EUREKA i'vefoundmyself
I've always hated those questions where they ask: "If you had to choose something to represent you, what would it be?"
Or: "Portray yourself as an object" or "Describe yourself in one word."
God, hate those more than self-portraits. And self-portraits rank pretty high up there.
I hated those questions because I never knew what to choose. There were too many aspects for me to consider - and besides, can anyone really describe themselves or portray themselves like that? Bull crap.
For the longest time I wondered about my identity, because I really had no clue. There were so many different aspects and different concerns that I had that would seem to contradict each other, and I would just be so utterly confused as to who I am. For instance:
I want to dress as a guy, be visually androgynous because I feel that that is truly WHO I am, and yet there's another part of me that knows that if I ever have a boyfriend, I would want to dress femininely for him; not because I feel that I have to change myself to please him, but because I do have a feminine side as well.
And I guess, this part is just strange. I feel that in general, I reject my feminine side, and yet I’ll tell you that I’m proud to be a girl, and I’m all for girls becoming empowered and free and rah rah rah all that stuff. And yet, in today’s culture when I see girls in popular culture being “free and empowered” it’s mostly linked with sex (sexual liberation, and then using sex as power over men) and I become unhappy. The way I deal with their feminine empowerment is to reject my femininity. And where does that go? Girls say that women and men are more equal now: “we can have sex like men!” etc. why does female empowerment have to be with becoming more masculine?
And while I say this, I still want to dress up as a guy…
and most importantly, the most jarring question of all:
… I like chocolate, but not chocolate flavored things!
Why is that?!
Bloody strange.
And so I feel like a big human walking contradiction.
And then and then and then
Today I walk into my VIS22 class: Formations of Modern Art and the lecturer, Professor Bryson (who has a wicked accent and a way of talking that is currently infiltrating the way I type and think)
(he’s also “modest hygienic assault” man…and also one those people who write in abstract word art)
Starts talking about Mary Cassatt and how she painted women and how they were objects of men’s gaze, and I was like “okay, this is pretty cool.”
And then he starts talking about Claude Cahun and Frida Kahlo and the way the artists were exploring gender in that time.
Claude Cahun was a woman; she looks pretty masculine in her pictures, except for the one where she depicts her body as the strong man’s from the circus while her face is very kewpie doll. (http://www.preview-art.com/features/actingup.html)
She keeps playing around with gender until she gets to a point where she concludes, she is not just one, she is fragmented (the mirror picture) and even a multitude
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/wrobinson/Images/wrobinson4-10-16s.jpg not the best pic to show this, there was another, but I can’t find it.
And then Frida too, in her Two Fridas she shows a doubling of herself. They are both unified and separate.
And I was like Holy Crap, so I’m NOT lost then?
Maybe I can have different contradictory views. Maybe I’ve already found myself.
And I’m just going to post this cuz I’m so darn excited…dunno if it makes any sense, but I’ve got to be out the door in 6 minutes to go to my next class, so you guys can just post your thoughts if you want.
But yeah!