On Loving the Body.
The importance of the body in this equation cannot be overlooked. The body shows me decay (or growth) where I most fear it. Ultimately, my body is simply a map of where I’ve come from. Quite literally, it is the trail of my electrons coursing, racing, and whirling through space - what my eyes see is the trace of where they’ve been. I ran ten miles; I ate wheat; I skinned my knees, and experienced pleasure, pain, love, and birth. My body remembers all of these things, even when I am not reflecting on them. The body remembers experiences once endured and actions once taken, things I am capable of because I have once done them.
This is why recognizing ourselves as beautiful is in some ways more powerful than recognizing that we can be “good”. To love my body is to reconcile with where I have been and thus what I am capable of. By appreciating myself, and what I capable of, and hence knowing the roads I don’t take in spite of that capability, only then does my current action became a choice. Only then may it be called good or bad. Without choice, judgement has no value. It is meaningless to call something “good” or “bad” that simply is. Only that which is chosen can be said to be chosen out of compassion or cruelty.
Thus,recognizing that our bodies are beautiful becomes a powerfully political act, a celebration of compassion directed toward the self. And this is what is behind the Black woman’s love of her body, which is so present in the ethos of contemporary Black culture. It is imperative that we love our own bodies *and* that we love other’s bodies in their diversity. Ultimately, loving people for who they are should never be about disregarding the body - but about embracing it.
Journey Toward Compassionate Choice: Intergrating Vegan and Sistah Experience.
By Tara Sophia Bahna-James in the Sistah Vegan anthology by Breeze Harper.
Qin Ga, ‘Site 22: Mao Zedong Temple,’ 2005
In 2002, China’s Long March Project embarked upon a ‘Walking Visual Display’ along the route of the 1934-1936 historic 6000-mile Long March, and Beijing-based artist Qin kept tracked the group’s route in a tattooed map on his back. Three years later, Qin continued the trek where the original marchers had left off, accompanied by a camera crew and a tattoo artist, who continually updated the map on Qin’s back.
via Experimental Cartography: The Map as Art | Brain Pickings
Before World War I, girls rarely mentioned their bodies in terms of strategies for self-improvement or struggles for personal identity. Becoming a better person meant paying less attention to the self, giving more assistance to others, and putting more effort into instructive reading or lessons at school. When girls in the nineteenth century thought about ways to improve themselves, they almost always focused on their internal character and how it was reflected in outward behavior. In 1892, the personal agenda of an adolescent diarist read: “Resolved, not to talk about myself or feelings. To think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self restrained in conversation and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.”
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A century later, in the 1990s, American girls think very differently. In a New Year’s resolution written in 1982, a girl wrote: “I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can with the help of my budget and baby-sitting money. I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.” This concise declaration clearly captures how girls feel about themselves in the contemporary world. Like many adults in American society, girls today are concerned with the shape and appearance of their bodies as a primary expression of their individual identity.
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The body project: an intimate history of American girls
Joan Jacobs Brumberg
(via coolchicksfromhistory)
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The only thing that anyone can diagnose, with any certainty, by looking at a fat person, is their own level of stereotype and prejudice toward fat people.
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Marilyn Wann, Fat Studies: An Invitation to Revolution (via heyfatchick)
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(via Stephanie Metz Sculpture Lightness)
Stephanie Metz is a sculptor whose innovative work in felted wool has garnered international attention. Her sculpture, focused on the relationship between humans and the natural world, fuses sharp wit, thoughtful observation, and careful craftsmanship in an unusual material to blur the line between art and science, natural and unnatural, organic and man-made.
After introducing Biljana Roman’s artworks, it’s time to present her creative process. From the first knot, clothing plastic doll in rope twists, till the final graceful flow of figures.
[via Balkan Fiber Art ‘08 – gallery lll | Body Pixel]
Photos of Roman in her process of creating these sculptures at the linked post.
Liberty Print - Designer Fabric - Style Estate - Interior Design Ideas
Established towards the end of the 19th Century, Liberty Company remains a beacon radiating a sense of modern English style. Engaging in a quest to foster relationships between retailers and English designers, founder Arthur Liberty intended his store to rival the style centers of Paris as well as the upstarts in New York City. Mr. Liberty kept his designers anonymous in order to promote a cohesive brand sense that became known as “Liberty Style.” Emphasizing upper class whimsy along with the potent influence of Japanese art and prints that was haunting every artistic media from sculpture to Claude Debussy’s music, Liberty Style also became synonymous with the Art Nouveau movement.
Thoughts on descriptions of behind the scenes textile artists as craft labour, artisans or tradies.
- Reminds me of the Valentino doco, which was surprisingly candid about the practice of head seamstresses really working out design details and creating it to a garment reality, against Valentino more removed Creative Director role, throwing around vague sketches, feedback and references to existing styles.
- The BBC history series Time Team, recently visited Liberty studios where both the archeologist and art historian narrators - having anticipated a jolly relaxing day’s crafting -were surprised and humbled by how arduous, precise and central the skills of block printers really were to enable beautiful designs.
- In which textiles and fashion again don’t operate that differently from fine art production. Tracey Moffat doesn’t do all the editing on her videos any more than Renaissance painters did all the painting on their murals. They know how to, but don’t once they can afford not to. There are systems of apprenticeship, collaboration and patronage to handle the labour volume and skillss transfer in all fields - as well as claims of individualism despite consuming any and all existing cultural capital.
- Difference = designation of status, payment and everyday people wear textiles.
faceCULTURE: Yasmina Alaoui & Marco Guerra
“Artist Yasmina Alaoui and photographer Marco Guerra love to tantalize their audience. In their life-sized photographic series “one thousand and one dreams”, statuesque bodies apear frozen in time, covered from head to toe in meticulously detailed, contemporary Arabic Henna patterns. Captivated by the realism and sculptural quality of each human form, the viewer becomes lost in an illusion.”
I like what they’ve done with the patterns and colour, though the bodies do seem limited to standard female art muse forms.
![After introducing Biljana Roman’s artworks, it’s time to present her creative process. From the first knot, clothing plastic doll in rope twists, till the final graceful flow of figures.
[via Balkan Fiber Art ‘08 – gallery lll | Body Pixel]
Photos of Roman in her process of creating these sculptures at the linked post.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llhrgyicVG1qzoz4do1_400.jpg)
