#genderbinaries

[jolie1002-blog]

Changing Everything

I didn’t really like the cling wrap sculptures I had made and couldn’t figure out where to go from there. After looking at the photos I had taken earlier, I noticed I really liked the way the paper towel wraps and clings to my hands but wasn’t sufficiently transparent, and didn’t like their texture. 

I tried it with my hand and cling wrap and thus was born the idea to expand on this.

[jolie1002-blog]

Remembering Cling Wrap

Just as the title says, after realising paper wasn’t going to be a viable option for making sculptures, I was about to turn to plastic bags when I remembered cling wrap which is already transparent and the clingy nature makes it simple to form.

I started with a strip of cling wrap and rolled it to make a base for the sculpture. I then attempted to form figures reminiscent of the genders in them but looked indistinguishable from another angle. I wasn’t a huge fan of this, although it worked. It seemed too simple and didn’t reflect much of what I had done and worked on in the last assessment. So I thought further...

[jolie1002-blog]

Transparency of Paper

I liked the idea of working with paper to create a transparent sculpture as it would also be an interesting medium to work with. In my head and in my planning I expected that paper becomes more transparent as it gets wet.

Thus I tried painting water onto a piece of paper to see if I could manipulate the transparency. This didn’t really work and i only ended with a somewhat wet piece of paper. I tried again to layer more water on it by flipping it over and spreading more water on it. What should have been unsurprisingly, I was just left with a very wet but equally opaque paper. This was pretty disappointing.

[jolie1002-blog]

Major Work Idea

My idea is to draw from my inspiration of classical nude sculptures depicting the two genders and create a sculpture that reflects the same ideas my poster showed. I had already known I was going to expand on my theory from the first assessment and was having trouble deciding which medium to use for this work. 

I had initially decided against sculptures as I saw myself using clay to create a model and couldn’t imagine how i’d do that without making a formless blob. Upon more consideration, I realised that I could expand on the ‘transparency’ I had played with before and make a sculpture out of paper or plastic.

[jabeanies]

If you missed out on tonight's wisebodies speaker fear not there are plenty more to come your way ! Follow @wisebodies for updates and notifications of future events, gatherings and classes ! #wisebodies #genderbinaries #socialgenderassumption #breakingoutofthebox (at HUDSON LODGE)

[housewifesyndrome-blog]

While social constructions of femininity demand that women be thin, beautiful, accommodating, and some unattainable balance of virginal and fuckable, social constructions of masculinity demand that men constantly prove and re-prove the very fact that they are, well, men.

Kali Holloway

[confessionsofasexologist]

Grey is OK

It is! I have to say that Americans are very focused on binaries.  Married or single (because if you're in a committed relationship, you're not married and it doesn't count)? Black or white? Gay or straight? Boy or girl?  

Why?  Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't we just be whatever we are?  There are all these boxes we have to check and ways that we have to identify ourselves. Outside of those boxes there is a mountain stigma for anything that's "in between."  Grey has become shameful.

But grey is OK.  There is nothing wrong with something being somewhere in the middle.  Somewhere in the middle of America, people live happily.  Somewhere in the middle of the ocean there's a shark.  Somewhere in the middle of my day I have to go pee.  Somewhere in the middle of our skulls is our brains. Somewhere in the middle of 100 °F and 50 °F is a perfect 75 °F.  Somewhere in the middle of boy and girl, gay and straight, black and white, tall and short, people live, and are happy, and are good people, and are beautiful, and are smart, and are real...

Do my physical traits define me, or does my sense of self?  Is it really a problem if I choose to cover my penis with a skirt rather than pants or keep my feminine legs hairy rather than artificially hairless?  Is it a problem if you fall in love with me as a person only to discover that my body is not what you expected it underneath my clothing?  Because, really, it's always a surprise inside, unless you met me in my birthday suit.  

I just don't see anything wrong with being somewhere in the middle. Let's allow people to live somewhere in the middle, where it's 75 °F and beautifully stretched with plains and wheat, somewhere where someone else's sexuality or genitals don't matter.  Somewhere that's grey.  Grey is OK.