Laurie says: I’m going to be putting up a weekly photo from now on.  If I keep track (and I will) I shouldn’t be repeating myself for a very long time.  This one is of June Gladney at a masquerade with a painted dragon tattoo on her bare left side where she had her mastectomy.

Lynne Murray says: Humans learn best by stories and attractive examples. We inhabit these stories as if they were real. Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves and live by give us strength and sometimes they can be elegant little capsules that contain poison. Example, “He shoots, he scores” and “Love conquers all” could be the [...]

Laurie says: I think these art works of “ceramic clothing”  by  Li Xiaofeng are amazing. He is an artist working in Beijing, who makes clothing pieced from shards of traditional Chinese ceramics from the Song, Ming, Yuan and Qing dynasties. They are sewn on a leather undergarment base and can be modeled/worn. Besides beauty and the originality, [...]

Debbie says: Elena Nachman has announced the Public Memorial for Judy Freespirit: Saturday, Nov. 6th, from 3:30-8pm Program will start at approximately 4 pm Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club 1650 Mountain Blvd (at the corner of Thornhill) Oakland, CA 94611 All are invited. Anyone who wants to speak is welcome to, though we request you [...]

Laurie and Debbie say: We’ve been thinking about three different perspectives on loving your body: 1) Operation Beautiful is a grass-roots movement with a mission “to post anonymous notes in public places for other women to find. The point is that WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL. You are enough… just the way you are!” People leave [...]

Laurie says: Ta-Nehisi Coates has been reading and studying about the pre-civil war slave owning south for quite a while. Most recently he’s read Drew Gilpin Faust’s Mothers Of Invention, a history of women in slave holding families during the Civil War. And he writes about the deep knowing of compassion in relation to this [...]

Debbie says: Now that the French Senate, as well as the lower house, has voted to ban the niqab, and French president Sarkozy will surely sign it into law, it’s a good time to point out Chiara’s very strong post at Chez Chiara on the political background of the niqab ban. The niqab is the [...]

Laurie says: Our  previous blog on disabled artists and their work made me think about some of the portraits I’ve taken of people who are disabled.  The work below is from Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes and Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes. . .. . .. . .. . ..

Laurie and Debbie say: S.E. Smith at FWD/Forward found this site, which showcases an exhibit of sculpture by disabled women artists, called RE/FORMATIONS, which was mounted at Davidson College in North Carolina in 2009. The exhibit featured five disabled artists, Rebecca Horn, Nancy Fried, Harriet Sanderson, Judith Scott, and Laura Splan. All of their work [...]

Debbie says: Judy Freespirit was one of the very first fat activists. With Sara Fishman, Lynn McAfee and others, she founded the Fat Underground. With Aldebaran, nearly forty years ago, she wrote the Fat Liberation Manifesto (reproduced in full at the end of this post). She has an essay in the first book about fat [...]