CARTOON QUILT

I'm sure everyone has heard the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." Pictures can be even better than sitting and listening to a otherwise boring story and make it more interesting. This way a person is able to associate an image with a story. Similar to the work of Harriet Powers, my cartoon quilt also represents the story of my life threw images. Here in my cartoon quilt, i have drawn pictures that represent the journey of my family to the United States. The first picture depicts the leaning tower of pisa and an italian flag and represents where they originally came from, Italy. The second picture showcases baggage sitting on a wooden dock. Also, there is water, a seagull sitting on a post, and a sign that reads "ship boarding" (with an arrow). This picture represents the passanger dock at the immigration loading area where the boat was going to take my family to America. The third picture is the statue of liberty. This presents their arrival to Ellis Island and a chance at a new life in America. The Fouth picture is a road sign that reads "New York City to Allentown, PA- 93 miles." This shows where they would travel and settle from their. The fifth picture is a barber shop. This is the family business that would allow for surival in this new country. Finally, the six picture represnts the birth of their first son in america, my grandfather, and so my family has arrived. These six pictures were able to depict an entire journey of one family, and so a picture may truly be worth a thousand words.

Architectual Design: A Woman's World

When I started to think about a “Women’s World”, many ideas ran through my head. Mansions, housekeepers, chefs that duplicate my grandma’s cooking, unlimited resources, tons of kids, tropical areas, even the White House (haha), where some of the places and things I thought would fulfill wants and needs. Then I though about the time when I really really dislike being a woman, and I’m sure many women can vouch for this, you know “that time of the month.” I thought about how all I want is to be left alone and decided no mansion or tropical area would be able to comfort me in this time of, well, discomfort, like a cozy cabin. I’m sure something of this nature has been done before, but I just couldn’t pass the opportunity to make a perfect place to spend those horrid 3-7 days, and thus the “THREE to SEVEN DAY GET-A-WAY” was constructed.

When you read this I want you remember my creative skills are lacking and my artistic skills are nothing compared to say Van Gough, but I gave it a shot and designed the exterior of the cabin. If you look closely, and use your imagination, the logs, windows, and doors are constructed of tampons, while the roof shingles are pads, and the smokestack is constructed with similar design to that of a tampon box. Also, you may have realized that all four seasons have been added to the background of the blueprint. I’ve decided that on any give day of her cycle, a woman may want to be in the heat of the summer sun, view the rain drops of the spring or the varying colors of autumn, or they might just want to make snow angels in the snow. So I have created the option to choose from the seasonal cycle during this “woman’s” cycle.

The interior, which my artistic skills would never be able to re-create, but hopefully my descriptive skill will create a mental image, includes the wants and needs of a woman during her 3-7 day get-a-way. The cabin consists of just one large room. In this room everything is red, walls, furniture, etc. This is in case of the “accident”, there is no need to worry (gross I know, but we have to worry about it every time). The room consists of one large comfy couch/ bed (so no moving is necessary), a movie theatre sizes screen and entertainment size, proper dim lighting, the smell of grandma’s baked goods, and no other people.

Also, we all know how whenever a woman desperately needs a feminine product, they are nowhere to be found. So I have constructed various tampon and sanitary napkin dispensers throughout the room. In this cabin, a woman is completely secluded from the outside world so there should be no comments such as “it must be her time of the month”, and “oh, ignore her, she is just PMSing.” Instead there at distinct signs on the doors reading, “Beware: menstruating woman”, “Quarantine 3-7 days”, “ Participating Members Only”, and “Open only once a month.”

Next, women there are no other clothing in this room, but sweatpants, sweatshirts, and other comfortable clothing (if any clothing at all, whatever floats your boat). There will be no make-up, mirrors, hairstyling, or grooming of any kind unless a woman desires to be pampered during these 3-7 days of comfort. In this comfort zone there are no responsibilities, just napping and movies. In fact, when she gets back to reality, her responsibilities will already be taken care of, such as no cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. All a woman’s wants and needs will automatically appear with her every thought. Ice cream, chocolate, chips, pasta, french fries, bacon, and other junk food will be at her disposal whenever she wishes. Besides the availability of the craved food and beverage, there will also be a endless supply of Motrin/Midol and bananas for those wretches cramps that are unavoidable.

This appears to be the greatest get-a-way for women in their cycle, but there are some downfalls. What about women who have reached menopause and no longer have the opportunity to visit this cabin of comfort and seclusion? Where is their get-a-way? Another disadvantage is no matter how comfortable a woman tries to be, this cabin could never fulfill a woman’s complete comfort during this time. The other downfall is, no matter how comfortable one may be during their three to seven days, she will eventually return to the real world, a world that cannot truly understand the comfort a woman inevitably needs.


IF your Interested: I found this commercial. I don't' know if i am disturbed or jealous of how this woman is living. It a men's underwear commercial from Britain i believe.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x51_474sAmQ

SELF PORTRAIT: BACK OF HEAD

After looking at various artworks by Jeanne Dunning, I found some to be strangely disturbing, and yet very fascinating photographs; enough so to make me do some further research. Dunning “investigates the body and its physical boundaries as a metaphor for psychological transgression”(MCP, 2005). She uses exterior objects such as foods and body parts to distort her images and present them in a way to appear to be vague in identity or as if they are interior bodily images (i.e. fruit resembling a human orifice). Some of Dunning’s images that I viewed included Hand Hole (1994), Head Series (1989-90), Tongue (2004), Sample (2001), and Scattered Parts (2004). Art Reviewer, Grace Glueck, of the New York Times, states “Dunning’s work manages to sustain the tension between the sensual and the grotesque, underlying the ambivalent relationship we all have in our own vulnerable physicality, provoking the misplaced notions of identity, individuality, and sexuality.” Identity involves a set of characteristics by which someone is definitively recognizable or known. But, are identities of subjects in photographs always as clear-cut as “definitively recognizable or known?” A sense of identity can be different with everyone.

Although many of Dunning’s works interested me, I found the Head Series to be both simple to re-create, and interesting in his meaning, specifically Head 2 (1989). Similar to Lorna Simpson and her dealing with women and African-American women, I learned that a photographic shot like Dunning’s Head 2 is meant to test the viewer and make the viewer think. What is the identity of the subject in this photo? It is harder to determine if it is a male with a longer hairstyle and a more slender neck, or a woman with a shorter cut in a more masculine suit. Dunning also crosses boundaries of discomfort in most of her works, and although her Head Series seem innocent, they are meant to be that of “phallic-headed” women, transitioning between the feminine and masculine. In fact, “not only do the heads pun on male phallus; they pun on the idea of the phallic woman—the woman who castrates---but replacing one head (male, genital) with another (female, cerebral)” (Desouza, 2005).

When I asked some friend what they thought of Head 2, I got varied responses such as “it looks like a lesbian with that short mushroom cut”, “how could anyone thing that is a guy”, and “it looks like as Shakespearean haircut or Johnny Depp from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” After hearing these varied responses, I created my own version of Dunning’s Head Series, where identity would be questioned.

I found it hard to re-create the phallus look, but what I did instead was take a picture of the back of my head with a hat on and my hair tucked in, while wearing a hooded sweatshirt. To me, this resembled both a masculine and feminine look, similar to Dunning. In this picture, the identity is similarly uncertain. One cannot be certain if this is a more slender-shaped baseball cap-wearing man, or a woman simply trying to be comfortable. Unlike the self-portraits of some of the other students, I attempted to create a gender-neutral photo, in which it would be a challenge to determine the identity of the subject in the photo. I feel like this ambiguity of identity represents the mixed feelings so many people share with regards to their attitudes, opinions, and knowledge of identity. I found that many people disregard these issues as not important even though it affects almost everyone’s everyday life, ranging from job availability and college enrollment acceptance.

This photo has added to further knowledge of my gendered self through the photo’s multiple meanings. What did this photo teach me about my identity? I found this photo to imply concepts of individualism, gender equality, and body acceptance that I didn’t realize before in photographs of myself. With a plain background and similar to the strategies of Lorna Simpson and the Guerilla Girls, who crop picture to remove faced and wear gorilla masks, this photo does not represent an individual, but a representative of gender. Also, like I mentioned earlier, this photo questions the identity of the photographed person and adds to the conflicts with gender equality we have today. In fact, I found that in a world filled with stereotypes, this photo might even evoke a sigh of relief, in respect that for these few moments that gender is in question, I don’t have to worry about typical female negative stereotypes, and can be relieved of that burden for a few moments, maybe even seconds. (If this makes any sense at all). Finally, this photo taught me about body acceptance. I never enjoy having my picture taken. I am convinced I look horrible in every picture I am ever in. But, I found this picture to be different. It is impossible to see any faults of eyes, blemishes, asymmetrical noses, or uneven smiles, from the back a person’s head. This, too, leaves opportunity, in a world infatuated with image, to be not the prettiest of women, or the most handsome of men, but whatever it is that makes you happy, comfortable, and confident. From behind, everyone is equal.

* Glueck, Grace. New York Times. Art in Review; Jeanne Dunning. March 19, 2004. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
* Museum of Contemporary Photography (MCP). Biography: Jeanne Dunning. 2005. http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/dunning_jeanne.php
* Desouza, Allan. “It’s Not Punny if You Have to Explain it: Act III”. X-tra: Contemporary Art Quarterly. Volume 9. Issue 1. 2005
http://www.x-traonline.org/vol9_1/desouza.htm