Another set of pages in Katie’s book, and again, I have to apologize to those of you who are used to my rather tame postings. This isn’t one of them. However, it is a good illustration of how a little snip of conversation turns into a piece of work, and then elicits more conversation, which sparks more work. So bear with me…
A while back, I was chatting with a group of women of a certain age *ahem* about breasts. Mostly, how gravity has taken over, and ours, for the most part, are sagging. For those of us who are greatly endowed with ample breastage, it’s a dangerous time. It is frankly not safe for me to go bra-less any longer. Someone could lose an eye. Most days, I wear a sports bra, which isn’t pretty, but wrangles my girls into a safe corral where they won’t do any damage.
So, in describing the removal of said sports bra at the end of the day, I used the term “unleash the tits of fury”, because seriously, after a day of being mashed against my chest, that’s sort of what it feels like. And from the response, I assume everyone in the conversation knew exactly what I meant, and had experienced this feeling themselves. I’m afraid you will be seeing this phrase elsewhere, because several of them vowed they were stealing it…
Anyway, cut to a few weeks later, and I receive a journal from one of the participants in that same conversation, who also happens to be a large-busted woman. In fact, she posted a photo recently, illustrating why talking to her neighbor while wearing a white tank top and no bra left him speechless. So, I couldn’t resist doing this set of pages in her book.
Now, lately, I’ve been trying to incorporate my own photography into my pieces, but occasionally, I just can’t make that happen. I resort to stock photos, usually from iStock. So, picture me, trying to come up with the appropriate search terms to find a photo of a woman either holding her breasts, or opening her shirt. I generally pride myself on being able to find the perfect photo in one search, but several tries yielded nothing usable. So, I set up my tripod, whipped off my shirt, and shot half a dozen really ugly photos of myself in a white sports bra. A little clipping, some digital manipulation, and they were exactly what I needed. And probably a better choice than stock photos, because a perfect model holding her breasts is not the same as a middle-aged, fat woman’s self-portrait in a sports bra—and that’s exactly what this required to make it work.
When I finished these pages, I posted a photo of them to the little group with whom I’m doing this project, and tested the waters to see how they’d be received. I got a good response, so I went ahead and cross posted them to another, larger group that many of us frequent, which is friendly to all manner of weird topics, and where I originally had the conversation about breasts. Again, a good response, followed immediately by people christening their own breasts. I think we had Tits of Angst, Tits of Indifference, Tits of Sadness and Resentment—well, you get the picture. It was a pretty hilarious conversation.
And then, a man had to open his mouth.
Let’s just say that the male perspective on this particular piece was not well received by my sister artists. And there will now be a sequel to this piece, in a book I receive next month, because I am pretty angry about anybody sexualizing a lighthearted conversation about a piece of artwork, and women’s feelings about their breasts. It was icky. So I have to make art about it.
I hope to return to PG themed content next week…