I'm a feminist, but I wear lipstick.

My creative growth in just one month has been truly inspirational.  It's amazing how much I've grown once I let go of a paintbrush.  I was extremely skeptical of this program during the first week, but now I can see that it's the best decision I could've made.

The ideas are just bubbling out of me and I've never been so motivated.  I can't go five minutes without whipping out my sketchbook and scribbling down a slew of creative concepts.

The focus, thus far, has been for me to simply explore and experiment... to let go of thinking about an "end project".  Thinking about the final art piece does nothing but stunt my growth.  So once I allow myself the freedom to play, I can really explore and perhaps accidentally stumble upon brilliance within myself.

I came here with the purpose of exploring an issue that's been prominent within my artwork the last couple of years while struggling with my role as a woman in society.  I've been primarily interested in the objectification of women, the ideologies of "beauty" that exist in our society that we are bombarded with every day, and gender stereotypes.  Over the last few years I realized that my art can be a useful tool in expressing ideas that I'm passionate about.

So, while here, there was a recent shift in what I want to explore.

I was recently approached by a woman who, too, identifies herself as a feminist.  She basically said she found it interesting that I identify myself as a feminist, preaching against women objectification while presenting myself the way that I do.  I was flabbergasted and appalled.  Just because I wear lipstick doesn't mean I can't be a feminist.  Just because I sport false eyelashes and sometimes wear clip-in hair extensions doesn't mean I can't be a feminist.  Just be yourself, I'm often told, while I cover up my blemished skin with foundation.  Don't you understand?  This is myself.  Can't I be a feminist while simultaneously realizing that I fall victim to wanting to attain society's unattainable notion of "beauty"?  I've been subtly battered and conditioned into believing that this is who I am.  All of my life I've worn makeup; so, now, if I go out without foundation and lipstick, I don't feel like myself.  This is who I am.  Feminist.  Lipstick and all.  I wear it, but I'm aware of why I do.  I recognize I love wearing it because the larger world tells me I need is to be "pretty" (57).

I now strive to shed some light on the word, feminist.  It's such a dirty, ugly word.  I think most women (and men) are feminists but they don't acknowledge it because they can't get past all the stigma and stereotypes built up in this dirty F-word.

The fight is not over.  Equality does not yet exist.  And I will continue to bitch, vent, and rant until people can finally see what I do.  Women, yes, have made progress but the fight is far from over.  Things aren't really hunky dory when many of us are starving ourselves, throwing up our meals, getting raped and beaten up, being denied birth control and being bombarded constantly with: "DON'T HAVE SEX BUT BE SEXY".  Not to mention a million of other things that make us feel shitty.  Shit has to get better than this.  And I won't stop bitching, venting, and ranting until it does (10).


"Do you think it's fair that a guy will make more money doing the same job as you?  Does it piss you off and scare you when you find out about your friends getting raped?  Do you ever feel like shit about your body?  Do you ever feel like something is wrong with you because you don't fit into this bizarre ideal of what girls are supposed to be like?Well, my friend, I hate to break it to you, but you're a hardcore feminist.  I swear"(6).

I'm just struggling on where I stand as a woman and a feminist and I'm exploring all of these frustrations through different works.

i'm a girl but...

i grow body hair

i love camping and fishing

i hate to cook

i enjoy sports

i don't wear skirts

i hate shopping

i'm messy and unorganized

i'm a feminist but...

i have a boyfriend

i wear lipstick

i sport false eyelashes

i have hair extensions

i want to get married

iron clothes and wash dishes

paint my fingernails

 Valenti, Jessica. Full Frontal Feminism:  A Young Woman's Guide To Why Feminism Matters.  Berkeley: Seal Press, 2007. Print.

I don't want to leave here a painter

After desperately trying to pat down a growing anxiety over the past two weeks, I finally bunted heads with it today.

I'm here for one sole reason... to obtain my Masters degree.  First of all, I feel as though I need to note that Masters programs work much differently than undergraduate programs.  I have only two days of classes while undergraduate programs tend to run five days a week.  However, just because I'm in two days a week doesn't mean I undergo any less stress than a five-day program.  A lot of the work is independently or collaboratively based, taking up to 40 hours outside of the two days a week.

I had the initial thought of finding a part-time job once I got here to help me financially; however, I'm now faced with the dreadful realization that having a job is going to interfere with my coursework.  I don't want having a job to rob me of my experience here.  I'm spending thousands of dollars to be here and I don't want to just get through the program on the bare minimum, in terms of experience.  I want to get the absolute most out of this.  It's not even just about the two days a week and take-home assignments.  It's about all the "extras" involved, specifically related to the arts.  There are constant events being held to get involved in: artist talks, exhibitions, workshops, tutorials, etc.

Bartending over the last three years interfered with me growing as an artist.  It acted as a barrier, putting my creative flow to a staggering halt while I struggled to pay off my student loan debt.  I'm not a portrait artist.  I never was.  I'm here to find out exactly what kind of artist I want to be.  I hate having to constantly rationalize what I do.  People don't understand why I don't just paint lighthouses and sell them.  I want to create art with the purpose of creating social change, as opposed to the market-driven, commodity-based art. I want to connect my art to a wider audience - helping to expand the definitions of art and social change.  I, previously, was confined to canvas and paintbrush.  I was restricted and so were my ideas.  They couldn't flourish.  I couldn't flourish.  I want to explore the different ways I can approach how to work and different ways to express my ideas.  I don't want to leave here a painter.

I could very well "get through" the next year on completing each task mindlessly.  I could pass on the bare minimum; however, with an arts program, it's not just about completing a task.  It's about getting totally and completely lost in it.  It's about maybe stumbling down multiple creative roads, exploring, experimenting, and re-doing the same task more than once until finally feeling enthusiastic about it.

I want to sponge this experience until it's dry - until I can't get anything left out of it.  I don't want to pass up on opportunities because I have to work.  I'm not here to serve people food at a restaurant, and that's not what I'll be doing with my life.

So, maybe England can still be my escape... it's my escape back into the freedom to create art and to take every advantage of being in this art program, saturated with opportunity, events, and other creative minds alike.

I want to flourish.  I won't be able to flourish to the fullest with the stress of working and not being able to attend collaborative meetings or artist talks because I have to serve food.  I don't want to leave here a painter (or a food server).  I need to focus on why I'm here and that is not to get a mindless job.  Otherwise, the whole year here... and being apart from the person I love most in the world would have been for nothing.  I want to make him, and my family, proud.  I'm fearful that they won't understand my need to not work alongside partaking in this program.  I will have the rest of my life to pay off this debt.  I will be paying for it years later, whether or not I make the most of the experience.  I may as well make the most of it... or else I'm going to leave here a painter.

"It's all about making the man happy."

I sat in a circle amongst my 20 other classmates and fellow artists, with my pencil and sketchbook on my lap.  We were engaging in a "writing" exercise. I'd done a few of these during my undergrad degree.  You're given a time limit and you write for the sake of writing.  You don't stop... not even for a second.  This may very well mean you write over and over again: I don't know what to write.  The point is to maybe tap into your subconscious and how you feel should inevitably flows through your finger tips onto the paper (if you're lucky).

I had a sort of epiphany when doing this and scrounged up some material I think I can really explore within my artwork.

Shelley, our professor, had given us only a few seconds to write separate lists of things we loved and hated.  She then told us to take the one that most stood out to us.  We wrote about it for two minutes, then three, and then five.

Under the Things I Hate column, I scribbled down something my mother had said to me during my last trip home to Cape Breton.  We were sitting on the couch having a mother-daughter heart-to-heart when she said to me, "It's all about making the man happy."  My feminist soul was appalled by this.  My blood boiled.  Since that day about two months ago, those words have been burning inside of me.  After arriving in Oxford, I'd written out the quote on card stock and have it resting against a framed photograph of Jesse and I.  

"It's all about making the man happy" stood on line number three of the Things I Hate column.  What flowed out of me, through the writing exploration, were my fears unfolding.

Once upon a time, I'd actively preach against this kind of succumbing to the domesticated stereotype.  I, out of spite, would silently refuse to ever do my partner's laundry or cook meals for him.  I never wanted to get married or have children.  Ever.  But now... I am that woman; however, I choose to be.  Can I still claim to be a feminist while simultaneously "sleeping with the enemy"1?  My partner never tells me what to do.  I love and thoroughly enjoy doing things for him.

Growing up, I used to loathe when my parents told me to wash the dishes.  I wouldn't do them out of spite of their assumption that I should. However, when they were at work and I was home, I would love to do a thorough cleaning of the whole house to surprise them when they walked through the door.  But being told what to do infuriated me.

Does Jesse expect me to do these things now that I've been doing them over the last year?  Has he become numb to it?  Does he understand that I'm not doing them by default, because I'm "supposed to"?  Fuck.  I hope so. I choose to do his laundry and make his lunches for work, just like I've chosen  not to with past partners.  But am I only doing these things out of fear of losing him?  If I stopped, would he leave me?  So am I, by default, doing these things to make him happy?

Can I preach against the inevitability of falling victim to these words my mother said while simultaneously being an evident victim?  

Here has fallen my struggle, internal conflict, and inevitable relationship with these words my mother said.

Is it, in fact, all about making the man happy?

1 In 2010, I'd explored this thought in an essay during my Canadian Women: Critical Perspectives course. According to Andrew Dworkin, who was an American radical feminist and writer, "to engage in heterosexuality was to quite literally sleep with the enemy." Women fight for gender equality; Does it mean that those who fight gender injustice by day and sleep with men by night are "sleeping with the enemy"? It got me thinking about the thin line drawn and I further explored my thoughts and questions while engaging in the course reading, Open Boundaries.