Share this fundraiser with friends online using ChipIn!

Support Feminist Bloggers!

Feminist Blogs depends on contributions from readers like you to stay running. We're doing a fundraising drive for the months of February and March.

Donations provide for the costs of running feministblogs.org and provide direct financial support to active Feminist Blogs contributors. See the donation page for more details.


Posts by okiefeminist

Movie-ginas!

Finally!!! A woman won an Academy Award for Best Directing at last Sunday’s Oscars! Woohoo! Big ups to Kathryn Bigelow and her movie The Hurt Locker! Here’s why it’s a significant win for film-making women:

She was the fourth woman to be nominated in the directing category, after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola. This is in an industry where 83% of all directors, writers, and producers on the top 100 grossing films last year were male, where, of the 600 movies reviewed in The New York Times last year, only ten percent were directed by women. So it matters.

So, only 4 female directors ever nominated for an Oscar?  Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t always recognize everything good and everything they recognize is not always good. Also, read up on how women often end up on the under-valued side of artistic and aesthetic binaries: Art (men) vs. Craft (women), Genius (men) vs. Muse (women), Culture (men) vs. Nature (women), blah, blah, blah…

Anyway, here’s a list of movies by women. The movies on this list will get you started, and I promise they’re not crappy:

1-3. The Piano by Jane Campion, Holy Smoke by JC (calling all Kate Winslet fans; she pees on herself while walking!), and An Angel at My Table (my very favorite JC movie).

4. Whale Rider by Niki Caro.

5. Boys Don’t Cry by Kimberly Peirce (which I think is just as good as the big film of 2000, American Beauty. It should have at least been nominated for Best Picture; I mean The Sixth Sense was nominated for cryin’ out loud!).

6. Savages written and directed by Tamara Jenkins.

7. Persepolis co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi.

8. Whip-It directed by Drew Barrymore. Get your heads out of a$$es, film snobs! This is an awesome movie!

9. The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola.

10. High Art by Lisa Cholodenko. If you feel like revisiting the 90s…

11. Frida by Julie Teymour.

Movies made by women that I want to see, that look good in my humble opinion:

1. The Hurt Locker (shut up! it’s on the Netflix queue!)

2. Coco Before Chanel, directed by Anne Fontaine.

3. Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion.

4. Seven Beauties, directed by Lina Weretmüller. In 1977, she became the first female director to be nominated for an Oscar.

5. Frozen River, directed by Courtney Hunt.

Any thoughts about any of these movies, my smarty friends? Anything I should add to the lists immediately, like howthehell did I leave it off?

Yay movie-ginas!

Spring


Tagged with: , ,

This week I loved…

Reading this nice, short article about the importance of break-up songs written by one of my favorite writers of break-up songs, Thao Nguyen.

Making a zoetrope with my daughter and her daddy.

Meeting a friend for lunch at Big Al’s (if you love veggies, ask for the Sarah Special!) and getting inspired to job-hunt again. I’m also grateful for friends helping me out so much! People are good.

Applying for a State Job! I liked it because I finally found where people who don’t work at Universities and/or non-profits work (or attempt to find work). I saw sooooo many interesting folks whom I immediately wanted to befriend. The life stories I imagined! My favorite was the 77-year-old Supervisor lady with a silver side ponytail and a loose-fitted tweed pantsuit. If I get a job anywhere near her, she better be ready to chat!

Watching a cute, li’l documentary about the crafting and DIY revolution in America.

And FINDING MY CAMERA (!!!) so I can take pictures of stuff and show the pictures to people!

Handmade Nation DVD

What did you love this week?

Spring


oklahoma abortion bills make me ill

Bad news for supporters of choice, free will, sanity, health, happiness, and intelligence (from the Tulsa World).

Oklahoma’s House passed four separate abortion measures that previously had been declared unconstitutional because they had been combined in one bill.

• The panel passed HB 3290 by Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow. It would require a doctor to be in the room when the abortion pill RU486 is administered.

• The panel also passed HB 2780 by Rep. Lisa Billy, R-Lindsay, which would require women who seek an abortion to have an ultrasound and have its contents explained to them.

• The panel passed HB 3110 by Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa, which would allow health-care providers who object to abortion not to participate in the procedure.

• Peterson’s other abortion bill, HB 3284, also passed. It would require women who seek abortions to provide a host of information about themselves to be posted on a public website.

The first one’s stupid enough- a paternalistic infringement upon privacy, to say the least. What if I decide I don’t want to take the pill just now? What if I decide I want to go home to be sad and pissed (instead of sitting in a Dr.’s office feeling like a child taking cough syrup)? What if I wanna go have a beer with my RU486? I’m a grown-ass adult woman; I can swallow a pill that does not affect my ability to operate heavy machinery whenever and wherever and however I want! Doctors hand out pain pills and muscle relaxers like candy without a care to when or where or how or if the patient ever takes it. But this? A pill that only a female with a womb will take? That needs supervision? Skye McNeil, you just wrote a piece of crazy, stupid, sexist legislation, and I will be calling you.

The second piece of (professional?) legislation is so full of sleezy Hallmark-card sentimentality that I just vomited all over my computer keyboard. Besides being pathetic tripe, it also reeks of control-freakiness! Where the fuck are the Republicans that are opposed to big government intrusions into our personal lives?!?!?! If my womb and what I do or don’t let grow in it is not personal, WTF is anymore?!?!?!

The third one REALLY drives me nuts. A doctor would be able to tell me they don’t want to perform a MEDICAL procedure on me because they MORALLY object. What if a man wanted a vasectomy and the doctor morally objected? It wouldn’t happen! 1.) Because most religious zealots let go of their campaign against birth control decades ago. 2.) A male-specific procedure is his business! Notice the blaring double standard yet? I have been noticing lately that the definition of abortion provided by religious zealots has now almost completely replaced the actual, medical definition of abortion in American discussion of the topic. Am I stuck in a scary movie? Are my vagina, my womb, my mind, my behavior, or my religious views on trial? How exactly does a medical professional “object” to an abortion? Is this the Dr.’s office or a courtroom?

The fourth one: ridiculous, costly, unnecessary. And just why do we need a mandatory registry for people who get abortions? So that sexist zealots can use the information to send missionaries to places where clusters of free-willing women live and have sex? Then those happy, humanly imperfect and beautiful women can hear the shaming, damning, narrow-minded anti-abortion propaganda? Are we cattle that need to be tracked or pigeons that need to be electronically tagged? What else this bill is: Nazi-ish. SS Pam Peterson, you suck (kick her out, South Tulsa!).

Furthermore, every one of these bills were written by a woman? Seriously, ladies? Why are you soooooooooo concerned with this one topic? Are you trying to make yourselves look like good girls? Or mean girls by picking on other women? Are you trying to waste our money? As if it’s not already hard enough to get an abortion in Oklahoma? You want to keep spending time, money, and energy on this until abortion is completely illegal? Is that your main priority as a Representative? Is that what you promised your constituents that you’d do? Is that what is best for our state (a state with soaring teen-pregnancy rates, a state where women are under-represented in the House and Senate, a state where women have even lower incomes than our low-income men)?

Gagging and dry-heaving (I hope I’m pregnant so I can go sit through an ultrasound and an explanation of how I’ll be killing a future Tim Tebow, and then a Dr. can feed me my meds like I’m a lunatic stuck in Yellow Wallpaper, only after I’ve taken a few days off of work to find a Dr. willing to perform a MEDICAL PROCEDURE for which I am PAYING OUT OF POCKET because s/he didn’t get fear-mongered into forsaking the Hippocratic Oath like so many of her/his peers, and then I can go register on-line like a sex-offender since I offended so many people by having great, consensual, adult sex).

Spring


Oklahoma Food Co-op Impresses at International Conference in D.C.

Hat tips all around to the Oklahoma Food Cooperative!  Two representatives, April Harrington and Kara Joy McKee, attended an international conference in Washington, D.C., in January 2010 to present information about the Oklahoma Food Co-op (OKF).  Harrington owns Earth Elements Market and Bakery in Lexington, OK, and McKee is the new General Operations Manager of OKF.  Here are some highlights from McKee’s article at Voices of Oklahoma, which I encourage you to check out in full (just follow the link in the sentence)…

***The OKF had been chosen to participate in the Wallace Foundation’s 2009 Community Food Enterprise study, which sought to identify the most promising and innovative local food projects going on today. They were impressed enough to invite us to be one of only three presenters out of twelve U.S. enterprises in the study.

***As the Wallace Foundation describes us, “The Oklahoma Food Cooperative is a new concept in food distribution. It brings together regional food producers and consumers through an easy-to-navigate website. With a statewide network of volunteers, the enterprise pumps nearly $1 million into the pockets of local food producers each year. The model is so simple, so inexpensive, and so effective that it has spread to Idaho, Texas, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and two locations in Ontario, Canada.”

***The participants were mightily impressed that we managed to distribute nearly $700,000 worth of local food and other products in 2009 without a single full time employee.  They cheered us on for our community involvement, accessible leadership structure, and our 7 percent rate of growth during the hard economic times of 2009.

***Study author Michael Schuman said that local food enterprises are becoming competitive through strategies such as marketing a higher quality product, working  together with local partners, integrating vertically, doing outreach to low income neighbors, and developing new strategies for distribution, “such as the Oklahoma Food Coop who has brought the cost of distribution including transport, packaging and marketing down from 73 to18 cents on the dollar.”

Way to go, Okies!
Beamish


Small Town Talk by Sterlin & Spring

My BFF Sterlin and I are both from the tiny, rural town of Holdenville, Oklahoma. And we both now live in the thriving metropolis of Tulsa. The difference is that lately he wants to move back to that small town lifestyle. He is happy in Holdenville; he is inspired there. He has almost 100% fond memories of his life there. But me? The thought of living back there makes me queezy and limp in the knees and hyperventilate a little. I mean I love, love, love some things about the country (see my last post). But, I just want to visit Hville, not live there. I never felt completely comfortable there; some of the discomfort was, to be sure, just the universal awkwardness of growing up. But some of it was an indescribable stifling that I blame on my particular small town experience. Anyway, Sterlin and I got to talking about our different experiences of growing up in small town, OK, and here is what was said:

Me:  Okay. We both come from a small town, but you have a much rosier picture of the small town lifestyle than I do. Don’t you?

Sterlin:  Yes. We have very different versions of the same place… I think.

Me: What do you mean?

Sterlin: I mean, we both grew up in the same place and knew some of the same people, yet you could let it get sucked into a hole in the ground whereas I would move there tomorrow.

Me:  Well, I always felt suffocated by the lack of opportunities and by the lack of diversity. Take religion. I mean, there are absolutely no Jews or Buddhists. There are hardly any Catholics. Pentecostals but everyone makes fun of them. I read about different religions and cultures in magazines, but that was it.

Sterlin: I don’t know… I feel like I had a lot of diversity religiously speaking.  My family always held native beliefs and held the traditional ways in high regard.  I spent most of my youth at an Indian Baptist Church (more than one, actually), and I was also an altar boy at my Grandma’s Episcopal church when I stayed the night at her house.  Lighting candles, carrying crosses, and drinking wine.

Me:  Hmmm. I guess my time in a Southern Baptist Church really tarnished my view of the space for freedom of religion. Going to Falls Creek and hearing preachers talk about how abortion was murder and a moral sin then going home where my dad was a doctor and kinda a health nut telling me that, no, an abortion was a medical procedure and a very private ordeal. It was a very conflicted environment for me. Quite uncomfortable, as far as morality, religion, spirituality, and all that goes.

Sterlin:  Yeah, but you were also REALLY into religion for a while.  I feel like me and my friends always held it at a safe distance… just enough to keep us in check but far enough so that we could do what we want.  Yeah, so that reminds me.  All the Indian churches go to a different Falls Creek.  We called it Indian Falls Creek.  But we always wondered what “white Falls Creek” was like. I got my first kiss at Indian falls creek. It was a girl from Weleetka.

Me: You’re the devil. White people didn’t do anything at Falls Creek but worship the Lord. Gaw.

Sterlin: I also had friends that lost their virginity at Indian Falls Creek.

Me: Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! How did you handle that guilt? The guilt that is like ‘Oh, God is watching me, and I might burn in hell or at least seriously disappoint Him for this action that is really just funny kid stuff’?

Sterlin: Didn’t worry about it too much.  It was a badge of honor if you came in late at Falls Creek.  Especially if you had a hickey.  You were talked about for years.  I do remember, though, that it was right when AIDS awareness was huge and I was scared you could get it from kissing.

Me: Do you think, then, that some of your positive small town experiences had something to do with you being Indian, or you being male?

Sterlin:  Yes, for sure Indian. I don’t think being male made a big difference though I’m sure you would disagree.  I, of course, don’t have the perspective of being a girl growing up there.  I mean, on the whole, you have to find people that have your similar interests, which can be hard in a small town.  I think I was lucky.  I also remember you having a lot of fun there.  The Indian thing helped for sure.  It’s just a different way of growing up and relating to people.  My family was my community.  Everyone watched out for each other… entertained each other.  It kind of breaks my heart that a lot of that doesn’t exist back home anymore.  My cousins are gone all over and elders are dying.  It gives me a huge urge to want to be home and to not be a part of that community’s demise… I want to be a part of it’s strength and continuation.

Me:  Gotcha. I think you were lucky, too. I remember you always looked so comfortable socially. So free.

Sterlin:  I love city living. New York City is one of my favorite places in the world but as I get older I feel like the guy standing on my rooftop looking towards the country.  I want chickens.  I don’t want to shop at Whole Foods anymore.

Me:  Whatever, you love Whole Foods, and you wouldn’t know WTF to do with a chicken!

Sterlin:  Yeah, but I’d learn. I would need an internet connection for that, though. And the thing is, my Grandma who raised chickens her whole life is still alive!!! But she lives in Holdenville, and I’d need to be there to learn from her.

Me:  So what do you think about raising a 21st century daughter in a small town? Do you think that you would have to pre-emptively prepare or do some padding or work harder to create a positive environment for her? Or to create healthy, sustainable, and fulfilling opportunities for her?

Sterlin: Yes, I think that you would have to work hard to raise a 21st century daughter in a small town but it’s the same in the city.

Me: ‘Cause she’s gonna grow up and leave us someday and become the 1st Native female President of the US, ya know?

Sterlin:  Yes.

Me:  I’m sure you have a more positive vision of our daughter being in a small town. I tend to think of the problems that could arise like methamphetamines, lack of comprehensive sex-ed, etc.

Sterlin:  The thing about having a kid in a small town… or specifically my hometown is that there are things that a parent can never teach a kid.  I’ll never be able to teach her what my parents can teach her.  I’ll never be able to teach her what her great grandma can teach her.  It’s not like they are having lesson time or anything… it’s just that kids can get a lot from their grandparents by just observing them and being around them.  I think that’s a very Indian way of community.  Not just their grandparents but also their cousins and Aunts and Uncles.  I feel like my Aunts and Uncles are second parents.  I also think that there’s something educational about growing up in the country. When the shit hits the fan and our whole society breaks down I want to be surrounded by people that know how to manage in the woods.  I don’t want to be stuck with lawyers or real estate agents.

Me:  I’m with you on that one.

Sterlin:  For instance, this past hunting season I butchered my first deer.  Now, that’s knowledge that I need to survive.  I also recently learned how to start my own blog… and I’m learning how to use my Wacom tablet and draw in layers on Photoshop.  The last two don’t amount to a hill of beans compared to butchering a deer.

Me:  A hill of beans?

Sterlin: Wouldn’t you agree?

Me:  Yes, but I also think that you can learn those survival skills no matter where you are. That’s what’s so fascinating about urban gardening and farming or all these community gardens around Tulsa or building a garden in my very own backyard. Slowly learning these skills, putting in the manual labor and getting paid in food. THAT’S AWESOME! That’s a survival skill that all of us can do no matter where we live. And no matter if our parents and grandparents are still alive or not. Also, you can raise a few chickens in your own backyard in Tulsa. There’s no ban on backyard chickens here.  And don’t knock beans.

Sterlin: True.  I never trust the soil of the city though.  It’s weird, but I worry what’s in it. Just paranoid.  I love Tulsa but it does rank pretty low as far as environmental health goes.  I guess we just have to plant more trees and make it more like the country… or… I don’t know.  I’ll just move to the country. I’m also paranoid about tap water.

Me: Don’t you remember when the tap water in Holdenville was making people sick?

Sterlin: Yeah, but that’s ’cause the city folk came in and made the water filtration system because in their city, they were polluting the rivers with chemicals. It’s the joys of capitalism: cause a problem and then pay people to maintain it… not fix the problem.

Me: Oh. Thanks for the insight.

Sterlin: There are ups and downs of both the city and the country… I just think that the country suits me.

Me: Well, when you find a place in the country, will you report back and let me know how things are going?

Sterlin: Yes, I’ll bring you eggs fresh from my chicken and milk from my cow.

Me: Will you get our daughter a pony?

Sterlin: Of course.

For more musings from filmmaker, writer, dad, and countree-boyee Mr. Sterlin Harjo, you can check out his new blog (!) here.


Is My Country Showing?

Recently, a commenter on the blog said she could tell I wasn’t from Tulsa, and I immediately had flashbacks to my college years in NYC when EVERY…SINGLE…PERSON I met commented on my Oklahoma twang. The comments ranged from “How cute!” to “Ugh.”, and I became hyper-aware of my drawl and the effect it seemed to have on people. For a few days I worried that my country was showing, and I would try to pronounce “pen” with only one syllable and a distinctly short “e”. But, then I quit caring, and I started playing with the image that people have of Midwesterners/ Southerners/Okies (by literally becoming a simplistic, poor, unfortunate, teen-aged, unmarried mother/ goat-milker).

Lately, I have been missing the idealized, small town life of my youth in rural Oklahoma. I have always maintained that if the end of the world were to come, I’d run straight for the hills of Holdenville, OK. Where the women know how to hunt, garden, and cook. And the men know how to fix an engine and change a diaper. And the kids still climb trees. And there’s plenty of land to bury the dead and pitch tents and keep campfires burning and worship whatever you please.

Of course, I don’t believe the world is going to end anytime soon, and I don’t believe that life in a small town is ideal. I’ve lived in small town, rural Oklahoma. And let’s just say I don’t completely fit in. But nonetheless I’m having a bit of nostalgia for my hometown.

A postcard of Holdenville, OK shows a “Street Scene” (I’m not sure what year this was taken, but it looks like a year with no females. Just men and donkeys.):

Image from Department of Special Collections and University Archives McFarlin Library. University of Tulsa.

Photo by Paul B. Southerland taken 7/26/78.

The main industries in Hville are Tyson Pig Farms, Oil and Gas, Catfish Farms… oh, and a medium-security prison. There’s a lake there. And beautiful old buildings, and lots of beautiful, hilly, lush land as far as the eye can see.

~If you are interested, the Oklahoma Historical Society has been collecting, preserving, and sharing the history of Oklahoma and its people since before statehood.

~The entry on my hometown of Holdenville. Holdenville fun-fact: The 117th richest person in America is the billionaire T. Boone Pickens who is from Holdenville.

You can take the girl outta the country, but she’s still…

Spring


Guess Who’s Nominated for an Okie Blog Award?!?!?

We are! Yay!

I am really excited about being nominated in the category of Best Political Blog (Liberal Leaning). I love that…”Liberal Leaning“! It’s like it might be offensive to say that we are Liberal, all the way. Or worse, Progressive. It’s like Liberal-ish. Or Liberal Light. Or Liberal and probably not 100% straight nor 100% enamored with the idea of being simplified and categorized. Whatever! It’s cussing cool that we’re mentioned on a list with some other great bloggers who make us feel more at home as freaks on the prairie:

Alternative Tulsa
Conium
Erudite Redneck
Lawyer and Engineer
Mainstream Baptist
Okie Funk
Peace Arena
Progress on the Prairie
Progressive Okie
Red Dirt Blog From a Blue State of Mind
The Lost Ogle

Go us! Now for our broader agenda: shut down Fox News, delegitimize Rush Limbaugh, and take-over the world!

Seriously though, if you read us and like us, please consider voting for us. View the rules for voting and see the nominees in all the other categories here. Oklahoma really does have some great bloggers!

Thank y’all,

Spring


Local Bread Love!

Something about the wintertime makes me crave bread, bread, and more bread, and I’ve had some gooooooood luck satisfying my urges of late. Some of my favorites around Tulsa:

Mexican Bakery, a block South of Admiral on Garnett, a bit past the traffic circle. That’s how we give directions around here, people! But honestly, these folks make fresh bread that is out-of-this-world, and (unbelievably) a loaf costs under $1. My friend MizH brought some to share with me a couple of weeks ago. I cooked for a group of 4: a penne pasta with caramelized onion and garlic red sauce tossed with bacon bits and parmesan, asiago, and Romano cheeses. It was good. But this bread! Ay! Just slice it and put a few pats of butter on it and heat it in the oven. It has a perfectly light and flaky-crunchy crust, with plenty of soft, fluffy center. We started with 2 whole loaves, and between 4 hungry adults, every crumb of it was devoured. It speaks to the seriously delicious nature of this bread when I say that I am fully convinced we each could have eaten an entire loaf by ourselves.

Blue Moon Cafe & Bakery on Brookside in Tulsa, OK. The best French Toast I’ve EVER had. The chef even arranged the pieces of toast to look like a heart, and I left her a thank you note because it was such a satisfying breakfast. -XOXO- The first time I’ve ever done that. I also must say that this place gets bonus points for having self-serve coffee. Helping yourself when you go out to eat may not be everyone’s cup, but I drink ALOT of coffee. Especially at breakfast. I like being able to doctor it myself, and, whenever I feel so inclined, to just dump out the old and refill with fresh.

Lunabread. This company doesn’t have a website or a store. All I know about the company is that the baker is named Chris, and he is at the Farmers’ Market in the Summer. But all year ’round, you can find his pastries (like the heavenly ALMOND CROISSANT) at Shades of Brown Coffee Shop. Because what goes better with a buttery, soul-hugging pastry than a cup of fresh coffee with cream? Not much.

Farrell Family Organic Bread. My ultra-low budget doesn’t allow me to spend $5-$7 on one loaf of bread very often, but when I can, I run straight to the comforting artisan arms of the Farrell Family’s breads. Based here in Tulsa, their breads can be found at many locations in Tulsa and OKC. My personal favorites are the Asiago Cheese bread and the Foccacia Loaf. Why don’t you just read for yourself (and drool over) their baking methods:

The dough we make is minimally mixed, and all loaves are 100% hand-formed. Gentle hand shaping gives our loaves varying holes inside, and a more complex flavor than any other method. Slow, cool fermentation allows the dough to develop flavor naturally, without added sugars or flavoring agents. Next, our hearth oven produces a crispy and caramelized crust by injecting live steam during baking.

So, if you live in or near Tulsa and you love yummy breads, you are in luck!

Also, if you are interested in a yummier, more peaceful culinary life, the Slow Food Movement is growing in Tulsa, and you can read about it here.

Also, if you are so inclined, here is some informative reading about food and the political/ legal battles involved in producing food on a national and global level: Food Freedom!

Chow!

Spring


Does Giving Birth Hurt?

I have a big favor to ask of all of you parents out there. Will you help me answer the question I was asked a few months ago?  I have a pregnant friend who asked me a simple enough question: ”Does childbirth hurt?” But I was honestly stumped. I didn’t know how to answer; believe it or not, this is one question I have never been asked and never even thought about all that much.

I kept promising my friend that I would give her a response, but I wanted to form a thoughtful, honest, personal response. But, I got so caught up in how this question should be answered that I haven’t yet answered it. I thought about what I should say in order to calm her fears, in order to empower her, in order to set the record straight for myself, in order to be a good mom, in order to be a good feminist, in order to be a good friend. But I still haven’t answered her question.

I read what other people say in response to that question. Like Gisele and other celebrity moms, if you wanna call them people. I read what pregnancy Bibles had to say about the matter. I re-read childbirth scenes from novels, like my favorite in Tracks by Louise Erdrich. But I still didn’t answer her question.

Now a few months later, she is in her third trimester and closer than ever to giving birth and answering her own question, and I still haven’t answered that damn question.

Until now. My answer is in the comment section, but I still need your help. I’m endlessly afraid that my answer isn’t sufficient, so if you don’t mind doing me and my pregnant friend a favor by leaving us an answer in the comment section??? We would be forever grateful :)

XOXO,

Spring & Pregnant Friend


Tagged with: ,

The Queer Art of Leidy Churchman

Leidy Churchman

Berries 2008. 1" x 1" x 1.5" Oil on rock.

Butts 2008. (approx) 2 3/4" x 1/2" x 1/2" Oil on stick.

Art book 2008. 7" x 9" x 4" Oil on log of wood.

Books 2008. 6" x 2" x 2" Oil on wood and matches.

Claw 2008. 15" x 8" x 1" Oil on stick and crab claw.

Roquefort 2008. 5.5" x 5.5" x 5.5" Oil on rock.

Ruler 2008. 11 1/4" x 12" x 1 3/8" Oil on wood.

Works of art, like people and Transformers, are more than meets the eye. To me, art is also the resources available to the artist, the medium, the message, the feel, what’s inside or behind or underneath the image. To me, art is also the thoughts that start running through my head when I experience the artwork; it’s my gut reaction AND the reaction that lingers and the questions that arise.

These sculptures of Leidy Churchman are so interesting to me because they blur the line between art and craft; art becomes less prestigious and craft less lowly. I love how he takes time to create individually-made, commonplace items that are usually mass-produced. His sculptures blur the line between practical and aesthetic. And, because they’re such cute, queer little things, I would love a bowl-full of the berries painted on rocks on my breakfast table! (By the way, my 9-year-old and I are both equally impressed with his rock painting because we have tried it, and it’s not as easy as it looks).

As his name might hint, he is a transgender artist who says of himself:

I make transgender pictures. My painting is informed by transitions, the humor of uncertainty, and relationships of supposed opposites.

I see people and their environments morphing into transsexual, not as a definitive destination but a space of complexity and amusement. As a transgender artist, I imagine “trans” as suggestive and paradoxical, where gender is always contradictory and in a state of flux.

Also, here’s a video that Leidy did for the really rad band MEN (MEN is a band and art/performance collective that speaks to issues such as trans awareness, wartime economies, sexual compromise, and demanding liberties through lyrical content and an exciting stage show).

Here’s to queer art and those who queer it! Cheers!

Spring