Sailor Rose. She has a refreshing perspective on her body that I believe goes against what is preached to us and believed at this time. A big thank you to Lizzie. Watch, Think and Enjoy :)

The thing I liked best about Lizzie's video is this. I believe that today almost every woman in the stratosphere is on a journey to get their desired body, but Lizzie went on a journey to understand her body not to get anything. Maybe if we ladies who are always trying to change how we look to gain self acceptance put as much effort into getting to know and accepting the bodies we have and excepting the changes in our bodies we would feel a little better and more liberated. I think we would anyway, So cheers Lizzie I never thought about that before even though it seems so obvious.

Where I Stand

In writing and managing this blog and creating work to accompany it I am playing the role of an artist. A body artist, and If I am honest this is a title that makes me slightly uncomfortable because of the elitism co notated by the term ‘body art’ and possibly art in general. However I love body art especially the more extreme artists like Marina Abramovic and Franco B, they fascinate me, but I also love the relateable tone of other artists work take Bobby Baker for example.

 I would not have known about these artists were it not for my chosen degree and I think for many people the world of contemporary body art and performance seems unapproachable and completely irrelevant but that is not what I want my work to be. I want it to be fully inclusive of everyone no matter their knowledge or interests. We all have bodies and we all have trouble accepting that our bodies are normal, desirable and acceptable. I am trying to promote awareness and acceptance of the difference in female bodies and celebrate the problem area’s we have, and in a way shout FUCK YOU to the voices in society that we feel judge us but most importantly, to the voice in our heads that judges us daily.

I was very unsure of the pictures I published in my last post ‘Skuddy Buff’. I worried about their artistic merit, and also worried about the fact that when I jumped my tits went one way and my belly went the other. But after having a bit of time to reflect I really like the impression they give. I feel they are joyous and rebellious and it helped me to form a firmer artistic vision for my future photographs and work for the project. I love the idea and enjoyed the experience that you can be vulnerable and have really very little self-confidence but, fight through that, stick two fingers up, dance and except your self even just for a minute and just not care. I feel that that’s way the three of us felt in the shoot and if I may say I'm proud of the photos and hope they encourage others to get involved.

I would like my work to be able to be read by those looking at it as a piece of art and those who look at it as a photo of something that is rarely seen. I hope and believe my work has a place in the art world but ,I know it has a place in society in general which is what is most important to me.

In the book The Body in Contemporary Art the following is stated while discussing the painting: Matrix(1999)   by Jenny Saville,

Saville’s painted flesh describes an aesthetic of excess that is in turns abject and luscious, and mounts a direct attack on the demand for large, mortal and unruly bodies to be kept our of sight.

ON YOURSELF Ms Saville is my reaction!

I will fight that fight too. All bodies should be seen and accepted, everyone will still have preferences and there will always be the image and physique that is in vogue but lets just try to take the freak show out of anything that goes against the general acceptance and expectation of what a woman SHOULD look like.

http://www.franko-b.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramović

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Saville
http://www.bobbybakersdailylife.com/

Pageants Part 1. WORLD PEACE!

I wanted to do a thread on beauty pageants, as they are something we all know a little about. I bought a book the other day called Pageant: The Beauty Contest by Keith Lovegrove. I have been reading it and it got me thinking. I couldn’t see a better event to write about. This is project looking objectively at the female form. And I believe that female pageants no matter how unconventional parade the female body as spectacle.

A Bit Of History

Miss Great Britain and Miss World were both on television from the early 70’s and were seen as a big TV night in for a family, like the grand national or the Eurovision song contest. In the early 70’s the critiques of the pageant were not about, is it right to objectify women in this way but, were about what was proper. You know questions like was Miss Bournemouth’s dress to showy or is Miss Brightens skirt to short.

 However things seemed to change rather quickly towards the end of the 70’s –possibly due to the change in thinking at the time with the end of the tune in drop out!  hippie days and the beginning of the rebellious punk scene- people began to question the morality of parading those thought the most beautiful women in the country before panels, and judging them mainly on there looks. There were protests against pageants witch resulted in them vanishing from popular TV channels for quite some time.

By the early 1990’s the popularity of the pageant was at its height again, with miss world fetching huge audiences worldwide. In the book Lovegrove implies that it is the worlds fascination with beautiful woman and the spectacle of the females that allowed the pageant to go from strength to strength. The writer Sais that the again growing popularity of these famous pageants proved that politically incorrect ‘sexploitation’ was still very popular.

As you may have noticed the pageant is still a popular formula for entertainment today, especially in America but in Britain too. I just wonder why it is that they are so popular. What is it that makes people want to watch them? Is it just that people like to look at beautiful things, and the woman who take part in these events are judged the most beautiful in there region or country? Or is it the Big Brother fascination? The same thing that makes us watch show’s like America’s next top model, or read heat magazine.

Pageants are very exclusive events that pick the best or most appropriate people according to the criteria the pageant follows. And there for, I don’t know if they are a good thing. But I will speak more about that later.

There is a quote in the book from Denise Quinones who was crowned Miss Universe in 2001.  What I’m most proud of is that I had the chance during my reign to serve as a role model of ‘beauty’ truly is. It is something that can be appreciated only from with in oneself. It is not about how you look on the outside, but how you feel in your own skin that is the important message. It is about belief in yourself and in your confidence. It is not about having a beautiful face, but a beautiful soul that extends to others.” Now I thought this was a lovely quote, I was quite surprised. Then I got thinking, this is coming from a very beautiful woman who won a contest that only beautiful women can enter and win and for me that totally undermined what was said.

I believe pageants judge people mainly on their looks (although some would disagree with this). Now there are many different kinds of alternative pageants witch I will cover in the next section of this thread. Still, to me no matter what sort of pageant is up for discussion they all pigeon hole women in to a category in away, and I think there is enough insecurity in female body politics with out further segregating our self’s in to categories.

There will be further entries on this coming up. Part two will focus on the rebellion against traditional pageants, and the result of this. 

I Plead Temporary Insanity

Hello all,

So the following piece of writing is one that i did very much in the moment. i wrote it at i point where i felt truly awful about myself. it will probably read like a 16 year old's angst filled diary entry, but i will share it with you to show how volatile my relationship with my appearance is. today i feel ok, good even, I'm just me, i look like how i look everyday and I'm mostly ok with that but only a few days ago i felt like this:

As I write this I am watching super size vs super skinny on channel four, I watch it every week, and to be honest I don’t know why because every week it makes me feel the same way.  I’m sitting almost shaking with nerves, seeing my self in the very over weight people paraded in front of the camera in an almost freak show like manner. I see my reflection in every single one of them. I just think I look exactly the same. The more I watch the more nervous I get and it feels like my heart hurts. Then when they are introduced to there equally unhealthy counter parts I’m ashamed to say I am jealous f there flat stomachs and distinctive facial bones.

Its strange I know I am smaller than the very large subjects of this documentary, but I just see so much of me in them. I have my abscess like fold in my tummy where it meats my genitals. And I feel my large breasts heavy on my chest; my chin seems to be blowing up like a seaside dingy. The way I feel inside my skin changes so much in just this one hour this show runs.

Why do I feel like this? Its not rational. Today I ate well, I Had nice yummy food I enjoyed it, it was healthy. But I panic that the tuna salad I had for tea was to big and that maybe I shouldn’t have had two slices of toast at lunch that one would have sufficed.

This makes no sense because if you were to talk to me in my  more lucid moments I would say, ye him a bit fat, but if I just stabilised my weight I would be happy with the way I look…I think. Would I? Is it ok to be my size?

That’s what I wonder is it ok to be my size.  Well is it? Sadly that is a question only I can answer, but I don’t know I ever will, as clearly the question is less about biology and more about psychology.

It is embarrassing for me to write this because it seems so irrational and yet even as I read this back and smirk at how ridiculous it sounds in my heart I still feel like a little useless girl stuck in a monstrous body.   

I feel fine now, but its mad isn't it how some things we watch or read ect, can totally change our state of mind, even if only for a short time. I hope other people feel the same way sometimes haha! and that I'm not just very easily effected by things around me. i imagine as always many people can relate.

xx