Artz with my wifelove

Alison Bechdel!

I met Alison Bechdel and I gave her a drawing I made of her and she said encouraging things to me and signed my copy of Fun Home and my copy of The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and I am so happy. I’m pretty sure that I’ve never actually met a famous person who I really admire—unless meeting Megara and Cruella DeVille at Disney World counts. I freaked out a little bit.

She gave a lecture at Tulane today, and I wrote down some of the useful/inspirational/interesting things she said. Here are a few of them: 

• When she first started doing Dykes to Watch Out For she didn't have recurring characters because she wasn't confident that she could draw the same people again and again and make them look recognizably the same. 
• "The personal is the political. The political is the personal."
• Maps are where symbols and reality, signifiers and the signified, meet. Cartoons are maps.
• TRUTH!
• "...if we were completely equal and we got what we've been fighting for, we would make ourselves obsolete—we wouldn't need gay bars or women's book stores anymore."
• "Can trauma ever be good?"
• Are You My Mother? was originally going to be a book about relationships, the self and the other, but once she started working on it she realized that she needed to write about her mother.
• When asked about how to get over writer's block: "Just sit the hell down. Get a piece of rope and tie yourself to your chair."
• "What makes us want to create is a lack or damage or pain within us."
• On why she was okay putting her parents in the spotlight in her memoirs but felt the need to minimize her brothers' roles: "It felt okay to write about my parents because my parents were the ones who fucked me up."
• Sydney is her favorite character in Dykes to Watch Out For because she feels that she sort of became Sydney. However, all of the characters are reflections of her.
• "I only ever have one cat."

Cookie Dress, 2009

 Uh, okay. So, what happened was my friend was having a bad day and was really sad, so I bought a bunch of cookies and frosting from the school store, but then she just got more upset because she was upset about weight/body image things and didn't want to eat. So, I was kind of like, well, what could we do with these cookies that would make you feel better? And we decided somehow that the thing to do was to make an outfit out of them, using frosting to adhere them to my body.

I'm putting the jump break thingy here because there's another picture, but you can pretty much see my butt in it. So, if that offends you, I don't really know what you're doing on my blog because I draw a lot of boobs and my writing gets kind of sexy sometimes, but I thought I'd give you the option of not seeing my butt anyway.

Masquerade Ballin'

This is my go-to Disney villain look. My friend helped me make the skirt, and by "helped" I mean she pretty much made this skirt for me and I just picked out the fabric.

Kittykittymeowmeows

These are my beautiful cats, Ickis and Krumm.

Ickis

Krumm

Decadence 2012

The Queer Fury Strikes Again! 

This was my makeup and costume for Decadence 2012. Decadence fell right after Hurricane Isaac, and we didn't even have power back at my apartment. It was hardcore. I actually passed out from the heat, and the Bicurious Wonder had to put me in a cab.

The Mardi Gras Bead Dress of 2009

The Mardi Gras Bead Dress of 2009

My first Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

I should probably recreate this dress at some point in time. 

Laundry Day

"Laundry Day" photoshoot, 2011

Modeling I did for a friend a few years ago. Totally forgot about these. They came out really well. =]

Zombie Pin-up Girls

I forgot about this blog that I made with all of the pictures of me, Helena Verne, and Pyrrah Stark as undead pin-up girls. It also features Wolfgang Klein. We have a full calendar. I should probably put that back together and distribute it to people. This project was so much fun. =] Created 2009-2010.
Here's the link to more pictures: http://zombiepin-ups.blogspot.com

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Earthly Delight

Elephant Ear Leaf Outfit

2008

I should go back to making clothes out of non-clothes things.

Self-portrait (2010)

Self-portrait, 2010

Acrylic paint on canvas, created by painting body parts and pressing against canvas. Hair done with hands, eyes done with breasts, cheeks done with buttocks, lips done with labia.