Eyelen Giacobbe (148)

 

Eyelen writes:

My body is fading away over time and a new one is exposed, mutates over the years, never the same. Through self-portraits i became aware of this mutation.

My Life

The whole night

How much I still have?

So ephemeral!

(Shiki)

www.eyelengiacobbe.com

eyelenpink.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Cassidy (147)

Elizabeth writes:

These are 3 drawings I did of the female form. Someone had commented that my art looked like a vagina and at first I was a little stunned – was I really doing that? But then I realized that it is perfectly fine for me to show the parts of the women’s body that are beautiful. From that one email, I did a series of drawings in pastels or oil pastels. Two are of the body and I like how strong they looked – strong, powerful thighs that are holding us up. And then I am attaching the drawing of the vagina that I did for the woman who first noticed that my drawings were paying tribute to women.

www.myviewsfromtheedge.com

Kumi Yamashita (146)

Constellation-Mana 
 (2011 H40, W30, D3cm Wood panel, brads, single sewing thread)

Light & Shadow: City View

(2003 H250, W500, D5cm Aluminum numbers, single light source, shadow Commissioned by Namba Parks Tower, Osaka Japan)

Light & Shadow: Akari

(2009 H90, W90, D15cm (Mother) H45, W45, D11cm (Child) Sculpted wood, single light source, shadow Perfe Takiyama Maternity Clinic, Tokyo, Japan) 

Kumi Yamashita says:

"I am drawn to using the human form in my work because it's a subject matter of which we are all a part and which I find endlessly fascinating and mysterious."

kumiyamashita.com

Elaine Summers (145)

-Dance for Carola, 1962-

"Elaine Summers has two identities: a respected choreographer coming out of the Judson Dance Theater and a highly influential teacher of Kinetic Awareness, a system permitting an extraordinary range of movement that has been studied by many people in the performing arts" 

 (Ann-Sargent Wooster The Drama Review DANCE/MOVEMENT ISSUE VOL 24 #4)

Elaine Summers describes  in her article "Bio-kinetic Tension:Loving tension, because with out tension there is no movement; without movement there is no life," how she cares for 'her' tension and how dancers should care for theirs:

Loving My Tension: Or How To Care For Your Tension I love my tension so I give it lots of Vitamin B, especially B 12 and Folic Acid. I listen for proprioceptive signals to balance calcium and protein for the energy to flow through my muscles and be able to confidently release and give me the most movement for the least tension. I ought to treat my adrenaline system better but I do love that one cup of coffee. I give it lots of chances to be intense, fast, stretch, contract, expand, articulate, extend, release, relax, collapse and respond. It is always greedy for movement so my tension loves to dance, swim, wiggle & squiggle. We need to move every muscle, every joint often without pain, as a way to stay healthy. As a choreographer I want dancers to understand and experience the full scale of all the elements of their tension. Dancers need safety through alignment and flexibility and an understanding of their own bodies. They need to explore and experience the totality and the edges of their own dance. I love a dancers' vocabulary to include the intelligent development of high extensions, long extensions, responsiveness in improvisation, endurance, daring, leaps, falls and to have experiential confidence in the pre-thought swiftness of their reflexes. 

©Elaine Summers

For more about Elaine Summers' Kinetic Awareness Center, and upcoming courses there, follow the link: kineticawarenesscenter.org.

For more about Elaine Summers, follow the link elainesummersdance.com

For videos by Elaine Summers, visit the youtube channel here.

Sheila Chandra (144)

Sheila writes in the "Weaving My Ancestors Voices" statement:

'The voice is the first and ultimate instrument – it is the one means of expression used by every culture. Although different instruments often have relationships with each other across the continents, they come in different forms, they are played differently... but the voice remains biologically the same across all people. The means by which it is used, the sounds different peoples choose to emulate, is fascinating. The voice is connected to your blood supply! Because of this biological relationship, it is always going to be closer to your instinct, your soul and your emotion – rather than your intellect. The spirit of my ancestors is more accessible to me via the voice – it links into all cultures throughout time. 

I was born and brought up in England by my Indian family, and growing up I felt a great gap – an absence of roots and a context in which to place myself. In England I was surrounded by cultural stereotypes and images of the 'English rose' and knew I was never going to be like that. I was always an obsessive singer and when my adult voice developed, it was in a low register. In most Western traditions it is felt a woman's voice needs to be high but, to my great relief, I discovered that in the Asian tradition it is quite acceptable for a woman to have either a high or low range. My vocal technique developed from there with an instinctive interest in ornamentation. I then found something which was 'home' – and for me music is home. That is where I express my intention most accurately. 

Sheila Chandra

Esther Erlich (143)

-racy-

-bunny-

-minor adjustments-

Esther writes:

"It's the upside of change that fires my ongoing obsession with the female form."

Esther Erlich

Leslie Ann O'Dell (142)

-hungry-

-sublimation-

Leslie Ann writes:

I am at heart, an intuitive visual artist. I observe and create mostly with my camera. My work is emotional, tense, and a bit enigmatic for me. Centered around humans, nature, and my own identity...

Leslie Ann O'Dell

Theresa Pfarr (141)

-gushing-

-blisspriss-

-sugarlips-

-sequin-

-musthaves-

Theresa writes:

Incidentally and anxiously, I discover and draw from the meanderings of the female image in our culture, as it addresses me. I treat the cultural, commercial and personal as one in my work, through a process of collecting, collaging and manipulating images into my paintings. Elements coexist in the paintings to describe the anxiety associated with inhabiting a medial self consciousness.

Theresa Pfarr

Dara Herman-Zierlein (140)

-My Old Dancing Shoes-

-Cutting the Meat-

-My Happy Sleeping Vagina-

Dara writes:

In my current work I'm exploring the balancing act of being both an artist and a mother, expressing intense emotional feelings over the motherhood experience. As we are never prepared for the ever changing mandates of tending to young children, my theme is constantly changing as the demands of motherhood change.

I like to share my pictures of myself struggling in the daily mundane routines of being a mother and find relief in painting what I am feeling at the time. I am hoping that other women will see my art, feel a connection and that will create peace of mind as they see themselves in me.

Dara Herman-Zierlein

Super Mom Unveiled

Joelle Circé (139)

Joelle adds:

In this piece I address how for many women, we fight with body image issues, and often deal with self-loathing as a result of being told by media that there is but one acceptable body type (often photoshopped to the X degree). It is the breaking of that mirror of how we perceive ourselves, also the not wanting to see our bodies and maybe even the break from all the stereotypes we are constantly being bombarded with about women's bodies.

Joelle Circé

Aya Rosen (138)

-Shadow Box, The Women House-

ayarosen.tumblr

Sonja Benskin Mesher RCA UA (137)

1. Face.

face.

face the fear,

face the process.

talk face to face,

move on.

2. Life.

has left me

leaning

slightly

3. Two

is it you,

is it

still you?


Images and Words by:

Sonja Benskin Mesher RCA UA

Video

Jennifer R. A. Campbell (136)

Jennifer adds:

When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of her beauty. – Pope Gregory I

There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out. – Mae West

I love bad girls; subversive, naughty, totally thrilling girls. I love to paint bad girls. I can never imagine a truly dangerous woman – and I mean that in the best possible sense - being ashamed of her body.

Jennifer R. A. Campbell

Elinor Carucci (135)

From "A limited glimpse into my most recent body of work, my children."

Elinor Carucci

Marsha Parrilla (134)

'Gris' Conceived and Performed by: Marsha Parrilla

Piece created for: THE BODY-NOTHING ELSE

Marsha Parrilla's company website:

danzaorganica

Inspired by a world where technology binds people in unprecedented ways, Marsha Parrilla (Boston) and Omar Robles (Chicago), two Puerto Rican exiled artists, decided to create a virtual movement dialogue through video.
binariusdance

Helen Payne (133)

-bather-
(the urge to push)

-standing nude-
(the urge to push)

-untitled-
(the urge to push)

Helen writes:

Birth is among our most dramatic and transformative experiences and yet it is seldom depicted in art. Women, who have been under the microscope in the history of art, are left undepicted when giving birth. It is a rich vein, filled with drama, questions of identity, mystery, joy and sexuality. These works (The Urge to Push) seek to explore this uncharted territory. It is happy art that sticks a finger in the eye of the male gaze and sexualized depictions of women.

Helen Payne

Mimi Shapiro (132)

wrestling the volcano!! altered book:

-wrestling the volcano!! altered book collage, watercolor and wax, spreads from the book !-

Mimi writes:

on January 25th 2011 fell and broke my ankle on a volcano in Auckland NZ. here are a few of the photos and the book that i made ! to document the ordeal - it was an interesting learning experience ! in patience....since after surgery ! i could not walk on the ankle for 7 weeks....

mimi shapiro

Billie J. Maciunas (131)

To what great history
does she refer when she answers
the moon’s terrible pull
with rage and torment
that the earth will not swallow her yet

not the history of multiplication
but maybe of single numbers
she is a straw in the smoke bitten
wind.

©billie late 70s


Songs to dead lovers:

if you have not consented to be my lover
I claim you still
like a cold and killing envelope of snow
over all hope of new growth’s promise

but you consumed by the fierce heat
of elemental will to vanish boldly
elude my crude grasp
you must be an innocent birth
and my death the center of your
blazing heart

©billie 1979


Last Will and Testament:

All that matters is the skeleton. If
In ideal repose, fetal is good--
protective, like Aztec child mummies.
But if flatly forced, let the box be simple
pine. Fast feast of deathly horror, and
eternal peaceful noble bones.
Don’t embalm me. Give my living parts
to the living. Remember me
in your movements, your best unguarded
expressions, as I do you.

©billie 02

Martha Wilson (130)

Growing Old, July 15, 2009.

My Authentic Self, 1974/2011

Before and After 1974/2008

Beauty and Beastly, 1974/2009.

(Images from 'I have become my own worst fear,' at P.P.O.W. gallery)

Excerpt from 'Martha Wilson: The Liminal Trickster,' by Lauren Bakst on BOMBLOG, 10/5:

Martha Wilson’s solo exhibition, "I have become my own worst fear," comprises a series of self portraits that repeatedly distort the self until any fixed notion of subjectivity has utterly dissolved. Spanning from 1974 to 2011, these works reveal Wilson through specific markers in time, and invite the viewer to imagine the lived space beyond each image. Through the juxtaposition of younger and older, of before and after, Wilson makes tangible the space between these captured moments. Her images seem to ask, how did time pass between then and now? Furthermore, what was the embodied experience of that passage? In Beauty and Beastly, a profile image of Wilson in 1974 is positioned adjacent to a profile image of Wilson in 2011, a portrait of the artist peering simultaneously backwards and forwards at herself in spite of and through time. Rather than to spiral into an unending cycle of self reflection and critique, when Wilson looks at herself, she also looks at the viewer, beckoning us to examine the value systems that shape our ways of seeing. Her image and text work invoke the expectations and preconceptions that are written and re-written on women’s bodies every day. The terms “beauty” and “beastly” applied by Wilson to the young and old images of herself reference the persistent intertwining of the personal and the political, bringing awareness to the cultural discourses that frame the female body.

(to read the entire post by Lauren Bakst, follow the link to BOMBLOG.)

Martha Wilson