Art & Politics

It's been while since I've written anything on this blog. Maybe I haven't been inspired, maybe life has been so busy it's hard to take the time to look back and reflect. Something inspired me though and I feel the urge to write about it...

A couple of nights ago I watched a film called Battle in Seattle; it is a fictional depiction of the WTO riots that happened in Seattle, cutting in actual footage & balancing that with the multi-character story to tell the story. It was amazing and really made me think about my roots in Seattle. I know I've mentioned it before, but I went to school in Seattle.

I've always had a passion for politics and the world I live in. Though living outside DC for the majority of my life, I surprisingly never actually got a chance to stand up & speak out before I lived in Seattle. When I was at Cornish, the Iraq war was just starting & people started speaking out; I decided to join them.

I don't know how many people know this, but Seattle is a protesters town. People are not afraid to go to the streets and speak out about the things they find wrong in the world. Living in a town like that empowers you to speak your mind, which I also feel is what an artist should do.

I protested the Iraq war many times while in school. There was one day my acting teachers knew a big protest was coming, and to be "politically correct" they said they couldn't allow us to miss class, but understood personally if as artists we felt we would need to. I ended up being the only junior in my department who missed class that day. We started on Capital Hill at SCCC and marched down Pine (I believe, but it might have been Pike) and over to Westlake Center. The same spirit I felt marching down the streets of Seattle was the way I feel when I making collaborative art. It's a beautiful feeling that washes over me. Maybe it's more about being engaged in what I'm doing, but for me the way I feel about art & politics are closely related.

I could go on & on about the link between art & politics, but for me that personal connection was really forged when I was in a place that both existed.

Are we apologizing for what is in between our legs?

I saw this article shared by Jayme Kilburn, Artistic Director of the Strand Theater about the prejudices that female playwrights receive & how those prejudices negatively affect theatres.

"...reveals that women tend to write plays about women, but plays featuring female protagonists are produced less often than those starring men. And, while the proportion of scripts that get produced is fairly equal between men and women, the total number of productions is inequitable since fewer women write plays (one informal study of nonprofit theaters by the playwright Julia Jordan found that 17 percent of their plays were written by women). One way women have compensated for writing female stories is to write fewer roles, which make their plays accessible to more theaters."

So this quote got me thinking... do we as women artists apologize for what is in between our legs?

I had an experience recently working with two male graphic designers. The initial poster proof had a really interesting design, but at the bottom of the poster was this image of a sweaty belly. My initial reaction was that looked like the belly of some slut. Sure that sounds a little harsh, but I got the image of the girls I used to see out at bars getting trashed and going home with the hottest guy that hit on them that night. She was too skinny, her bones poking out, basically an "ideal" men's fantasy. She was not a real woman to me.

I took objection, saying I loved the design, but had an issue with the belly element. It could be interpreted that I didn't like the belly b/c it was too skinny, but what it really is for me is that I don't want women to be looked at like just a place to make a deposit. It isn't just about what is in between our legs. A woman's sexuality & sensuality starts with the mind & works its way down. I had to remind myself that it was okay for me to have this opinion. As women we are taught by society to apologize for how we feel about something, just go with the flow for fear of being the "crazy bitch".

My art helps me to stop apologizing for what lies between my legs & fully embrace my point of view as a young female.

Btw, the graphic designers I was working with were completely awesome about altering the element. The picture for this post is the end result. I feel it's sexy, sensual & doesn't objectify me as a female, but embraces female sexuality as something powerful.