have you seen her new pattern?
i am SO in love! i NEED to stitch this! i think she's so beautiful.
go get the pattern at her etsy shop!
Showing posts with label fat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fat. Show all posts
Saturday, May 23, 2009
so beautiful!
so speaking of Andrea Zuill/Bad Bird.....
have you seen her new pattern?
i am SO in love! i NEED to stitch this! i think she's so beautiful.
go get the pattern at her etsy shop!
have you seen her new pattern?
i am SO in love! i NEED to stitch this! i think she's so beautiful.
go get the pattern at her etsy shop!
Friday, September 19, 2008
ADDENDUM to the fat girl vinyl bag!
i posted this bag on craftster the other day, and a few people commented that they liked the bag, but didn't like the inside pocket because they consider "fat" to be a bad word. though i personally think crafting is inherently political, craftster isn't the place for it, so i wanted to address that here.
i love the word fat! i'm all about reclaiming negative words, things like queer and dyke and cunt, words that have been used as insults, as ways to hold us down, and making them ours and saying why yes, i AM fat! and i AM queer! thanks for pointing that out! i know that every person is in a different place on their own path to self acceptance, whether that be accepting their body size, accepting their sexuality, whatever, and so not everyone is comfortable with these words. but i think it's really important that we reclaim them, that we think about WHY we find them offensive, and decide that they're not going to be offensive to us anymore.
of course, it's all about context, right? so if some asshole yells at you as they drive by, then hell, yeah, that's insulting! but simply using the words as descriptors, as identities? what's insulting about that? even the most innocuous words can be offensive is they're said with a certain tone - i once had a client end a phone call with "god bless you then" in a tone that totally translated to "fuck off and die you bitch"!! she was pissed because i wouldn't let her break the law, and we had a 20 minute debate/fight/conversation/whatever about it, and trust me, when she said that at the end, she DID NOT really mean god bless you!
and fat's a great word. it's a honest, frank, DESCRIPTIVE word. most of the other words people use to describe fat people are understatements designed to make people feel better about themselves, are infantile and desexualize the person they're referring to, are completely inaccurate when applied to some fat people (not everyone is big boned, for instance), or are medical words that are used as scare tactics by the media and the big diet companies, etc. fat has no other meaning behind it but what it is, a simple description.
so yeah. that's why i used the word fat. i hope you understand, and maybe it'll help you on your own path. as i mentioned in the craftster post, i included a full set of Figure 8 zines with the bag in the auction. there are multiple zines out there that are fat positive, but i REALLY recommend Figure 8!
i love the word fat! i'm all about reclaiming negative words, things like queer and dyke and cunt, words that have been used as insults, as ways to hold us down, and making them ours and saying why yes, i AM fat! and i AM queer! thanks for pointing that out! i know that every person is in a different place on their own path to self acceptance, whether that be accepting their body size, accepting their sexuality, whatever, and so not everyone is comfortable with these words. but i think it's really important that we reclaim them, that we think about WHY we find them offensive, and decide that they're not going to be offensive to us anymore.
of course, it's all about context, right? so if some asshole yells at you as they drive by, then hell, yeah, that's insulting! but simply using the words as descriptors, as identities? what's insulting about that? even the most innocuous words can be offensive is they're said with a certain tone - i once had a client end a phone call with "god bless you then" in a tone that totally translated to "fuck off and die you bitch"!! she was pissed because i wouldn't let her break the law, and we had a 20 minute debate/fight/conversation/whatever about it, and trust me, when she said that at the end, she DID NOT really mean god bless you!
and fat's a great word. it's a honest, frank, DESCRIPTIVE word. most of the other words people use to describe fat people are understatements designed to make people feel better about themselves, are infantile and desexualize the person they're referring to, are completely inaccurate when applied to some fat people (not everyone is big boned, for instance), or are medical words that are used as scare tactics by the media and the big diet companies, etc. fat has no other meaning behind it but what it is, a simple description.
so yeah. that's why i used the word fat. i hope you understand, and maybe it'll help you on your own path. as i mentioned in the craftster post, i included a full set of Figure 8 zines with the bag in the auction. there are multiple zines out there that are fat positive, but i REALLY recommend Figure 8!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
politics, crafting, inspirations, and a big fat vinyl bag!
i've been thinking a lot lately about how un-political my artwork and crafting has become. when i was younger and in school, this was really different. i find myself now creating for specific projects or deadlines, making a skirt because i need a skirt, or a collage piece for a swap deadline, and i never create simply for the act of creating. i think that's a big part of the non-political slant my stuff has taken.
i purchased a couple of zines from radicalrags.etsy.com, hoop-la 1 and hoop-la 2 and they were quite inspiring, much along the lines of this amazing embroidery and cross stitch artist http://www.beelisty.com/. in addition, the winner of the craftster.org summer needlework challenge was this amazing piece, titled "Self Acceptance". the creator, zombiekilla, graciously provided the pattern, and i'm dying to stitch it.
and then the Richmond Art Gallery had a call out for submissions for their 3rd annual ATC exhibition. the themes were Life as Art, Correspondence, Gender Roles, Home and Domestic Life, Community, and Friendship Across Distance and Difference. i started thinking about ways to express gender in atcs as more than just binary, of showing femme and trans and genderqueer genders through collage and needlework on 2.5" x 3.5" scale... i got really excited, but due to the the "big secret project", i totally didn't have time to enter.
so i've been thinking a lot about needlework and politics, and reading the most recent issue of fiberarts, which despite an annoying writing style that celebrates "master artisans" as opposed to all artisans, is really blowing me away if i just concentrate on the artwork!
i've also been thinking for months about sewing a line of clothes for fat folks that are actually fun and not cheesy, but of course that's never happened, since i can't even keep my current etsy shop stocked! but fat fashion is still close to my heart, and i regularly follow the livejournal community fatshionista. at one point i did do more fat oriented crafting, like the stuff i made for the fat swap a few years ago, and even longer ago than that, my fat femme paper doll magnets and all the subsequent pieces i did with that image (though she was really more of an inbetweenie i guess!).
and then last week i hauled my butt in vancouver to buy the most recent issue of craft (after searching aimlessly in my city and it's closest neighbour, and even calling craft itself, but they didn't bother to return my call) at mayfair news and walked out with craft, the new burda world of fashion, the most recent canadian dimension, west coast line issue 55: cedar table - art and anti-colonialism, the current briarpatch, and the summer issue of Our Times. after much reading (i'm terrified to eat anything at the moment, thanks to canadian dimension - god, why did i not know how TERRIBLE soy is for the environment?), i started thinking about how i never relate my politics into my work. sure, i PLAN out labour inspired pieces... but do i ever get around to making them? nope! i need to stop crafting for others, and start making stuff for myself, obviously!
so on that note, combining politics and crafting and needlework, i started thinking about crafting something more political than usual. the amazing and inspirational pam at faster kittykill works at Portland Women's Crisis line, who are putting on their annual Safety In Numbers gala and auction to end domestic and sexual violence, and i was determined to make something more than my typical cool but un-inspirational stuff to donate. i really wanted to make something specific to the crisis line, but all the ideas i had were distinctly canadian (like the cfs no means no campaign, or a memorial of December 6th, 1989 Montreal Massacre). since people in portland probably didn't grow up with the distinctive purple and black stickers (no means no campaign), or with 14 red roses on december 6th (memorial of the 14 women murdered), they probably wouldn't know what the hell the piece was about! so i decided to go with a more general issue that affects so many folks, body image and fat positivity.
and now that i've rambled for sooooo long, i'll actually show you what i made!
unfortunately, it photographed TERRIBLY. i ask myself regularly "amy, why do you work so much with a material that absolutely refuses to photograph nicely?" and then i think "because it's vinyl, and i adore my vinyl-y goodness, and that's really all the answer i need!"
so i will show you the blurriest picture first, because it actually shows the image the best!
the bag is made of vintage deadstock vinyl that's textured (hence the worse pictures than usual!), with an image of a fat woman reclining in a bikini freehand machine embroidered on the front in this awesome variegated thread that my friend linda sent me. the backside has the word "gorgeous" embroidered the same way as the image on the front. the bag has 21" straps, so that anyone can carry it (i hope! it's still MUCH better than purchased totes that don't fit around your arm!), and is lined with teal blue cotton fabric. the inside has two pockets, both made of vinyl. the larger one is zippered (vintage deadstock metal zipper) with the word "fat" embroidered on it. the second zipper is smaller, sewn to hold pens. one portion of the pocket is larger, perhaps to hold a sharpie for "commenting" on ads? (hint!)
front
inside
side
back
detail
all the topstitching was done with the same variegated thread used for the embroidery
i love it. it was sad to mail it away!
ADDENDUM!
i posted this on craftster, and some stuff came up that i wanted to talk about, so i did another post about it here - http://craftydame.blogspot.com/2008/09/addendum-to-fat-girl-vinyl-bag.html just FYI!
i purchased a couple of zines from radicalrags.etsy.com, hoop-la 1 and hoop-la 2 and they were quite inspiring, much along the lines of this amazing embroidery and cross stitch artist http://www.beelisty.com/. in addition, the winner of the craftster.org summer needlework challenge was this amazing piece, titled "Self Acceptance". the creator, zombiekilla, graciously provided the pattern, and i'm dying to stitch it.
and then the Richmond Art Gallery had a call out for submissions for their 3rd annual ATC exhibition. the themes were Life as Art, Correspondence, Gender Roles, Home and Domestic Life, Community, and Friendship Across Distance and Difference. i started thinking about ways to express gender in atcs as more than just binary, of showing femme and trans and genderqueer genders through collage and needlework on 2.5" x 3.5" scale... i got really excited, but due to the the "big secret project", i totally didn't have time to enter.
so i've been thinking a lot about needlework and politics, and reading the most recent issue of fiberarts, which despite an annoying writing style that celebrates "master artisans" as opposed to all artisans, is really blowing me away if i just concentrate on the artwork!
i've also been thinking for months about sewing a line of clothes for fat folks that are actually fun and not cheesy, but of course that's never happened, since i can't even keep my current etsy shop stocked! but fat fashion is still close to my heart, and i regularly follow the livejournal community fatshionista. at one point i did do more fat oriented crafting, like the stuff i made for the fat swap a few years ago, and even longer ago than that, my fat femme paper doll magnets and all the subsequent pieces i did with that image (though she was really more of an inbetweenie i guess!).
and then last week i hauled my butt in vancouver to buy the most recent issue of craft (after searching aimlessly in my city and it's closest neighbour, and even calling craft itself, but they didn't bother to return my call) at mayfair news and walked out with craft, the new burda world of fashion, the most recent canadian dimension, west coast line issue 55: cedar table - art and anti-colonialism, the current briarpatch, and the summer issue of Our Times. after much reading (i'm terrified to eat anything at the moment, thanks to canadian dimension - god, why did i not know how TERRIBLE soy is for the environment?), i started thinking about how i never relate my politics into my work. sure, i PLAN out labour inspired pieces... but do i ever get around to making them? nope! i need to stop crafting for others, and start making stuff for myself, obviously!
so on that note, combining politics and crafting and needlework, i started thinking about crafting something more political than usual. the amazing and inspirational pam at faster kittykill works at Portland Women's Crisis line, who are putting on their annual Safety In Numbers gala and auction to end domestic and sexual violence, and i was determined to make something more than my typical cool but un-inspirational stuff to donate. i really wanted to make something specific to the crisis line, but all the ideas i had were distinctly canadian (like the cfs no means no campaign, or a memorial of December 6th, 1989 Montreal Massacre). since people in portland probably didn't grow up with the distinctive purple and black stickers (no means no campaign), or with 14 red roses on december 6th (memorial of the 14 women murdered), they probably wouldn't know what the hell the piece was about! so i decided to go with a more general issue that affects so many folks, body image and fat positivity.
and now that i've rambled for sooooo long, i'll actually show you what i made!
unfortunately, it photographed TERRIBLY. i ask myself regularly "amy, why do you work so much with a material that absolutely refuses to photograph nicely?" and then i think "because it's vinyl, and i adore my vinyl-y goodness, and that's really all the answer i need!"
so i will show you the blurriest picture first, because it actually shows the image the best!
the bag is made of vintage deadstock vinyl that's textured (hence the worse pictures than usual!), with an image of a fat woman reclining in a bikini freehand machine embroidered on the front in this awesome variegated thread that my friend linda sent me. the backside has the word "gorgeous" embroidered the same way as the image on the front. the bag has 21" straps, so that anyone can carry it (i hope! it's still MUCH better than purchased totes that don't fit around your arm!), and is lined with teal blue cotton fabric. the inside has two pockets, both made of vinyl. the larger one is zippered (vintage deadstock metal zipper) with the word "fat" embroidered on it. the second zipper is smaller, sewn to hold pens. one portion of the pocket is larger, perhaps to hold a sharpie for "commenting" on ads? (hint!)
front
inside
side
back
detail
all the topstitching was done with the same variegated thread used for the embroidery
i love it. it was sad to mail it away!
ADDENDUM!
i posted this on craftster, and some stuff came up that i wanted to talk about, so i did another post about it here - http://craftydame.blogspot.com/2008/09/addendum-to-fat-girl-vinyl-bag.html just FYI!
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