Being a fat black female artist in a world where the quirky white vagina is worshipped
I am a writer. I express my artistic expression through words via pen and paper or more recently, the keyboard of my $200 netbook. What most people don’t realize, which if you think about it it makes sense, writers are visual people. In our minds we have worlds, people, situations, etc, that we want to share with every soul possible. A writer’s goal is to plant someone in whichever world we have spent time and effort building, to produce empathy, to spark inspiration, and give representation. I believe those things are what makes a writer amazing. Unfortunately most writers tend to fall short on the last one. Literature is packed full of genres ranging from anamorphic dragons and sparkling vampires to cheesy romances about a boy who meets and a girl and the world stops.
Almost everything you can possibly imagine has been written, and has been written well, except I have noticed when scouring through amazon, my local book store, and article upon article on books on featuring fat protagonists, that the fat black female protagonist is virtually non existent. This says to me that in the millions of writers out there, no one envisioned a fat black woman being the focal point of anything. Even amongst black writers, (because I truly don’t expect anyone not black to write a good novel about anyone black) no one imagined when building their character to add belly, rolls, and stretch marks as their marker. It never occurred to people that that girl who that boy meets could be a fat girl with earth toned skin that glistens under the sun. No it never occurred to people that in every story they pen, that that’s the girl they make the lead. The most important person in the story could be a girl who thighs hug and hold each other for dear life.
As a writer I take inspiration from everything around me. As a creative person I look to my surroundings and build from there. A talented artist will tell you the same, but I live in a world where everything around me is touched by the phenomenon that is white supremacy, where within white supremacy body-shaming and fatphobia caresses where whiteness has touched. I see those fingerprints and lingering shame it brings upon everyone around me. And I grew up in this world, a chubby child with no representation. I grew up in a world where black girls were forced to adopt whiteness, where fat girls were forced to pigeonhold ourselves into single digit number, but to be a fat black girl meant we were forced to try and destroy ourselves into a being we could never be.
So how does one live in this kind of world and be an artist? I grew up thinking the art world, literature, was a haven for those not otherwise accepted anywhere else. I grew up admiring paintings of contorted faces and abstract women. I grew up reading about giant snakes and talking lions, about phenomenons that just did not exist where i lived. Nonetheless, I was able to escape from a world that didn’t accept me for who I was and I got older and discovered works by people who shared my tawny hue and read about immortals and creepy towns. I knew I wanted to be a part of this. But it’s a whole different world when you go from reader to writer, when you go from appreciator to photographer or painter. Behind the scenes is a world that is not different from the world I grew up in. I’ve realized there isn’t much room for black artists and there isn’t really any room for black fat artists. We are so invisible within the art world that it’s just isn’t heard of. On rare occasions we might be a muse to an established artist who through the years of photographing waif, white cis bodies, has become bored and in an attempt to be different might photograph someone who thighs might touch and who may have a wave of rolls instead protruding bones, and maybe just maybe might be darker than a paper bag, but very rarely are we thought of as the ones who do the creating.
Of the many conversations my friend Marie, who is a photographer, and I have had, she’s talked about how difficult it is to get recognition in the field. “Trying to get people interested in your work when you’re a fat black girl is hard unless you’re making work about being fat and black and even then people often overlook you[re work], because that type of work is considered ‘too niche’. Majority of the esteemed gallery owners won’t get it, or they feel they can’t make money off of it so you’re passed over.” We are so unheard of that when we do make ourselves known in art spaces we are considered “niche”. We would only appeal to a small alcove of people, we are not the money makers, no one but a select few at best might care about what we have to offer. Our art, our lives is not appealing. We don’t have that right complexion, the right shape. We are not the quirky white vagina with straight bangs and a bob.
Now why continue in something that clearly doesn’t want us? Because we are artists and this is what we do, what we love. I cannot imagine life not writing. My friend has been a photographer for years, she’s in debt because of this passion because she loves it that much. As artists it is our duty to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar. We must pave the way for future fat black girls to have the confidence to enter a space that they wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable in. We deserve to take up space.
We are here and our voices, our art, should be taken in and appreciated by the masses because we are amazing.
- Sandra @ig frgblgl // softmami
photo by Mars @ig: sensitiveblackperson // sensitiveblackperson
model is @ig: melanin.cvrtel
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