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. 

Coffee and Oxford at nighttime.

I enjoy Oxford a lot better at night time... when the streets aren't polluted with people and it's not a nightmare of a game trying to quickly weave through an obstacle course I didn't sign up to play.  Street lamps softly light up the streets and glow onto the couples holding hands, hibernating during the day until the stress of the streets winds down.  I walk just for the sake of walking at nighttime. I stride without purpose.  I take time to look into the window fronts of shops I'm too busy to observe during the day.  I don't mind getting lost at nighttime.  I walk down streets I've never noticed and discover new routes to where I tend to go during the day.

Oxford seems to be saturated with drunken university students which is a scene I graduated away from a long time ago.  It's also a great place to indulge in a little retail therapy which is unfortunate for me because I don't have money to frivolously spend.

I do, when I scrounge up enough change, indulge in a medium sized Americano.  I'll either sit in a coffee shop closely stitched to a window, watching the faces go by, or I'll walk around the streets with it, my name Sharpied on the side.  It's becoming a routine.  Coffee and Oxford at nighttime.  It's my escape from the chaos that exists during the day... being bombarded by the numbing scheduled routines of goers, mapping out their routes on their iPhones, getting my head around and trying to comprehend the days' metaphysics that makes up the majority of my Masters program, and the reality of wishing I had my partner to shield me from the stress of it all.

Nothing could've prepared me for this

I'd been preparing myself for this moment since the first time I met Jesse, when I quickly texted my friend exclaiming I'd just met my future husband.  I'd been preparing for this moment since he and I first started dating, quickly realizing I'd never in my life felt so comfortable with anyone before.  I'd been preparing for this moment since the first night Jesse and I decided to become official, after promising him the best and most memorable ten months of his life (after spending the prior two together) before I took off to school in England.

Through every flawless and breathtaking memory we'd created over the past year, I'd simultaneously appreciate the effortless perfection of it... fully accepting the imminent reality of having to leave him in September.  I think, in a way, us knowing there was a time limit on building the foundation of our relationship made us truly appreciate every moment of it.

Knowing it was coming doesn't make my heart ache any less.  I'm not sure any amount of televised warnings and gradual collection of canned goods could've ever prepared me for the storm that's erupting inside of me right now.

Saying goodbye to Jesse was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  Saying goodbye is never easy but I feel completely empty without him.  That may be disgusting drastic for most of you but if you've ever experienced true unconditional love (the kind that makes other people want to throw up), you'll be smitten with my words.  We stood for fifteen minutes at his check-in area, locked in the most heartbreaking embrace... the kind where you try to memorize everything, so that letting go isn't so difficult while the feeling still lingers.  He still lingers.  I can feel his hand on my knee, his kiss on my cheek, and his hand delicately enveloping the back of my neck.

today > yesterday

Today went a lot better than yesterday.

Yesterday, after the bombardment of different, well, everything, I nestled into Jess' shoulder while we stood on the corner of a street in Oxford and I began to sob.

I'm not even entirely sure it was the shock of everything that upset me.  I think it was the sudden realization that everything foreign to me in that moment would eventually become comfortable... would become normal... and would ultimately out shadow everything I'd fallen in love with about my life over the last year.

This isn't a vacation.  It's my life.

I'm still in the process of getting everything I need;  You know, the stupid shit that you don't even think of until you go to grab for it... bath towels, garbage bags, pillows, Heinz ketchup...

We've walked into the city centre four times now.  Each time it seems a little closer.  It's about 25 minutes.  I could get a bus pass but there's no way in hell my ass would get any smaller by resorting to that route.  I'll suck it up and enjoy the walk, embracing my new home as positively and enthusiastically as I can.

A grocery store is only about a four minute walk away... followed by everything else I could possibly need.  Jess and I ate at this very cute fish and chip shop close by with the friendliest people and tastiest comfort food.  We both agreed we'd stop by again before he flies back to Nova Scotia.

It's been rainy and damp but that was to be expected.  I need to invest in an inexpensive rain jacket.  I've been budgeting the little bit of cash I brought over with me to get me through until I can set up a bank account.  The cash stays hidden in one of many Kraft Dinner boxes on my shelf.

We have my room pretty well set up now.  I have to give Jesse most of the credit.  While I was blaming my exhaustion on jet lag and trying to stealthily sneak in a nap, he was unpacking and organizing my junk.

So, while yesterday ended in a few stressful tears... today ended with a few glasses of wine with my new flatmates and Heinz ketchup stocked in my kitchen.

Today went a lot better than yesterday.

Star of my eye

Jess and I had just begun dating, many months ago.  We were sitting on the couch, sharing a computer screen while we exchanged funny YouTube videos. It graduated into him showing me various videos he'd taken while he was on tour in Afghan with the military.  He then hauled out of a velvet jewellery case two cat eye gems he'd purchased while overseas.  He told me he, someday, planned on getting the two gems made into two rings - one for him and one for a special girl.  He told me that once he eventually met the right girl, he would do that.

--

Jesse's flight was a couple of hours ago.  I still have another hour to wait before I board my plane to Frankfurt where I transfer onto another flight to London.  Jess was flying to Ottawa and then transferring over onto his flight to London.

It'd been a short, disgusting and stressful jaunt through check-in where I apparently packed too much in my carry-on luggage.  I was forced to unpack my luggage and disperse the weight.  My hair stuck to my sweat-soaked forehead when I finally made my way to Jesse's gate with my, now, two-pound lighter bag around my shoulder.  I plunked myself next to him, sharing his seat while I draped my arm over his shoulder and planted a kiss on his cheek.

It seemed almost instantly that the announcement interrupted our fixed gaze, stating they were beginning boarding for his flight.  We stood up.  I kissed him goodbye, "I'll see you across the pond."

He made his way closer to the gate.  The crowd was hurrying through.  "Babe, as soon as I walk through those doors I want you to look into your bag, pull out my camera case and look inside.  Then, I want you to open that letter I gave you earlier."  I watched him cross over to the other side and I found a seat, dropping my carry-on bag on the seat next to me.  Jess stood, standing on the other side of the glass doors, watching and smiling.

I, once upon a time, told Jess all I ever wanted from him was a 25cent ring from a candy machine, with the plastic bubble case of course.  I'm not one of those girls who ever wants expensive frivolous jewellery.

I opened up the camera case, pulling out a plastic bubble case, which looked like the ones I'd often jokingly point to anytime we passed by a toy and candy vending machine.  Tears pooled in my eyes while I broke open the plastic case, revealing a ring with diamonds and the cateye, star sapphire, gem he'd told me about months ago.

I looked back up at him, telling him I loved him.  He blew me a kiss and walked away to his plane.  I pulled open a beautiful card he'd written explaining the meaning of the ring and stating it was a reflection of his promise to one day marry me.

When you look at the ring in the light, a star illuminates in it: "This way," Jesse said, "when we look at the rings in the light while there are no stars out, we can picture each other while looking at the star we hold close to us."