Rich

Overheard while reading the art label…
“Oh Marge, look at that skill!”
“Such talent (ach, the dreaded T word), it almost looks like a photograph.” (duh).
They get closer.
“Yes, and what’s she holding?”
“Why, isn’t that a… whip?” (I feel them back up in horror.)
("Baby Back", photo by Renee Cox. Free day at the Museum, took my class to see “Black Womanhood,” excellent show, will write a short review soon!)
(And sorry for the bad catalog image--no photos in the exhibition.)

Hidden Snakes

I rented the movie Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the story of a down-n-out nanny who becomes social secretary to a young starlet with three lovers on the eve of WWII. Although I knew the thing was fantasy, I was surprised at the retrograde tone of the film. The young actors are allowed to cavort naked, but the “mature” couple, Frances McDormand and Ciaran Hinds (both handsome, sexy people), is not even allowed a kiss.
Even more infuriating is the typical story of the starlet’s choice (when she should have stuck with Frances): the young, rich producer who will make her a star, the middle-aged businessman who keeps her in luxury, or the penniless musician who truly loves her (but also treats her roughly)? You get the picture. The notion that success as an artist is less important than settling down to make babies is pounded home again (believe me, that this is a “period” piece makes no difference—it’s for the contemporary female audience).
Last week I showed my class a video about Sally Mann, a photographer who achieved notoriety partially for shots of her children, sometimes nude. These kids, now older, have talked about growing up on camera, and are ambivalent about the experience. Like children of celebrities, they have benefited by their parent’s financial success, and are now famous themselves. My students were very harsh with Mann, saying she should have been “more of a mother.” When I asked them about the double standard, if the father had been a busy lawyer who rarely saw his kids, or a novelist who drew upon his family life, they looked at me blankly.
Sally Mann’s explanation was just that “the kids were there. I shoot what’s around me. I love my kids. Now let me work.”

Post Holiday Gripes

How many trips to the gym does it take for the chicken to stop waddling across the road?

Silk Stockings

Style-wise I was born too late. My era is the 1940s, maybe early 50s. I love the silhouette of the figure, the make-up and the hair. The clothes were so well made. Even my features are a bit old-fashioned.
However, I would have ended up in the loony bin playing the role of “woman” then. I’m probably not even brave enough to stand against most norms now. Sad.

Pregnancy and Newborns

A friend of mine just had a baby. He took a week off work to help with the adjustment. I arrived at their home to paint a commissioned mural in the baby’s room. This family is lucky, as my friend has a good job. Still, he had to go back to work and leave his wife at home to deal with one small person and three dogs.
I’ve also had several pregnant students in my lecture classes who were due during my class (well, not literally…) These women have all thought they could return to class after a few days. It’s never happened, they just disappear, dropping or taking an incomplete. I don’t know who is telling them that giving birth and dealing with a newborn is so easy. It amazes me that they think their babies will cause so little disruption in their lives.
These young students are thinking like men, because men can think this way. Men will not usually be responsible for the daily care of an infant. They’ll pop in and out, need their space and guy-time, and women will still take care of almost all the shopping, cooking, cleaning and childcare. And then go back to work or school. With all the liberation, things just haven’t changed enough.

Chunky Dunking

I recently saw a new Eve Ensler play, “The Good Body.” As with the “Vagina Monologues,” it’s theater based on interviews with women, but this time about how we deal with our bodies: fat farms, botox, the “spread,” boob jobs, vaginal tightening, nipple piercing, starvation, living at the gym, and bread fixation. Girl talk to the hilt, with lots of four letter words thrown in to toughen up the mood, which I like (women denied colorful language is one of my pet peeves).
That same day, someone gave me a compliment, but I heard it as “Kloe is fat.” Really incredible, because that’s not at all what was meant. So even rail thin dolls like me are always on the verge of hating ourselves.
(above pug's name is Smudge-perfect, no?)

Und so...

Should I go out and buy some slutty Bratz clothes before my new big sister imposes her fashion sense on me?

Mattel Won the 1st Round

Sigalit Landau

At the Museum of Modern Art there was a strange circle/spiral themed show (strange because of the simplistic-to-the-point-of-being-dumb idea, and yes, Spiral Jetty was included). One artist redeemed the show for me: Sigilit Landau, an Israeli video/performance artist and sculptor.
Above are stills from DeadSee (2005), a video of 500 watermelons strung together, floating in a spiral enveloping her nude body. Over the course of the five minute video loop the spiral unwinds, and she slowly floats out of the frame. Magical and weird.
In Barbed Hula (2000) she hula-hoops nude on the shores of the Mediterranean with barbed-wire, gradually cutting welts into her skin. It is mesmerizing and horrifying at the same time. I loved this work, really fresh but so connected to older female body artists like Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic and Hannah Wilke. It functioned as a metaphor for both Israel and beach culture, and really thrashed the male (or any) gaze.

American Girl

Here I am with friends on the beach in the Hamptons…
Not really, I’m at the flagship American Girl store in Manhattan. What a total freak out. Not my kind of place, let me tell you. And the noise level, I thought boys were bad. Wowza.
As a Bratz, I feel I’m affordable, a big plus. They may make the AG in all skin tones, but I’m sure they sell mostly white chicks to daddy’s little girls.

Turkish Bratz

I know you liked that last Turkish Pop video so much, I decided to share another one…
It's fascinating to me to observe how Western ideas of feminine beauty and sexiness have been co-opted by Turkish culture. Observing Gulsen I see so many Turkisms: the was she cocks her head, the movement of her hands, her perfect hair and flawless, heavy make-up. But then she adopts hip grinding moves and Daisy Mae shorts that she can't quite pull off; there is a reserve there from raunchiness. That the languid singer knocks out a Western looking hunk is also pretty interesting, given the preponderance of violence against women in Turkey...
But you know I only present the classiest stuff on my blog!
kisses

That Mom Thing

I’ve been thinking about Hilary Clinton’s tone of voice lately, how she’s being compared to the Shrill Woman, the Mom. And that’s so unfair, but at the same time, accurate.
When you’re growing up, Mom is the one who usually cares if you eat with your mouth open, belch in company, leave your pajamas in a wad on the couch, get in trouble at school, spell things incorrectly (Dad sees more the “Big Picture,” which is important, but not more so than civilizing the heathen…).
Moms tell you, OVER AND OVER, the rules of society. If we had to say it only once, we wouldn’t sound so harsh. But that’s not reality—kids don’t listen until we practically shriek. We’ve all heard the voice of Hilary. And we resent it. I wish someone would tell her, but she probably can’t help it.
I can't either.

Sorry for these Short Posts, but I’m Swamped Writing Lectures…

A friend told me he has to re-recognize me every time he sees me. I do have the ability to radically change the way I look with clothing, hair and posture. It’s a blond thing…
The Superbowl was great, didn’t you think?

Hillary

Hillary’s win in Nevada has caused me a strange excitement. Women stood up for her, even against union endorsement of Obama. When my friends in Europe or Turkey ask me who will win, I tell them Clinton. But now it’s really starting to seem true. I never thought I’d see a woman president in my lifetime. Now it’s probable, and she’s capable, smart and experienced. Finally anyone can become president—simply amazing for a country that has never elected anyone but a white Christian male.
It’s about time, that’s all I have to say.

This Explains It:

It Takes a Family (to Break a Glass Ceiling)
By KERRY HOWLEY
Published: January 5, 2008, New York Times
SOME women, even progressive ones, are surely celebrating Hillary Clinton’s third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Those of us who think 43 male presidents in a row is quite enough, thank you, still sometimes question whether a woman whose greatest political move was her marriage deserves to be the first woman in the White House.
But while there are plenty of reasons not to vote for Mrs. Clinton (as an antiwar libertarian, I could happily list them for you at length), her marital journey to power is not one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that political nepotism has often served feminism’s cause well.
…
Like it or not, the road to female advancement often begins at the altar. History books are thick with examples of women who broke political barriers because their family connections afforded them the opportunity.
If you’ve ever wondered why India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines seem readier to elect women than does the United States, here’s your answer: Societies that value a candidate’s family affiliation, and therefore have a history of nepotistic succession, are often open to female leadership so long as it bears the right brand. Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among many others, slashed through gender barriers on the strength of their family names.
…
Social psychologists have found that women in leadership roles are typically seen as either warm, likable and incompetent, or cold, distant and competent. To be a strong, competent woman is to be something culturally unattractive, which probably says something about why few American women even aspire to political office. Worldwide, even popular female politicians — Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Angela Merkel — are slapped with the moniker “iron lady.”
Granted, women who rely on their last names to ascend to power are not especially likely to pursue explicitly feminist policies. They may even be less likely to do so, in order to seem worthy of office.
….
No mother wants to tell her daughter that she can aspire to the presidency only if she snags the most gifted politician of her generation. But Hillary Clinton’s rise to power, unsettling as it is, follows a time-tested pattern for the breaking of gender barriers.
The great feminist promise of a Hillary Clinton presidency amounts to this: If we elect a political wife now, perhaps we won’t have to later.

Kerry Howley is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
Painting by Raul Guerrero

I Admit It

I love Sponge Bob.

Ashes

My gram wanted to be cremated. That’s not the normal thing in my family, but I was not surprised when I heard it. She felt alien in the body she had in the end, in the past 10 to 20 years. She always told me how hard it was to grow old, even though she did it gracefully: the physical indignities, the lack of privacy, the fatigue, the slow diminishing of the body. My gram was a very glamorous woman when she was younger. She was beautiful in old age also, but she couldn’t see it. I don’t blame her.
Beauty is hard to possess, because it is lost. Her old age body had to go.
Photo above is me in her mink stole, which she gave me before she died. I wore it in a performance piece last weekend. It cause big stir, intended, of course. Somewhere I think my gram was cheering me on.

What the…?!?!

Trying to teach my boys to be responsible around the house, they must make their beds and fold their pjs. Recently my older son complained “folding is woman’s work.” I was shocked to hear this coming out of his mouth (my girlfriend told me I should have slapped him, and she’s a model mom). If I teach nothing else it is that men and women are equal.
“Where did this come from?” I grilled him.
“ I just thought of it.”
“Well, don’t think of it again!!!”
Good come-back, huh?

If You Make Me Laugh, I am Yours Forever

Justin Timberlake with rotating chest hairs, by Kraig Cavanaugh.
BTW, Turkey changed my mind about body hair…

I Want to Drive You Crazy, Too

I try to read all Anthony Lane’s New Yorker movie reviews because they are so smart and funny. Recently he wrote an article, an adoration really, of Barbara Stanwyck, who was born 100 years ago. She was a versatile actress, and the public never really knew her personal life. It struck a chord with me in relationship to the multiple identities I and other visual artists take on.
“When I think of the glory days of American film,” writes Lane, “at its speediest and most velvety, I think of Barbara Stanwyck.”
He quotes from the Howard Hawks film, “Ball of Fire” (1941) to Stanwyck by Gary Cooper: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.”
And a Stanwyck character speaks in a Frank Capra film “Clash by Night”: “What kind of animal am I? Do I have fangs, do I purr? What kind of jungle am I from? You don’t know anything about me.”
To which Lane answers: “No, and it drives us mad. Crazy about you, baby.”
Now is that a love letter, or what?