okay.
I've noticed that a lot of the female students in my painting classes are embracing/exploring sexuality, which is something to notice, since the subject has surprisingly been off-limits in terms of creation... at least within my general incoming class. Admittedly, I was annoyed when I first saw all of this -- don't paint strippers and porn scenes just because you think it makes you "bad" or edgey or hip. Fucking posers. Then I thought, It'll be interesting to see how each individual takes this broad concept and manifests it within a language of symbols that makes sense to them. Besides, even if they have motivations I'd contest with as being... umm.. lame, those motivations in and of themselves are a basis for exploration. It's the big, fat WHY? And maybe it'll be good, and maybe the "true" why will come through whether they intend it or not.
When I painted four squares on a van to contribute to the Nelson's Fine Arts Scholarship this afternoon, people were absolutely certain I was painting abstracted penises. This is my stigma. Sex drips off of me worse than a French whore in a slammerkin. (That is in fact what I wanted to be for Halloween, except I had no one to curl my hair, tie my bodice, or lift up my skirt in a dark alley.) But believe it or not, I did not begin "art school" thinking, I'm going to be the girl who does the sex paintings.
For the record, Medusa was not about sex or even really speaking on sex. There was a somewhat sexual charge to it, as is often occuring in primal-like work, but it was not about that. So if everyone interprets it as sexual, and interprets everything I do as sexual, then its more of a reflection on how they receive the work.
So don't tell me to get my mind out of the gutter.
Although, to the credit of my peers, sexuality is interwoven throughout all of my work to some degree -- its just never completely about sex. Sex is often a starting point. The human body is a means of communicating, mentally travelling and getting lost.
And when you're brave enough to be lost, you're strong enough to find your own damn way from there.