Women's History Month - Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler tackles the big issues, sometimes with a sledge hammer, sometimes with a feather. It's easy to label her as a woman writer, a feminst, and thereby categorize her subject matter to a single note. This makes it easy to determine where her work fits in relation to our interests, beliefs, values; for corporations to figure out how to sell, and booksellers which part of the bookstore and on what shelf her work belongs.

Woman, feminist, especially feminist has become synonymous with anti-male. How? Why? dictionary.com defines feminist as the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. Not more rights, not taking anything away, just equal.

Despite the negative connotations of the word, I believe that if you love a woman, and especially if you have a daughter, or love a little girl, you really do want the world to value her, want her to thrive, want her to be safe, want her to become, and that this makes you a feminist.

"Gendercide" is the focus ofThe Economist March 4th, 2010 issue. Last year a I became friends with a woman from China who was part of an exchange program with my work. Once we got to know each other, she wanted to know why I hadn't had more children, especially since I only had one child, a daughter. The only answer I had was that I really only wanted one child and I was perfectly happy with her. She also had one daughter, and wished for a son, but more than one child is not allowed.

I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World

If you're asking yourself, why would anyone write about the secret life of girls? or thinking, who cares? Think about this: females are 53 percent of the world's population. That's the majority. So, why wouldn't you be interested in over half the world's population, especially in light of the fact that throughout history, almost every social or economic reform the world over has had its beginning with women.

I know I'm beyond lucky to live in this century, in this country, even in this state. If I'd been born a hundred years ago in the same circumstances, I'd have had zero rights under the law, and I mean zero. I wouldn't be allowed to speak in public, vote, keep wages I earned, and I'd be a wife in a gaggle of sister wives, all married to the same man. I'd be legal property. So would my children. The only birth control I'd have access to would be herbs like black cohosh and blue cohosh.

All the rights my daughter takes as her due, were in the nascent stage when I was in grade school. I got the message very early about which gender was valued more in my religion and family. Now that I'm an adult woman, things have changed, dramatically, but the foundation, the received messages, the fire in which you were forged, is at the core of your being, no matter how fast or far you run.


I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World Written in the same format as her watershed work, The Vagina Monologues (1998), Ensler’s latest mélange of dramatic voices continues the mission of her philanthropic organization, V-Day, to stop violence against women. Published for adults but aimed straight at young adults, this volume provides a searing look at the inner lives of young females today in entries that explore sex, violence, love, body image, materialism, identity, family, friends, and the future. “You Tell Me How to Be a Girl in 2010” begins the collection with a furious catalog of the state of a girl’s world, from global war to everyday heartbreak: “Girls younger than me are giving blowjobs / in homeroom / and they don’t even know it’s sex.” The sobering international voices include child soldiers, young sex slaves, girls whose boyfriends hit them, and girls who starve and cut themselves. Other girls speak of honesty, tenderness, freedom, accomplishment, self-love, and defiance: “My short skirt / is not an invitation / a provocation / an indication / that I want it / or give it / or that I hook. . . . My short skirt is happiness. / I can feel myself on the ground. I am here. And I am hot.” With moving forewords by Carol Gilligan and Ensler, this powerful title, interspersed with shocking “Girl Facts,” serves as a potent call to girls to honor their emotions and to readers of all ages to uphold human rights at every level, from the boardroom to the bedroom. from Booklist by Gillian Engberg

Poem Therapy at 8:18 P.M. - Maureen Gibbon

Maureen Gibbon

Magdalena Remembering
Maureen Gibbon

When I was young my body was money. I bought what I thought would
please me. I would have married a man who kissed the fine fan of bones in
my foot. I squandered my pretty breasts and thighs, looking for him.

I never slept beside those men. I sat on their laps and pulled kisses from their
mouths—but I never did sleep. Never dreamed. I couldn’t let them see
that in me: my pictures of red flowers, scented lakes, damask, orange trees.
In dreams I breathed water. In dreams I flew.

After a man left I’d stand a long time in front of the mirror, brushing my hair.
Thinking.

My belly’s empty and I want something sweet.
My belly’s empty and I want something salt.
My belly’s empty and I want a bitter thing.

Somewhere there is a bird like my soul.

Yes, I believe that somewhere there is a bird like my soul, wanting a sweet, wanting a salty treat, and then something sour so that the body craves sweetness yet again.

Tonight, my soul is rather like a bluebird, a brilliant-hued ribbon against the silhouette of the noon day sky; a joyful symbol for those who choose to look up, look to the sun.

You can read more of Gibbons prose poems, nonfiction, fiction, and novel excerpts on the publication page of her website.

It's Never Too Late...

...to be who you might have been. George Elliot

2010 is a new decade. I'm of a very different mind of late concerning what I want to do with my life. What's liberating and just a little unnerving, is that I want a different life. I've finally decided that my time is just that, mine. I really do feel like I've paid my dues. I've taken care of everyone and everything, (I'm not complaining okay), but now it's time to really follow my own bent. My, being the operative word. I've written these declarative sentences in journals and said them so many times, but the timing wasn't right. I don't know that the current circumstance or timing are perfect, but I can hear my voice screaming, do this, do this now! This time, I mean it. I have my own permission to be, do, want, have, enjoy.

Here a a few quotes to get my writing back on track:

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. Toni Morrison

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. E. L. Doctorow

With problems you have food for creation. You have material. Satyajit Ray

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. Kurt Vonnegut

If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space. Joyce Carol Oates

Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person, a real person you know, or an imagined person, and write to that one. John Steinbeck

The task of a writer consists in being able to make something out of an idea. Thomas Mann

Women's History Month - Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus by Allan Arbus (a film test), 1949

Diane Arbus was born to privilege. This world presented an insulated "unreality" that was less real than the nudist camps, circus and carnival ciruit, or the female impersonaters she captured on film. She photographed the underbelly of society, individuals considered "freaks or eccentrics", and focused light on an entire world swept under society's rug, and thereby changed the rules of subject matter and what can be considered art for the medium irrevocably.

Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962


Arbus' contact sheet

It's impossible to know how many rolls of film a photographer shoots to get that one photograph. This image of one of the contact sheets from Arbus' session with the child with the grenade provides a glimpse into her process at: The Indecisive Moment.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Watch a clip of the film at Fancast. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus stars Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. The film was directed by Steven Shainberg.

See that camera? the vintage twin lens Rollieflex? I want it, and according to Sotheby's there are only 700 in existence for this particular model, so, out of my price range. I'm still on a quest to find an affordable, working TLR 2.8 Rolleiflex, but I believe I will begin with a TLR Mamiya.

Fur is a wild and wonderful imagining of Diane's life. Robert Downey Jr. is phenomenal as the beast man who ignites the ember smoldering beneath Diane's proper buttoned down exterior, and Kidman's understated portrayal of Arbus provides just the right blend of unexpressed passion, submission and passive defiance. I loved this film.

I wrote the following flash for a flash flood challenge in a friend's office at zoetrope. The challenge was to write a flash of 100-1000 words, with a film as inspiration. I had just seen Fur, so it was my most recent inspiration.

Warning: the flash contains some racy bits.

Fur - Danna

Unlike me, Lionel wears his animal on his skin.

He is the new neighbor who lives one flight up. The wolfman. My beast. I hear his relentless pacing and the sound is intoxicating. I cannot sleep until he does, and then, I lie in my bed listening to the blood rushing through my body until I nearly cry out. I imagine curling my fingers through his mane and drawing him to me. Rubbing his scent over my body. Taking him into me.

Lionel sees me as I am: a woman who longs for the carnival life, the illustrated man, bearded lady, the snake man, the intoxicating parade of giants and dwarves.

Lionel sees me, and that is all that matters.

My husband is a kind man. An ordinary man. He loves me the best he can, but insists on seeing me, seeing us posed in starched Sunday clothes under conventional light. I long for him to take me by the neck and thrust from behind.

It is Lionel who knew before I did that my camera is the key to unlock all my doors, its insatiable shutter dialating and contracting as light strikes film, my animal eye narrowed behind the viewfinder, watching. Always watching.

My Famous Sister

Amanda Blake

My sister, (who is not Amanda Blake, btw), has just been named Oregon's Young Mother by the Oregon Association of American Mothers, Inc. She will present a talk on Legacy at the American Mothers conference in New York City. This is an incredible honor and achievement.

My sister has five children. Five. Every time we talk on the phone it's a cacophony in the background and sometimes she has to hide in her garage and lock herself in the car so we can try for an uninterrupted conversation. Try, is the operative word, because invariably, one or more find her and then they're banging on the car windows, and I can hear their muffled voices. I tell her to threaten them in very dark and creative ways, she does, and then I hear them laugh and exclaim, "Oh, Aunt Danna is so funny!"

My eldest sister has five children; second eldest sister has one child; my eldest brother has six children; I have one child and two stepchildren; my younger sister, who is the subject of this blog post, has five children; my younger brother has three children; and my baby sister has four children.

I remember coming out of the anesthesia from my c-section, and thinking, Mom did this seven times! I think I made the decision right there not to have any more. For me, one is enough.

The thing about raising an only child, you don't get to learn from your mistakes and do better with the next child. I was a single mom for ten years and I know that many times my energy and patience were worn paper thin. I can't remember what I did, but I do remember calling myself "mother of the year" when recounting the infraction to a friend. Also, I remember telling my daughter that she was "on the psychiatrist's couch for that one", and the time when she turned to me and said, "I'm on the psychiatrist's couch for that one".

I've been a fan of Amanda Blake's paintings ever since I discovered them on etsy. I found this mother and child painting today and thought the subject matter appropriate for the post.

Blake received her BA in fine arts from the University of Oregon, studied watercolor in Sienna, Italy, and oil painting and print making at the Chautauqua Institute in New York.

You can find more of her work on her websiteAmanda Blake :: Oil Paintings, blog, etsy shop, Enormous Tiny Art, and the Sebastian Foster Gallery.

Poem Therapy at 1:50 P.M. - Deborah Diggs

Deborah Digges

Trapeze
Deborah Digges

See how the first dark takes the city in its arms
and carries it into what yesterday we called the future.

O, the dying are such acrobats.
Here you must take a boat from one day to the next,

or clutch the girders of the bridge, hand over hand.
But they are sailing like a pendulum between eternity and evening,

diving, recovering, balancing the air.
Who can tell at this hour seabirds from starlings,

wind from revolving doors or currents off the river.
Some are as children on swings pumping higher and higher.

Don't call them back, don't call them in for supper.
See, they leave scuff marks like jet trails on the sky.

My father is a passenger on the boat, clutching at the girders swinging between the present and the future. To say I am in denial, is an understatement. Monday, I took the day off work, and once he was aware of this, he came for coffee in the morning, Coke in the afternoon: our summer routine. Over Cokes he said he had a secret, which if you know my father, is impossible. The secret is that he has a new pain in his back and he's certain it's the cancer, his gremlins. Although his psa numbers are down due to his medications, the bone cancer is here to stay. It's in his bones.

In his bones. I've said this so many time when speaking of him over the years. The soil is in his bones, his temper is in his bones, his stubbornness is in his bones. Now it's something else. The man is 82, so it's likely age will get him before the gremlins, but the certainty is unsettling.

Women's History Month - Tali

Girl Party - Tali

Women artists have been creating since the first woman rubbed her hand in pigment and pressed it on a cave wall, (and granted it is generally only priviledged women who have had the time to make art), but it's only been in recent times that they have emerged from obscurity. This doesn't mean that women weren't well-known or successful in their own time. Heard of Vegee Lebrun or Mary Cassatt? (VL was the official portrait painter for Marie Antoinette, and later the English court; If you've taken art history you've heard of Cassatt and seen her work. In case you haven't, MC was Degas, Renoir & Monet's contemporary, an avid supporter of the Impressionsist, and although she was favorably received, she was also sometimes dismissed for her subject matter: domestic life, i.e. women fully clothed; mothers and their children). Both were well-regarded and successful in thier lifetimes. Neither were in the pages of an art history book until the 20th century was on it's way out. I believe that distinction belongs to Georgia O'Keefe.

I had heard of Cassatt, but not LeBrun (and a host of other artists), until I read about them in Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. Why? Because that's just how it is. I already went through my strident phase in my 20's, so you're safe from diatribes, and speaking of injustice, a few friends have already said, "shut up, white girl". Still, it is a surprise when people continue to ask, why a women's history month?, why a women's museum? Here's a great link to more information about women artists in history.

I found this exuberantly painted illustration today and it matches my mood, (the anesthesia has finally taken it's leave), and I wanted to share it with all of you. Plus, it really is time for me to celebrate. I think I'll throw myself a party and take myself out for Indian food!

The artist is a woman named Tali. She is a freelance illustrator who lives in Tel-Aviv, and just recently graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art & Design. It is such an act of courage to declare yourself an artist to the world, and it's just brilliant that there are still brave people who follow their hearts despite how difficult it is to make ends meet as an artist, without a full-time teaching gig or some other practical job.

If you don't believe me, go home and tell your family you are quitting your job to follow your dream to paint, write, sing. Count the seconds of the shocked inhalation and stunned silence' duration before your loved ones launch a campain to disabuse you of your pipedream. In all fairness there's a reason the majority of artists have day jobs or are attached to people who do. Put on your coolest pair of shades and sing the blues with me: Dadadedum, and it's sooo hard, painting for pennies.

You can find more of Tali's illustrations at ToysaTosya.etsy.com. She also has another site TushTush http://tushtush.etsy.com that featurees realistic style paintings in oil pastels and acrylics.