#and people have GOT to be calmer about genitals not in active use

[gretchensinister]

Probably a weird post to be making in February in the northern hemisphere but the American cultural taboo on nudity is fucked up and we need to fight it whenever we can, I think. I've seen takes that posit that the sight of a naked human body (just like. being there.) is inherently inappropriate/traumatizing to others, that just being naked is equivalent to assault--this is good for no one.

If the only naked bodies anyone sees are in curated media contexts (mass media like some mainstream shows and movies, and pornography) then it's very difficult to learn the range of what human bodies look like. Art in an art-context like paintings or photography doesn't help that much with the issue, because it's something that requires significantly more effort to seek out than an HBO show or whatever.

There are so many kinds of bodies that people are living their lives in, and getting along just fine, but so few kinds of bodies get shown, that, from my perception, there's a lot of worry from people that there's something wrong with their bodies, when there really isn't! At all! It's just not one of the Shown Body Types. And then when a lot of people do finally get naked around each other, it's in a sexual context, which then gets this added layer of anxiety with the people involved revealing bodies that have not been normalized to themselves.

Like, what the fuck! Basically, I think it does everyone a disservice if naked bodies are put in the boxes of 1) sex situations (media or IRL) 2) sex crime situations 3) life-threatening medical situations/death 4) miscellaneous weird/bad/deviant situations. When those are the mental boxes how is anyone supposed to be comfortable with the bodies they or anyone else has?

I think that ideally, I would like it if naked bodies were like, trees in the woods. It's not alarming to see a tree. Trees are all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Every person has particular kinds of trees they like, but no one freaks out upon seeing the kind of tree that's not their favorite.

[bookfreaky]

LOVE DOING - The Analysis

Intro:

I try to never analyse my work while still working on it, because I believe that the painting must be born from an image in your head, or a feeling, and not from a concrete idea. That is the foundation of abstractionism. Then when you’re finished and you are kind of star-gazing your own work, you try to find what made you create all that, what made you use that colour or this shape. I did that and I saw that all the dots were connected in the same theme: Love.  

Love as a broad concept and my experience with that. I think love is a very liquid sentiment, like water, it takes the shape of its every container you put it, but pretty much it’s still love. That same impulse is there. It can be like water also in the way it reflects the sun light, how it changes colours and distorts shapes. Love can be illusory; it can be lysergic but it can also be the answer to many simple questions in life. In its gas form it can be contagious and performative as it inhabits imagination, but it can also become solid when under pressure, just like water becomes ice under high pressures. In difficult situations, the love you feel for that person may be the only thing that keeps you going. I experienced that, and I think many people did too with so many people getting ill and dying during the Covid pandemic.

Like water it nurtures, like water it drowns. Love can be represented as a substance, like it just did, but also it persists as an action, an abstract action at so, an actual verb. In abstractionism, it’s to be said that colour is verb while shape is noun (I won’t remember to said that), for that reason I focused in this collection mainly in two colours in their variations, red and blue. Without the political branding aesthetic, red is seen in psychoanalysis as a active colour, the colour of human blood. Blue could be described as a “calmer” colour, but not so lacking in action. As Rebecca Solnit said, I quote:

“Water is colourless, shallow water appears to be the colour of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance.”

So I dedicate this four paintings to the people I love and whomever loves things, but also to all the feelings that come about with love. Some of these paintings are capable of calming me and I could keep looking at them for hours, forgetting about myself. Others make me feel angsty, uncomfortable and looking at them oblige me to think about my own existence and fear my future.

I really hope you look at the paintings before you read the whole thing, and suffer through the same. Thank you.  

Love Escaping Into the Blue:

This one was the first painting I made, before I imagined it to be a collection, and it was born from the experience of decompressing love from a place of deep passion; where you are taken by this sudden and enormous sadness but also relief. I felt free, really. I read this biology paper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, called “Light in the Deep Sea”, and it explains that there’s some uniformity of colour in the ocean animals according to how deep in the water they inhabit. Animals living in the great depths of the sea, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters deep, have commonly a very vivid red colour, but closer to the surface of the water, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep, most animals are silver and grey. That’s because in this depth the brightness of sunlight is fragmented into a blue colour, and grey reflects the blue light creating the illusion that the animal is, in fact, blue. A Blue Whale is actually grey, not blue.

[Seadevil Fish (Cryptosaras couesii), left. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), right.]

The painting shows a leak of red coming into blue and bluer space, which is this feeling of infatuation and selfish desire, possession, fear and jealousy that is very red in colour and has connotations of violence and anger, moving into a place that is not so deep in the water but clearer and wider as the open sea, illuminated by this navy-blue light. It’s like you can finally breathe and see that your love is still there, but it has changed. In hope by being closer to the atmosphere it is also somehow closer to the divine. I imagine some people might feel lost when love escapes into the blue, and I get this sensation too, but it’s about loving freely, learning how not to feel love so deeply into ourselves, but widely like the ocean.

Love Growing in the Pit of the Stomach: 

When I looked at this painting in particular after it was done, I had this sensation of angst that was difficult for me to name. It’s about desire, it’s about this feeling growing inside of you that you know it will be something more than what you want, but what you need. I’ve become obsessed with the image of holes, looking like they are piercing the canvas; I think they show this emptiness I feel, like a window showing how hollow I am inside, but also, they give me this satisfying feeling by looking at them, like opening a wound and poking a bubble. I think this emptiness comes from the idea most trans women cannot take away from the back of their heads, which is if you do or do not have a “female genitalia”. Gender in our culture is very centred around genitals and biological sex, for centuries being a woman has been defined by the person who’s able to carry a man’s child. There is this little fantasy of mine where women have this little hole in them that can swallow the world. The idea of it, for me, has grown into a very real desire very much like the desire for sex. Actually, very close to sex too. But the roots growing out of the hole, in green and blue, represent pain and fear, because I’m not sure if I’m okay with the idea of having to undergo a surgical procedure to fulfil this fantasy, neither I am sure if it is a fantasy or a need.

Most of my work resembles yonic shapes (resembling the form of a vulva), either in this work or in former ones, and it’s never intentional, it sort of just slips from my subconscious. I believe that the vulva, as well as the womb, are under-shadowed symbols of power. Phallic shapes are very common in art and what-not, they are usually associated with offense and aggression. Like when school boys draw a dick on the toilet stalls as if marking their territory. The vulva, however, is never quite portrayed like that.

I read about this Japanese visual artist, Megumi Igarashi, who made several pieces of art shaped after her own vagina, including a yellow vagina-boat (which I absolutely loved) and she got arrested and fined for “obscenity”. I think that for her subversive art-form she should be considered a national hero. Many man-made constructions are phallic images, look at the Washington Obelisk, or the Eiffel Tower, but in nature we most commonly find yonic shapes, like the Grand Canyon.

There is a profound violence in desiring this, feeling as if a part of your own anatomy is lacking, but you can’t grow it naturally, you can’t do it in a god-intended way. The bright red colour represents violence and sex, and in this case both. It’s way more complicated than the concept of having kids and being a mom, it’s a lot more than to be seen as sexual beings, and sexuality, and to feel loved; it’s about symbols of power and somehow getting that denied. It’s about learning how to love this new body, a body that is foreign, infertile, obscene and unconventional. That love is hard to achieve and it is violent because women, and especially trans women, have been taught to hate their bodies.  

Love Falls In The Bathroom:

This one took the longest to finish and left me with the most unsure brush-strokes, much perhaps because it isn’t based off on an idea but on a memory, on dream. In three more years I’ll be the same age my mother had and she had me, 29 years old. Somehow it feels like a looming date. Having kids and getting pregnant, specifically, have been sporadic subjects of therapy sessions – the antithesis is always the same: you are not lesser of a woman for not being able to get pregnant, you can still be a mom through other means, you are not even sure if you want kids or marriage, you can always adopt – Those answers feel reasonable, but none of them ever could appease the deep feeling of something missing in me, like something is perpetually wrong with me. Then I understood that in this painting, I was trying to evoke these feelings. Love and grief.

[My mother, pregnant with me, in the 90s.] 

My friends tell me I seem to be older than I actually am, and sometimes I wonder if that’s not because I had never been a happy child. I feel like I had my childhood robbed from me. I mean, I had an okay, comfortable childhood, and a problematic teenage-hood, but I never had a girlhood. I am still grieving it. I had been assigned male at birth, I’m still grieving that too.

In July of this year, I experienced a very vivid dream, in which although short all the images and the sensations were, felt very real. I was taking a shower in my bathroom, I close off the water, wrap myself around a towel, my usual pink one, and when I’m stepping out of the shower stall I fell. I hit my right elbow against the toilet lid as I fell with my legs open in opposite directions, a sharp pain struck me under my thighs, close to my groin, and a light string of blood followed right after that. It wasn’t menstruation blood, thin and clear red, but thick and dark. It was all very quick but I knew, right then, right there, exactly everything that was happening. I was pregnant, 13 weeks, alone in the bathroom floor, surrounded by blood. I wonder how many days of my recent life, how many hours a day, I am really just sitting down alone on my bathroom’s floor surrounded by blood. I woke up and it still felt very real. I had spent the next two days very quiet, not wanting to speak to anyone. I wanted to tell someone as soon as I was back from the dream, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to call someone, a friend, anyone, and say “I lost it. I lost my baby”. I realised then, in that post-dreamy state, that I have been silently grieving for a lot of things, things I haven’t yet allowed myself to grieve for. Things I still did not have a chance.

Love Lost In Imagination:

This one is the only one what doesn’t forecast red and blue colours, but instead in red and blue paint mixed together in a royal purple colour. It was the last one I made, and it’s the one that differs the most in shape. I like to imagine it was love in it’s gas form, vaping inside your brain like Nitrous-oxide, with white-coloured cloud shapes and yellow peacock eye-feathers. It’s about how sometimes love can only exist in imagination, how we often elaborate better scenarios in our heads, and we think “what if things were different?”. I believe to be okay to fantasize, anyway the utopia is what moves us towards a reality, but sometimes we can get lost in imagination, and in questioning the same questions over and over. “What if I hadn’t done this and done that?”; “What if I hadn’t said no?”; “What if I had stayed longer to watch that movie?”; “What if had come out as trans earlier?”; “What if I had become a professional writer?”; “What if I had born a woman?”. Is love real if it perpetrates only in thought?

I would be more than happy to quote some of Saint Augustine here, and his theological virtues, love being one of them, but I wouldn’t like to make this essay even longer and complicated.

I think to myself sometimes, when was it that I started to prefer having peace then pleasure. My head has always been very noisy, very noisy, and I wanted it to stop. Now it feels like I’m constantly too quiet about everything. That somehow, like the Little Mermaid by Hans Christensen Andersen, when transitioning into a woman I exchanged my legs (my body) for my voice, and now I can’t voice or even pinpoint what I want. I’m just so tired. So, so tired. My mental health hasn’t been great for more than one year, and the pandemic didn’t help. I’m constantly anxious around people, even the closest ones to me (especially the closest ones to me), I’ve been eating like a bird and sleeping like a cat. Still, sometimes I imagine what future I would like, and I imagine myself living somewhere with open space, trees, breeding horses just like my grandfather did, space for dogs, musical instruments and the kids. Space for being big.

The painting makes me think that sometimes I can only love myself in this imaginary place. Otherwise, it just looks slightly like a chicken’s head. You decide.    

- Original work, G.L. Alódio.

[bloojayoolie]

Being Alone, Animals, and Cats: ito "It's a happy talent to know how to play!" 54023. 2 Yrs. old 66 lbs eaming of a Fun Family at the Brooklyn ACC TO BE KILLED 2/12/19 “It’s a happy talent to know how to play!” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson …and no one is more talented than Tito. This adorable, bouncy, goofy, happy-go-lucky boy greets each day with a sunny smile and an eagerness to get out and play, play, play! He’s so proud to show you his toy, carrying it up to you and laying it on your lap. The quickly grabbing it away so he can roll on the floor with it, toss it high in the air, and pounce on it! We smile from ear to ear just watching this incredibly sweet, positive, boy who has nothing but love in his heart for everyone. He is so happy for company, so grateful for his short time out each day to play. Big, lovable, silly and sweet, he waits for his perfect family at the Brooklyn Center. Let’s get him out of there now. He’s too darn wonderful to die there. MESSAGE our page or email us at MustLoveDogsNYC@gmail.com for assistance fostering or adopting Tito now! He’s a joy. ~ “I’m full of smiles and lots of fun, please take me home today!” Love,Tito ~ MY VIDEOS! Toy Time! <3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1WfuYfMJz8 Tito https://youtu.be/2wQoS77DTzE TITO, ID# 54023, @ 2 Yrs. Old, 66.4 lbs. of Goofball Brooklyn ACC, Large Mixed Breed, Black / White, Unaltered Male Owner Surrender Reason: personal problems Shelter Assessment Rating: LEVEL 3 No children (under 13) Medical Behavior Rating: Yellow OWNER SURRENDER NOTES - BASIC INFORMATION: Tito is a 2 year old male that has no previous or current medical issues that the owner is aware. Owner had Tito in the home since he was 3 weeks old, his owner got him from a friend and has to surrender due to personal problems. Tito previously lived with 1 adult. When a stranger would come to the owners home or approach Tito on a on leash walk outside, he was always friendly and affectionate around stranger. Owner stated that he loved attention.Tito has been around 5 children ages 2-16 and was always relaxed and respectful around all of the children. Owner did not have any other dogs in the home but when Tito would see other dogs outside when being taken for a walk, he was always calm and respectful around the other animals. Tito has not been around any cats so his behavior is unknown. He is not bothered when someone takes away his food, treats or toys and he doesn´t have a bite history. He is housetrained and his energy level is described as high. Other Notes: Tito is not bothered when someone holds him/restrains him, being pushed off furniture, being disturbed while sleeping, being given a bath, when someone touches his paws, brushes his coat or when unfamiliar people come to the home or yard. Has this dog ever had any medical issues? No Medical Notes Tito does not have any known behavior issues. For a New Family to Know: Tito is described as friendly, affectionate, playful and excitable. He has a high activity level and likes to play with balls, chew toys and ropes. In the home, Tito liked to follow the owner around from room to room. He was kept indoors only and is house trained. Tito was fed both wet and dry food brand Purina. When left alone in the home, Tito was always well behaved. He is crate trained and would spend about 8 hours a day in a crate without any issues. Tito knows the cues sit, come, down, move and go to the cage. For exercise, he was taken on brisk walks on the leash. When on leash, he tends to pull very hard. Owner was able to walk Tito off leash and stated that he would stay by the owners side. INTAKE NOTES – DATE OF INTAKE, 3-Feb-2019: Behavior during intake: Tito has a loose and wiggly body during intake. Counselor was able to scan for a microchip, collar and take a picture without any issues. BEHAVIOR NOTES: Means of surrender (length of time in previous home): Owner surrender Previously lived with: 1 adult Behavior toward strangers: Friendly, affectionate Behavior toward children: Relaxed, respectful Behavior toward dogs: Calm, respectful Behavior toward cats: Unknown Resource guarding: None reported Bite history: None reported Housetrained: Yes Energy level/descriptors: Friendly, affectionate, playful and excitable with a high energy level SHELTER ASSESSMENT- Date of assessment: 5-Feb-2019 Summary: Leash Walking Strength and pulling: Mild pulling though becomes harder when other dogs are present Reactivity to humans: None Reactivity to dogs: Barks, growls, unable to refocus readily Leash walking comments: Sociability Loose in room (15-20 seconds): Highly social, stays near handlers Call over: Approaches readily Sociability comments: Handling Soft handling: Seeks contact, leans in, soft bodied Exuberant handling: Seeks contact, leans in, soft bodied, becomes overstimulated and begins to mount Handling comments: Tito became overstimulated with prolonged petting/praise and attempted to mount handler multiple times, his attention was easily refocused Arousal Jog: Follows, playful, bounces, attempts to mount Arousal comments: Tito engaged in play with handler though resulted in mounting the more excitable he became Knock Knock Comments: No response Toy Toy comments: Firm, loose, readily trades PLAYGROUP NOTES – DOG TO DOG SUMMARIES: According to Tito's previous owner, Tito did not live with any other dogs in the home but when Tito would see other dogs outside when being taken for a walk, he was always calm and respectful around the other animals. 2/4: When off leash at the Care Center, Tito is introduced to a novel female. Tito becomes sexually motivated and persistently attempt to mount the female and is slow to listen to handler interruptions. He is then separated to the female after he did not listen to her correction and continued to persist. 2/7: Today, Tito was much calmer when greeting a novel female dog. He fixates on her genitals but walks away when the handlers interrupt. He spends the rest of his session exploring the yard. INTAKE BEHAVIOR - Date of intake: 3-Feb-2019 Summary: Loose, wiggly MEDICAL BEHAVIOR - Date of initial: 3-Feb-2019 Summary: Allowed handling though snarled and nipped upon blood draw ENERGY LEVEL: Tito displays a high energy level in the care center, we recommend daily mental and physical stimulation as a way to direct his energy and enthusiasm. BEHAVIOR DETERMINATION: Level 3 Behavior Asilomar TM - Treatable-Manageable Recommendations: No children (under 13) Recommendations comments: No children: Due to Tito's exuberance and propensity to become overstimulated combined with his sensitivity to select handling, we believe he may be best set up to succeed in an adult only home environment. Potential challenges: Basic manners/poor impulse control Social hyperarousal Handling/touch sensitivity On-leash reactivity/barrier frustration MEDICAL EXAM NOTES 3-Feb-2019 DVM Intake Exam Estimated age: 2y Microchip noted on Intake? no Microchip Number (If Applicable): History : owner surrender Subjective: BARH, normal appetite, no elimination concerns Observed Behavior - allowed some handling, resisted blood draw, would snarl and nip, was muzzled Evidence of Cruelty seen - no Evidence of Trauma seen - no Objective P = wnl R = wnl BCS 5/9 EENT: Eyes clear, ears clean, no nasal or ocular discharge noted Oral Exam: adult dentition with mild dental tartar PLN: No enlargements noted H/L: NSR, multifocal apical systolic heart murmur, CRT < 2, Lungs clear, eupnic ABD: Non painful, no masses palpated U/G: male intact 2 testicles soft symmetric, no leakage or discharge MSI: Ambulatory x 4, skin free of parasites, no masses noted, healthy hair coat CNS: Mentation appropriate - no signs of neurologic abnormalities Rectal: visually normal Assessment heart murmur grade 3 Prognosis: good Plan: recommend cardiology consult +/- ultrasound to determine degree of heart disease SURGERY: perm waiver heart murmur *** TO FOSTER OR ADOPT *** HOW TO RESERVE A “TO BE KILLED” DOG ONLINE (only for those who can get to the shelter IN PERSON to complete the adoption process, and only for the dogs on the list NOT marked New Hope Rescue Only). Follow our Step by Step directions below! *PLEASE NOTE – YOU MUST USE A PC OR TABLET – PHONE RESERVES WILL NOT WORK! ** STEP 1: CLICK ON THIS RESERVE LINK: https://newhope.shelterbuddy.com/Animal/List Step 2: Go to the red menu button on the top right corner, click register and fill in your info. Step 3: Go to your email and verify account \ Step 4: Go back to the website, click the menu button and view available dogs Step 5: Scroll to the animal you are interested and click reserve STEP 6 ( MOST IMPORTANT STEP ): GO TO THE MENU AGAIN AND VIEW YOUR CART. THE ANIMAL SHOULD NOW BE IN YOUR CART! Step 7: Fill in your credit card info and complete transaction HOW TO FOSTER OR ADOPT IF YOU *CANNOT* GET TO THE SHELTER IN PERSON, OR IF THE DOG IS NEW HOPE RESCUE ONLY! You must live within 3 – 4 hours of NY, NJ, PA, CT, RI, DE, MD, MA, NH, VT, ME or Norther VA. Please PM our page for assistance. You will need to fill out applications with a New Hope Rescue Partner to foster or adopt a dog on the To Be Killed list, including those labelled Rescue Only. Hurry please, time is short, and the Rescues need time to process the applications.