Studio Time.

Today was the first time I have spent a full day in the studio in so long. I painted and painted my little heart out! I worked on three different pieces and didn't let myself get discouraged or even let myself doubt myself.  I think it helped that I brought along snacks and water and also my brilliant little dog to keep me company.

An idea that I've had marinating for a while is how could I paint images of androgynous women (so different from my SUPA-LOVA super-femme sexpots) without the viewer seeing the image and assuming that they are merely portraits of young men - which is usually what happens when straight folks see really androgynous women.

People used to ask me all the time if my ex was a girl or a boy - before they met her of course, and usually based solely on a photo (and I think also because I don't immediately read as a lesbian to the general public). But even in person - she was pretty andro and to Californian Lesbian standards, very butch. Though after a lot of recent investigation now that I'm single (for some reason, Match dot com feels like I should be dating women in Massachusettes and Maine even though I'm on the West Coast and have double checked my profile many times!) I see that there are a lot of lesbians out in the world that simply identify as Lesbian and if they lived here on the West Coast, that they'd be labeled as "Butch".  WHEW! What a mouthful!

Ok! So, my point is that although I think I will always be creating hyper sexualized images of women with other women from a lesbian frame of reference; and I've also started my Drag Queen series - there is a part of me that really wants to understand and be able to create images of women who read as androgynous in some way (through any of the 'labels' - andro, butch, boi, stud, etc.) without the images reading as men. WHAT A CHALLENGE!

So.

Today I started my first one.  I'm not ready to post images yet - mostly because I used an image of an artist that I admire a great deal. I was really mentally reaching before I grabbed the CD; looking online for images of andro women and  feminine men so that I could get the right balance of feminine and masculine but something just wasn't working. And then my iPod started to sing in my ear and VOILA! Like lightening it came to me (or rather, I should say: Like sonic waves she came to me!). So, I don't know what kind of copyright infringement this is, or what kind of image rights I'd have to deal with if I ever got it together enough to show this work, but it's a start.

Get excited! You know you love the andro girls too!