Dear Patti Smith (Don't Think About the Wunderkinds)

Just keep reminding myself: Patti Smith didn't make it until she was much older than I am now.

But she also worked a lot harder than I do before then.

Untitled Poem

http://pixshark.com/amazon-women-warriors-greek-mythology.htm

I will be an Amazon,
I will force my self to take up space.
I will be so
Big
and so Wild
I will take up all your air and
drink your blood.

Just try me.

I will be a warrior,
I will crash my ships into your shore
and
storm your walls.

I will bring it all down,

burn it all down.

I will conquer
everything.

Nothing will stop me nothing will stop me nothing will stop me I will be
so big,
and
so strong.

With metal moulded,
breasts cupped in steel
and ass
in fresh-forged iron.

I will be a fighter,
and a destroyer,
I will tower over the world and
pick it from my teeth.

no sword necessary.

#jpgngv

After a disastrous first attempt at going to see Jean Paul Gaultier and the NGV (the hour-long line put me off so I went to David Shrigley instead, which was an extremely dissatisfying alternative), a friend convinced me that it was absolutely essential that I try and make it along. I'm very glad they did, because te exhibition was magnificent and definitely pulled me out of the funk I've been in for the last several days.
 I didn't get any decent pictures of the mannequins' faces - several of them had human faces projected over them, which talked or sang. They were very uncanny valley and definitely cool, although having several in close proximity with overlapping audio was a bit much.
While I generally hate exhibitions that add a bunch of bells and whistles and don't let the artworks speak for themselves*, in an exhibit where clothes and their inspiration were the artworks the NGV dd an excellent job. Each room was nicely tied to the different 'themes' and collections, especially the 'boudoir' section.
There's probably a lot to say about treatment of race and culture in Gaultier's work but I don't feel equipped to say it, especially not without doing an enormous amount of background reading first. I definitely would not trust the NGV the include that sort of critical commentary anywhere in its exhibition materials, especially after their lackluster response when I made a complaint about some racist/sexist commentary on one of the works in their permanent collection.
But anyway, now it is time to look at nice pictures of clothes!

Beautiful details, most of my photos of the Madonnas came out terribly but they were absolutely magnificent. The rich blue and yellow of the traditional Madonna is a really lovely combination and despite not being religious I am - as cliched as it may be - inspired by some Catholic imagery and the aesthetic of the Madonna. Especially the gothier of Gaultier's examples!

v. relevant to some of the things I've been thinking about re. articles shared or penned by Arabelle Sicardi and posts on tumblr about beautiful prostheses and just the intersection of beauty and disability theory in general. I don't have enough disability theory under my belt to opine on this piece at length but conceptually it was absolutely a standout. 

I love the concept of the male corsets and the fan design but wasn't aesthetically especially into any of the examples on display. There was another great example of the fan design a bit later - just quietly blowing my mind.

The punk room was everything

Don't dress for the dystopian capitalist police state you have, dress for the post-apocalyptic biker battle dystopia you want

I didn't think denim could ever look so cool? An outfit for inducing existential crises

#gpoy

This dress was really cool - the 'fabric' is all strips of film. The shoulder pads are the best.

See earlier point about the biker apocalypse. Maybe I just want Tank Girl? yes, that sound right.

This Russia-inspired dress was beautiful and I'm sad my pictures of it didn't turn out. The room it was in had terrible lighting for taking pictures on my phone :/

The other fan man corset - Spanish vibes.

#gpoy

Iconic

Stunning Madonna dress again. This is one of my favorite pictures that I took.

Basically I now want to bury myself in books about fashion theory and dust off my sewing machine. I'm so, so glad I went and so grateful to my friend for pushing me to go and my boyfriend for lending me the money. It was definitely worth the hour wait it took me to get through the door!

*This is something I get from my mother (hi Mum) and once you notice galleries doing it, it becomes the most annoying thing in the world (looking at you, Canberra art gallery with your super racist set up for Emily Kngwarreye and you, GOMA in Brisbane for putting cow wallpaper under Warhol's Electric Chairs)

Triumphant Women Dancing Alone On TV: An Evolution

1995: My So-Called Life, season 1 episode 17 'Betrayal'. Song: 'Blister in the Sun' by Weezer, 

2012: Girls, season 1 episode 3 'All Adventurous Women Do' Song: 'Dancing On My Own' by Robyn

2015: Broad City, season 2 episode 2 'Mochalatta Chills' Song: 'The Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga

Hourly Comic Day

Commission Info

My latest watercolour piece!

Just a quick update to say that I know have a set price list for commissions up on my tumblr, which you can find here: http://grandmastattoo.tumblr.com/commissioninfo

Details are as follows:

I work exclusively in traditional media and can work in pencil, marker, pen, watercolour and collage on request. If you wish to request a commission please email me at grandmastattoo@gmail.com with what you’d like and we can discuss payment details and delivery.

Sketch Prices

$10 head

$15 bust

$20 full body

Line Art Prices

$15 head

$20 bust

$25 full body

Full Colour Prices

$20 head

$25 bust

$30 full body

These prices are for a roughly A3-sized image and will be drawn on high quality illustration paper. Prices for other sized are negotiable with a minimum price of $5 for an A5 head sketch. I will also do work on canvas, with prices negotiable depending on the size of the canvas and relative cost.

Ginger and Rosa

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and, with the aid of hindsight, mould myself into the kind of teenager I now obsessively watch films about. I could make sure I fostered the right aesthetics and created myself in a sepia tinted world. I would have a narrower sense of perspective, resulting in less guilt and an ability to feel everything ten times more deeply than I ever did. I would experience the life-and-death feeling that teenage emotions are supposed to come with. I would go to parties and somehow make people think I was kissable. I wouldn't repress so much. I'd make friends outside of school, cool ones whose apathy was genuine and not just attitude, a front. I'd think more deeply and analyse more but still be over-dramatic and self-absorbed. I'd be a teenager worth making films about and not someone I'm bored by as an adult.