Yesterday I did some online research on a disorder I had heard about called Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  The Mayo Clinic website defines it as follows:

Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called "imagined ugliness."

When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, often for many hours a day. You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures to try to "fix" your perceived flaws, but never will be satisfied. Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity.

Treatment of body dysmorphic disorder may include medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Wikipedia states that...

the disorder is linked to significantly diminished quality of life and can be co-morbid with major depressive disorder and social phobia, also known as chronic social anxiety. With a completed-suicide rate more than double that of major depression (three to four times that of manic depression) and a suicidal ideation rate of around 80%, extreme cases of BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) linked with dissociation can be considered a risk factor for suicide; however, many cases of BDD are treated with medication and counseling.^[7]

They state further that a person's issue can be mis-diagnosed as depression when it's actually BDD which is causing the problem.  The sufferer tends to spend excessive time thinking about a perceived flaw, looking in a mirror to examine it thoroughly, and otherwise obsessing about a flaw which usually doesn't even exist.

I feel badly for such a person because their quality of life is so impaired. 

In a similar vein, I've just started reading a book called Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (Hardcover)by Courtney E. Martin.  She is a young woman writing about her generation's horrific tendency to focus on their bodies and their imperfections.  She states that so many of these young women appear to have it all - excellent grades, amazing achievements, great jobs, perfect boyfriends - they are perfect on paper - yet they spend hours daily thinking about what they have eaten/want to eat/shouldn't eat, etc., etc.  Martin figures conservatively that such people spend over 100 minutes each day with thoughts such as "I wonder if I should get a frozen yogurt.  Oh, no, I haven't earned it.  No, that would be so bad.  No, I won't do it.  Yes, I'm going to.  I didn't have breakfast so I deserve it, and besides it doesn't have all that many calories.  What the hell!"  Then of course there's the price they pay in guilt and self-disgust and vomiting it up.  She paints a picture of imbalance and horrible self-denial.

It seems to me that our society is significantly out of balance with food and eating and body image and very little idea of how to think about it normally.  I haven't read a book about that yet - what normal eating would look like.  Of course I've read nutrition books about the ideal meal plan (where one is supposed to weigh and/or measure ones portions precisely as well as record them so one can't fool oneself about what one has really eaten) but I'm not sure that counts as "healthy".  Does anybody out there have an answer to that one?

Taking down Sacred Flesh after two glorious months!

Yesterday morning Chris and I went to Visual Art Studio and took down Sacred Flesh after its two month run.  It's so bizarre taking a show down...  After months of conception, planning, painting, advertising, talking, emailing, marketing, sharing, the show gets hung.  It's a long, arduous, 6-7 hour process, yet it's ultimately a very satisfying experience because the result is so gratifying - a opportunity to see all the work in one place - the concept comes to life!

Then the Opening Night!  What a thrill!  It's kind of like a wedding.  So many wonderful friends and family members take the time out of their busy lives to come see the work you've put your soul into for months/years.  It's an opportunity to share the work with the public and to gauge their reaction.  Openings are one of my very favorite things to do!

Then the show hangs for a month or two.  Sacred Flesh was up for 2 months.  There are scheduled artists' talks, luncheons, impromptu visits to meet friends.  The energy continues unabated, helped along by wonderful emails from people who have seen the show.  So many things have evolved from this show, but I'll talk about those in another post.

Then, finally, after all that time, it's time for the show to come down.  Before leaving home, we loaded the Highlander and the truck with cardboard and other packing material, tools, and containers and headed to the gallery.  The owner was on Thanksgiving vacation still so we let ourselves in.  I took some photographs to remember the show by then we started taking the pieces off the wall.  Down came the labels and the women's stories.  Down came the paintings.  We packed up the catalogs and prints.  Then we began hauling the work to the truck and the car.  What took 7 hours to do only took 45 minutes to undo.  We were home within an hour and a half of leaving!

We carried the left over paintings into the studio where we left them propped up against walls and easels and tables.  We waited until today to put them away neatly.

One of the things artists are sometimes (understandably) shy about talking about is that shows don't usually sell out so there is often artwork to store or to hang in ones own house.  I've noticed that I actually get depressed when I take down a show. I know I did yesterday.  I don't like the feeling of bringing home so much work into which I poured my soul and having to find a place to store it.  I want it to have found new homes!  To have been loved and cherished and taken home!  It's painful to put it away where it won't be seen for months.  I hang much of it up in my house, but I only have so many walls, and I have to have room for the furniture too!

So yesterday was a bit sad and depressing.  I didn't notice at first, but Chris and I were hanging some artwork (we bought a hanging system for our house and were working on installing it then hanging pictures on it) and I was totally grumpy.  I felt like jumping down his throat for no reason.  Finally I realized that I was feeling let down like I frequently do when a show is over.  It passes, and my vitality returns, but it hurts for a bit.  Thankfully Chris was kind and gentle and understanding (as he almost always is - I'm a lucky woman!) so it passed, but ouch!

It's a powerful thing to have an art show. To be see so thoroughly by the public.  To have ones soul scrutinized, analyzed, judged, admired, despised, reviled, loved.  It's a vulnerable thing.  Fortunately I believe in my work completely so the negative comments generally roll off my back, and the positive ones serve to reinforce the rightness of what I'm doing.  (Some might call it selective hearing!  That's not a bad thing to have as an artist!)