Two photos in a series: A Fat Body, A Fat Home, copyright Megan Beene
Yes, this is literally art. Here’s my artist statement.
Here’s my boobs and my belly roll. As a genderqueer person idk if my nipples count as “female presenting.” Is it about how big they are? Are we talking about areola or the actual erectile tissue? If I feel at home with they/ them pronouns and have watched my gender flap like a handkerchief in the wind sometimes, do I get to own my body? Do I get to decide who sees it? Have I earned my place?
Fat bodies are policed every day with silent judgement and sharpened barbs about dieting and guilt; the renouncement of pleasure is a knife used to cleave the fat from the meat and the bones. Don’t enjoy yourself. Don’t.
Women’s bodies, too, are cut apart, framed pieces that get hung separately and put together to maximize desire. The elements are judged based on unreachable standards, and if you actually happened to have reached them through genetics, luck, or surgery, you’ll still be judged just as harshly as if you missed them by a mile. May the odds be never in your favor.
Note how I’ve done it here as an act of reclaiming: The artist’s head is kept out of frame, but in the first image their nipples serve as a stand in for a direct gaze, piercing the viewer and daring them to look back. In the second, the artist’s gaze is turned away as in a more traditional odalisque pose, and yet we see the markings of a personal space. They’re allowing us to see more, and yet it’s somehow less.
The artist works within the tradition of many feminist artists who came before. I could give names, but it won’t stop this post from getting flagged and hidden.
I’m sick and disgusted right now, but too tired to do anything. I know this is the beginning, not the end. I know that when they come for sex workers they’re also coming for the poor, the disabled, and the marginalized. They will come for the political bloggers. They will come and keeping coming until this site is just diluted enough to be almost satisfying. The people who join later will wonder why anyone left, because there’s still more here than elsewhere.
Anyway. Mostly that was an artist’s statement. But parts of it weren’t. Good luck parsing it i guess.
As for me I’m here til I’m not. I’m on instagram as homosocial, and you can message me for my email or fb info. I’m looking into pillowfort and a few other places. And on December 17th I’m literally going to queue “welcome to hell” for the whole day.
This post is currently in content appeal (already) & i wanna add (though i shouldn’t need to) that i have a BA in studio art, have taught art classes, and am 100% not bullshitting when i say this is art.
I always get so fucking mad when I remember that it’s actually a 16-year-old Algerian girl who influenced BOTH Picasso and Matisse. and. No one gives a rat’s ass about her work which was very focused on women and nature. History -or people dare I say- didn’t bother to remember her name because she was a young Algerian woman and no one cares about Maghrebi/Arab women. unlike P*casso & M*tisse who both became legends, almost gods both during their lives and after their deaths, no one knows her.
The title says it all really. So if nothing else, please share and reblog this post to raise awareness for those that might be caught out – both artists and followers.
For a TL:DR, please look at the bottom of the post
What is happening?
Right now, there is at least one person actively impersonating multiple artists across tumblr in an effort to scam their followers into paying for fake ‘cheap commissions’.
The scammer will clone a tumblr, usually using a slight change to the url/account name to look like the real deal. They will then message people directly through Tumblr with messages along the lines of “Hey, i’m doing cheap commissions right now. DM me to get one”. Naturally, this is ends up just being a way to take their money without giving anything back in return.
Who does this affect?
Everyone. Simple as that. As long as the scammer in question works unopposed, they are free to spread their influence and continue to scam more people. Even if you haven’t been targeted yet, it does not mean you are safe or immune.
Several artists have already fallen victim to this scammer, and I encourage any artists that have to reblog this post with the details of their affected account(s) and the ones the scammer has set up.
How can we stop this?
Tumblr, like many other social media platforms, seems to care very little about ‘minor’ occurences like this one, and despite reaching out directly to them over a week ago through multiple avenues of contact – they have refused to comment on the situation, provide a recommended response for users, or take action on behalf of those already affected.
Despite this, there are still tools at our disposal that we can use to make this scam more difficult, and to increase its visibility to those within Tumblr staff that are required by policy to take action.
Tumblr has the following to say on the topic of impersonation:
Confusion or Impersonation. Don’t do things that would cause confusion between you or your blog and a person or company, like registering a deliberately confusing URL. Don’t impersonate anyone. While you’re free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can’t pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch.
They then provide a link to this online form that you can fill out if you suspect someone’s identity is being confused. Unfortunately, this can only be filled out if you are the victim of impersonation. In other words, only the artists can fill this out legitimately.
So, what about the followers and users of tumblr whom aren’t being impersonated?
Our most valuable tool in this online platform is the platform itself. It enables us to spread our word near-virally across all the many sub-communities on Tumblr with remarkable efficiency for a user-driven system. We can take advantage of that effect to increase awareness of the situation. Even if you – the one reading this right now – aren’t an artist or don’t know an artist, the act of reblogging this post or sharing it directly with friends improves it’s ‘ranking’ in popularity increasing its chances to be seen by more people.
We don’t need everyone on Tumblr to see the post for it to be effective, just like we don’t need the entirety of the human population of the world to be immune to a disease for that disease to be rendered ineffective or eradicated. If enough people are aware, the likelihood of pulling off a successful scam increases dramatically reducing efficiency to a point that it no longer becomes profitable to continue.
Why should I care?
It disheartens me to say this, but of the many artists I contacted directly over the past week to warn about this issue many of them refused to listen or dodged the responsibility with lines like;
“I’m not being impersonated, so it doesn’t affect me”
“I’m just one person. I can’t make an impact”
“I need to take care of my community. Other people can look after theirs”
This is honestly disappointing that so many artists or art-rebloggers care so little as to intentionally wave the responsibility of keeping their followers and fellow artists safe from this, that they cannot spare 10 seconds of their time to share an informative post.
I’m not here to bash artists, but it is time that everyone takes responsibility for their own communities, and of those around them.
Artists: You have a responsibility to ensure that your followers and fans aren’t being abused by someone who may impersonate you. If they succeed, your reputation will be damaged, and your followers will resent you. Your followers are also almost guaranteed to be following other artists meaning your efforts can spread beyond your own circle of influence, so don’t be naive when you think you have little effect.
Followers: You have just as much responsibility to be aware of those that might try to scam you or your fellow followers. Don’t just sit in silence when you see something wrong: Ignoring the issue only makes it more resilient to our efforts to stop it. You are the vocal majority if you just use your voices to be heard!
TL:DR
A scammer is impersonating artists and scamming money from their followers under the guise of ‘cheap commissions’. If we ignore the issue, it will get worse.
Every single person that reads this can afford to spend just 10 seconds to reblog and share this post. Those 10 seconds can save others from being scammed for hundreds of dollars.
Reblog & Share
I think my followers already know my commission style, as in how I market them and how I run my business. But just in case:
I NEVER outright DM someone to get a cheap commission from me.
I NEVER discuss the terms and conditions of the commission through DM, just through email. I only discuss drawing progresses through DM. Initial contract for commissions will ALWAYS be done through email.
I ALWAYS post my signature “Saera’s Commission” or “#Saera’s Comms” post on my blog to signify I’m currently taking commissions. NEVER through DMs.
Lastly, please please please be aware of the URLs, check the authenticity of the post and always think logically.
Be safe guys! 🙂
All of the above my friends.
As a note: I’m currently in the middle of con prep and won’t be taking commissions for a while nor will I ever DM you directly. Be wary of “artists” sending messages directly guys and be safe.
While I do work through the dm system here, I will only ever message you from this account. I will also only take commissions through the shop. If I’m offering “cheap commissions” it will be via a sale code which will be announced publicly on this blog.
When I lived in London, I shared a flat with a guy who was 26 years old, getting his PhD in theoretical physics. Let’s call him Ron. Ron could not for the life of him figure out why I was wasting my time with an MA in Shakespeare studies or why my chosen method of providing for myself was writing fiction. Furthermore, it was utterly beyond him why I should take offense to someone whose field literally has the word “theoretical” in the title ridiculing the practical inefficacy of art. My pointing out that he spent his free time listening to music, watching television, and sketching famous sculptures in his notebook somehow didn’t convince him that art is a necessary part of a healthy human existence.
Three other things that happened with Ron:
I came home late one night and he asked where I’d been. When I told him I’d been at a friend’s flat for a Hanukkah celebration, he said, “What’s Hanukkah?” I thought he was joking. He was not.
A few weeks later, I came downstairs holding a book. He asked what I was reading and when I said, “John Keats,” he (and the three other science grad students in the room) did not know who that was. This would be like me not knowing who Thomas Edison is.
One night we got into an argument about the issue of gay marriage, and at one point he actually said, “It doesn’t affect me so I don’t see why I should care about it.”
Now: If Ron had ever read Number the Stars, or heard Ode to a Nightingale, or been to a performance of The Laramie Project, do you think he ever would have asked any of these questions?
Obviously this is an extreme example. This guy was amazingly ignorant, but he was also the walking embodiment of the questions you’re asking. What does art matter compared with something like science, that saves people’s lives? Here’s the thing: There’s a flaw in the question, because art saves lives, too. Maybe not in the same “Eureka, we’ve cured cancer!” kind of way, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Sometimes the impact of art is relatively small, even invisible to the naked eye. For example: as a young teenager I was (no exaggeration) suicidally unhappy. Learning to write is what kept me (literally and figuratively) off the ledge. But I was one nameless teenager; in the greater scheme of things, who cares? Fair enough. Let’s talk big picture. Let’s talk about George Orwell. George Orwell wrote books, the two most famous of which are Animal Farm and 1984. You probably read at least one of those in high school. Why do these books matter? Because they’re cautionary tales about limiting the power of oppressive governments, and their influence is so pervasive that the term “Big Brother,” which refers to the omniscient government agency which watches its citizens’ every move in 1984, has become common parlance to refer to any abuse of power and invasion of privacy by a governmental body. Another interesting fact, and the reason I chose this example: sales of 1984 fucking skyrocketed in 2017, Donald Trump’s first year in office. Why? Well, people are terrified. People are re-reading that cautionary tale, looking for the warning signs.
Art, as Shakespeare taught us, “holds a mirror up to nature.” Art is a form of self-examination. Art forces us to confront our own mortality. (Consider Hamlet. Consider Dylan Thomas.) Art forces us to confront inequality. (Consider Oliver Twist. Consider Audre Lorde. Consider A Raisin in the Sun. Consider Greta Gerwig getting snubbed at the Golden Globes.) Art forces us to confront our own power structures. (Consider Fahrenheit 451. Consider “We Shall Overcome.” Consider All the President’s Men. Consider “Cat Person.”) Art reminds us of our own history, and keeps us from repeating the same tragic mistakes. (Consider The Things They Carried. Consider Schindler’s List. Consider Hamilton.) Art forces us to make sense of ourselves. (Consider Fun House. Consider Growing Up Absurd.) Art forces us to stop and ask not just whether we can do something but whether we should. (Consider Brave New World. Consider Cat’s Cradle.) You’re curious about ecopoetics? The whole point is to call attention to human impact on the environment. Some of our scientific advances are poisoning our planet, and the ecopoetics of people like the Beats and the popular musicians of the 20th century led to greater environmental awareness and the first Earth Day in 1970 . Art inspires change–political, social, environmental, you name it. Moreover, art encourages empathy. Without books and movies and music, we would all be stumbling around like Ron, completely ignorant of every other culture, every social, political, or historical experience except our own. Since we have such faith in science: science has proved that art makes us better people. Science has proved that people who read fiction not only improve their own mental health but become proportionally more empathetic. (Really. I wrote an article about this when I was working for a health and wellness magazine in 2012.) If you want a more specific example: science has proved that kids who read Harry Potter growing up are less bigoted. (Here’s an article from Scientific American, so you don’t have to take my word for it.) That is a big fucking deal. Increased empathy can make a life-or-death difference for marginalized people.
But the Defense of Arts and Humanities is about more than empirical data, precisely because you can’t quantify it, unlike a scientific experiment. Art is–in my opinion–literally what makes life worth living. What the fuck is the point of being healthier and living longer and doing all those wonderful things science enables us to do if we don’t have Michelangelo’s David or Rimbaud’s poetry or the Taj Mahal or Cirque de Soleil or fucking Jimi Hendrix playing “All Along the Watchtower” to remind us how fucking amazing it is to be alive and to be human despite all the terrible shit in this world? Art doesn’t just “improve human lives.” Art makes human life bearable.
I hope this answers your question.
To it I would like to add: Please remember that just because you don’t see the value in something doesn’t mean it is not valuable. Please remember that the importance of science does not negate or diminish the importance of the arts, despite what every Republican politician would like you to believe. And above all, please remember that artists are every bit as serious about what they do as astronomers and mathematicians and doctors, and what they do is every bit as vital to humanity, if in a different way. Belittling their work by questioning its importance, or relegating it to a category of lesser endeavors because it isn’t going to cure a disease, or even just making jokes about how poor they’re going to be when they graduate is insensitive, ignorant, humiliating, and, yes, offensive.And believe me: they’ve heard it before. They don’t need to hear it again. We know exactly how frivolous and childish and idealistic and unimportant everyone thinks we are. Working in the arts is a constant battle against the prevailing idea that what you do is useless. But it’s bad enough that the government is doing its best to sacrifice all arts and humanities on the altar of STEM–we don’t need to be reminded on a regular basis that ordinary people think our work is a waste of time and money, too.
Artists are exhausted. They’re sick and tired of being made to justify their work and prove the validity of what they do. Nobody else in the world is made to do that the way artists are. That’s why these questions upset them. That’s why it exasperates me. I have to answer some version of this question every goddamn day, and I am so, so tired. But I’ve taken the effort to answer it here, again, in the hopes that maybe a couple fewer people will ask it in the future. But even if you’re not convinced by everything I’ve just said, please try to find some of that empathy, and just keep it to yourself.
Atena Farghadani is a 28-year-old Iranian artist. She was recently sentenced to 12 years and 9 months in prison for drawing a cartoon.
This cartoon, that she posted on her Facebook page last year, depicts members of the Iranian parliament as animals. It was drawn in protest of new legislature in Iran that will restrict access to contraception and criminalise voluntary sterilisation. Atena’s charges include ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ and ‘insulting members of parliament through paintings’.
“While in prison last year, Atena flattened paper cups to use them as a surface to paint on. When the prison guards realised what she had been doing, they confiscated her paintings and stopped giving her paper cups. When Atena found some cups in the bathroom, she smuggled them into her cell. Soon after, she was beaten by prison guards, when she refused to strip naked for a full body search. Atena says that they knew about her taking the cups because they had installed cameras in the toilet and bathroom facilities – cameras detainees had been told were not operating.”
She was released in November and gave media interviews and posted a video on YouTube detailing her beatings, constant interrogations and humiliating body searches. She was then rearrested possibly in retaliation for speaking out and has been imprisoned ever since. In January, Atena went on a hunger strike to protest the horrible prison conditions. Her health suffered dramatically, and after losing consciousness and suffering a heart attack in February, she was forced to eat again.
The quote used in the comic is taken from the speech Atena gave at her trial. It has been translated into English by the Free Atena Facebook page. You can read the whole thing here.
Time is now against her, she has just two weeks to lodge an appeal. Michael Cavna, comic journalist for The Washington Post, has launched a campaign appealing to artists to help bring awareness to Atena’s case by creating their own artwork in support of Atena and using the hashtag#Draw4Atena. Can a bunch of artists and a hashtag really make a difference and put pressure on the Iranian Government to release Atena? Probably not. But just remember that Atena is currently in prison enduring horrible conditions, and if her appeal isn’t successful, she will be there for another twelve years. FOR DRAWING A CARTOON AND POSTING IT ON FACEBOOK. Don’t we owe it to her to at least try?
Alot worse actually happens out there.. once Being a soldier (which turned me into an activist) showed me..
“Your art isn’t valued by the number of notes you get” okay but. If you spent 6 hours baking a cake for a party, but no one at the party eats your cake, it’s still disappointing.
This articulates something about the different between value and validation that I didn’t previously register on a conscious level.
one thing me n my art loving gf would do is visit galleries and play a game called “root, loot or boot”
the gist is that you would look at a group of paintings in a room and decide which figure in the painting you’d root (fuck, in Australian slang), which painting you’d loot (steal and put on your wall at home) and which painting you’d boot (punt into the garbage because it’s shit and Not Art)
a couple of things about my experiences:
1. this game is a lot more fun if you’re attracted to women because there’s so many Hot Gals to choose from
2. if you are attracted to men, you will spend a lot of time going “well, looks like I’ll have to pick jesus again” as my bi gf did
3. it gets more complicated in modern art museums and you find yourself having saying, “I’d fuck the rhombus” “you CAN’T fuck the rhombus” “then I’ll fuck that blue squiggle thing. what’s it called?” “creeping existential dread in blue” “then does that mean I’m fucking the squiggle or am I getting fucked by the existential dread it represents?” “aren’t we all already getting fucked by existential dread?”
4. if you play this with an art history nerd, they may decide to kill you over one of your “boot” choices
5. you will get Disapproving Looks from other patrons who overhear your heated debates
6. it’s also the best fun you’ll ever have in an art gallery
https://www.tumblr.com/dmca Go there, and do as the instructions say. When my art was stolen, I got the post reported, and it was taken down. Don’t worry, it doesn’t just take down the sources post, but it takes down all the reblogged posts too. Please give this a reblog, many artists out there may not know this is here. And remember, ask permission before sharing, or don’t post it.
One thing I never really understood was Sleipnir (meaning “slippery one” fyi) in depictions of Norse mythology. Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse, the steed of Odin and the son of Loki, and he is commonly depicted like this:
(image not mine)
But why would you depict an eight-legged horse like this? Horses gallop the same way most other mammals run, with all feet leaving the ground at one point, so having extra feet here doesn’t seem like it could make the horse any faster. I’m also not sure it would give it any more stable footing, since it doesn’t have a wider base.
If you want a stable eight-legged form that can reach great speeds for its size, wouldn’t you want to start with what nature has already provided? Wouldn’t you want something more like… this?
(my drawing)
“But wait!” you might say, “Sleipnir was conceived when Loki, in horse-form, seduced another horse! That’s why it looks all horsey, just with extra bits!”
Well, that’s a good point, but consider that Loki as a deity was originally based off the spider, and his name even derives from the old Swedish word for spider (source). Therefore, it’s not too hard to believe Sleipnir inherited his horse half from his mother and the more spidery half from his father. In conclusion:
Spider-Horse, Spider-Horse, He does spider-things of course! Weaves a web, Makes you gawk, Riding round ‘til Ragnarok! Look out! Here comes the Spider-Horse.
I am all for creative interpretations of Sleipnir. And spiders, obviously. This is epic.
But just so you know, that journal is from the 60′s, and the current scholarly consensus no longer considers the spider etymology to be likely. We still aren’t sure where the name comes from, and probably won’t ever be, but I’ve seen quite a few more recent academics lean toward Old Norse luka, meaning “close”, “shut”, or “end.” (See Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology.)
^^^^ my research found much the same. (which is sad, i like spiders)
As far as Sleipnir having eight legs, it’s probably a reference to Icelandic horses. Icelandic horses are one of the few horse breeds with five gaits. They can do a walk, trot and canter/gallop, like most horses. But they have also evolved to have a tolt,
[ gif of a man riding a brown Icelandic horse doing a tolt. The back legs of the horse move rather stiffly back and forth, while the front legs are lifted up almost to the horse’s chest. While the horse bounces slightly, the man riding the horse could probably hold a glass of water without spilling. ]
which is fast, smooth and noted for its explosive speed and ability to cover long distances.
The second unique gait is called flugskeið, or flying pace.
[ a light brown Icelandic horse demonstrating the flugskeið. With the exception of the wind in the horses’ mane, the upper part of the horse and the rider seem to almost be still, with the background simply zipping by them. The horse’s legs, however, move fast enough to blur. Unlike with a full gallop, the horse does not fully extend its legs away from its body. This is particularly obvious in the front legs of the horse, which lift up to the chest of the horse and land under its chin the same way as in the tolt]
It is both smooth and fast, some horses being able to reach speeds of 30 mph. Not all Icelandic horses can do a flugskeið, but you’ll notice that when done properly the legs move in unison and so fast they can blur, giving the illusion of the horse having eight legs.
Anyways, here is a video to further emphasize how cool the flugskeið is;
I’d never heard this theory! That’s so neat.
The one I’ve read attributed the eight legs thing to a metaphor of a coffin + 4 pallbearers.
This is FASCINATING, and I adore Sleipnir! 😍 @tinaferraldo
You’ve brought my horse geek out now. You have been warned!
The thing is, until the late 1800s we didn’t know how horses moved.
In old paintings you typically see horses with their legs stretched wide as they thought that gave the appearance of great speed.
But it really just looks like Timmy’s big brother was being an evil bastard and bent the legs of his tin horses out .
It’s completely unnatural looking, but horses moved too fast for us to be able to see how they moved, until Edward MAuybridge captured their motion in a series of consecutive photographs in 1878.
And for the first time we could see that all four legs did leave the ground. (and are never stretched uncomfortably wide!).
He also created the first motion picture as the individual photographs could be put together as a series of film frames (below).
So, all this is to say that back when Sleipnir was being dreamed up, they didn’t understand how animals moved and probably thought more legs = faster, and to a degree they were right, things on four legs run faster than bipeds so they continued that principle to its logical, if incorrect, conclusion.
THIS IS THE BEST HORSE MOVEMENT DISCOURSE EVER
or we can consider that norse epics were, above all else, poetry, and consider that the image of an eight-legged horse brings to mind a horse that moves like a spider – with that fast darting scuttle that so many people find terrifying. an alien horse. a divine horse. a monster.
(personally i find the spider run adorable, like when a cat gets startled and does the skitter. but i recognize this is an unusual reaction.)
So, inspired by the whole concept of a spider-horse I very loosely sketched this:
…To which my brother @foxofwar simply pointed out, that being a spider-horse, it’s a sporse.
Slightly off topic, but it isn’t unique to Norse mythology to give a magical horse unusual number of legs tho. In Hungarian folklore special horses (usually fond of eating cinders, capable of flying or running faster than the win or even faster than thoughts, usually liked to sass the hero of the tale) had 5, 6 or 7 legs.
Obviously those numbers were chosen because they held cultural significance (our dragons/giants had odd number of heads too), but it probably sounded like common sense that more legs=faster horse.
I have nothing to add but damn is this thread epic.
There’s a Peruvian horse breed called the Paso that has a fifth gait as well – kind of a smooth, toe-skimming shuffle between the trot and the canter. It’s smooth as butter.
Epic horse thread is epic. And fascinating 🙂
Mythology, gaited horses, Muybridge and a wee touch of biomechanics. 👌 well done with this blog bait. You have caught me. You have won
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 