Inspired by the 1920s

I never really know where my research and searches will take me next, but then I found the beautiful and sexy photographs of beautiful and stunning women of the 1920s. Given my love of cinema and theater, when I found Alfred Cheney Johnston's portraits of the Ziegfeld Follies girls, I felt I discovered a refreshing female “prettiness”, and was so inspired. Given my fascination with medieval history and post apocalypse theories, we get this body of work. I found I was also jealous of those 20's ladies, because they were so brave and revolutionary. They were natural, and as yet still uninfluenced about what their naked bodies should look like. Now, not only are we told how our make up should be, what clothes we should wear, we also get told that wrinkles on our stomachs are wrong, stretch marks are wrong, bruises and scars are ugly, pubic hair is bad, fat is bad... well as far as I'm concerned, I am so over it all. I am so over being told that I need to accept that straight men have sexual needs and that i need to make my body ready for that. I'm so sick of watching friends be abused and used by men who have yet to realize that what they are doing is wrong. And yet, if you want to breastfeed in public, that's wrong. If you don't want to wear a bra, you aren't properly dressed. If you don't want to shave, you are lazy. WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR SOCIETY! SERIOUSLY! WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH THESE DOUBLE STANDARDS??? And that is why I am jealous, because those gorgeous women in the 20's started a revolution, which so many others around me seem to either have forgotten, been brainwashed to think has been won, or are too scared to stand up and say what they think. So this body of work is a glamorous protest. Well, I tried to make it glamorous.

The Illusion of the Elitist Artist

"Sport is more popular. Why should tradies tax dollars go to pay for an elitist pass time. the average person arent remotely interested in the convoluted navel gazing of the art community. Supply and demand. If there are too many artists and they can't make a living then it's not up to the tax payer to fork out more dosh. I would rather some disabled kids get funding than a load of pretentious wankers."

This was someone's legitimate response to arts in Australia.
This is why I often eat only frozen vegetables.
This is why I either make my costumes or source them from thrift shops.

My work critiques woman's roles in society in a dreamy, fantastical, cinematic way. Does that make it less valid? Less worthy? Am I simply too bored to get a real job? Really? Given I just lost a job that I loved because Australian's don't read books either...

This makes me so mad.

Australian people as a whole need to realize that we are brainwashed by media to only enjoy simple, straightforward things. By all means, sport can be fun, but there is more to life than it! TV shows don't have to be black and white, movies don't have to be all action and boobs. Music, oh dear Loki, don't even get me started on popular music; you guys know that there are more than four chords right? Beer is not the only alcohol available. Why do the masses chose to be so influenced by peer pressure?

Despite what the stereotype suggests, I don't come from money, nor will I inherit any great sum of it. I don't do this just for fun, I do this because it's the only way I know how to fight; fight for my world to change, fight to make my children's world better. I do this so that I might inspire someone else to join the fight, to give them hope that things could one day change.

That doesn't sound very elitist to me.

Now, here's some of my latest work...

Chips, my little pony and art

Have you ever just found yourself, staring at the blank page of a blog or a diary, and thought, "I have nothing worth recording. why do  I even bother? Who the fuck cares?"
Well I have been. Almost every day in fact for the last few weeks.
My days have been filled with getting up, going to work, coming  home, making art work, then reading and bed. That's all. In fact some days there is no art, it's just reading. How is that exciting? How is that worth talking about??? It's not. Surely. No, the feeling is, however, as hard as it is to pinpoint. That feeling of  "I am too small to be significant".
And before you ask, yes, I do suffer from depression, and I am doing stuff to help it become manageable, but that doesn't mean that it completely fades, and these feelings come and go in waves. So at the moment I am making my life work, even if it does feel completely pointless, and like I am wasting all your time.
I have found however, that I am able to focus on my book or my game more intensely at the moment which is a wonderful escape. Although, watching "My little Pony" becomes a rather psychedelic experience...

And that, boys, is how it's done

Unfortunately for me, being a practicing artist doesn't pay the bills. So to get by I have a job in retail as well. I do actually enjoy it, so I guess that makes it all ok.
But, every shift I work I get hit on, asked out, or "pet-named". It's something I have to deal with all the time as a woman. Sometimes it's sweet, I get made to laugh, I am classily handed a business card with a number, but other times it's quite degrading and demanding and rather misogynistic.
Today, however, a true gentleman walked into my shop, and I feel it's worth sharing.
I was sitting behind the counter, reading my book, as is actually part of my job, and I was quietly approached by a man with a friendly smile and two large coffees.
"So I have two coffees, and I was wondering if you might like one,' he said to me.
"Really?"
"Yes really, for you, if you want it," he replied.
"Thank you," I returned with true sincerity.
He returned my smile with warmth, and wandered around the store, bought an item, wished me a good afternoon and left.
There was no smut, there was no assumptions, there was no pressure, and was not very long. And it made me feel lovely. Now that it was it supposed to happen.
Now if only it was Elijah Wood or Tom Hiddleston doing that in my store...

Never noticed how much facebook controls my day before...

Ah, life. That unforgiving, controlling necessity we all participate in.
And yet, Facebook is not really something that should control a life, and yet it really does.

I found myself this morning, faced with a strange blue screen asking me to confirm my identity. I was baffled; I hadn't spoken against anyone, any sexuality, any religion, I hadn't fought with someone or used strong language, and yet here I was, facing that screen of doom for anyone using an alter-ego; I had been reported as a fake account.
As one can assume, I was furious! I hadn't hurt anyone, it didn't stop others from interacting with me, and yet, here I was being forced to either provide details of my name, or lose my account in seven days.
Well, as you can imagine, I chose to provide "details" {cough cough} as no-one has any right to tell me that I don't exist, or that my name is acceptable!
But, this is nothing to the utter frustration of knowing it only took the facebook police two hours to take my account down after I was brought to their attention, but after twelve hours of waiting, I still haven't been allowed back onto the site. And that is what hit me the most; that I was so controlled by this site, that I had spent my whole day worrying about the fact that I couldn't get on.
Quite frankly, it's bizarre.

How is it, that our whole lives have become about scrolling the "newsfeed" and "likes"? I never noticed it until now, but we all do it now, a moment where we look at what others are doing, liking, saying.
Don't get me wrong, I will be back, and I will be just as addicted. But, I hope now, that I have had to deal with a whole day without my art friends, my models, and my admirers, that I can learn to go through my days without it.

And now to finish, here is some art.
xx

Modern Mythology- Dreamy fantasy photograph's by artist Eating Strawberries

I love fantasy, always have. So for me it is a thrill to use that subject matter in my art. Elves, nymphs, fairies, priestesses and the like all come to life in spaces where you might not have previously looked to find such creatures.
These images came to life simply because I happened to look in the right direction and see a spot f spectacular autumn light and i thought to myself i could imagine a elf appearing there, so that's what I made happen, and since then I have continued it, to make a modern mythology of Australian Autumn creatures.

"In the end"-some new stuff from artist Eating Strawberries

WOW, I have been away for such a long time! sorry strawberry-peeps.
I have still been art-ing, but i have also been working for the money to make such things, so my time is even more divided.
I have been working on a series called "In the end" which comes from "Gollum's song" for the Two Towers {Lord of the rings} with the line "And in the end I will be what I will be, no loyal friend was ever there for me", and it's about various ways in which woman are viewed in society, from lovers, to murderers, to sweet and loyal, to evil and promiscuous. It is also a series in which I have been taking a step back from my costume work and using the body as subject, both to clearly convey the female form in my work, and to explore the body as object, which is why all my series features my model, Bellatrix Immortal concealing her face.
As I have gotten older, I have found the gender equality gap become wider and more prominent, and I had to start using that in my work. {some of these images have been edited for facebook purposes as they have boobs in them! oh no!}