The Bonobo Sisterhood or How to Deal with Jerks

 

My friend Roberta Sachs told me some time ago about the Bonobo Sisterhood, a concept she learned from Diane Rosenfeld, a researcher and professor at Harvard.  I have been thinking about it ever since. 

Bonobos are a type of primate who are very closely related to the chimpanzees.  Rather than being patriarchal, though, like the chimps, theirs is a matriarchal  society, and they have very, very little reported, observed violence, unlike chimps, who will kill males from other groups, unprovoked, simply to defend their territory.

What Roberta told me that has stuck with me is the way the Bonobos deal with male violence and aggression - if a male bonobo starts messing with a female, she will call and scream for the other females.  They will come and surround the male and fuss at him and let him know in no uncertain terms that his behavior was totally uncool.  I have not been able to find any documentation to back up this information, but that is almost irrelevant to me - I have decided to adopt that technique as my own and to give the bonobos credit for it!  Why not?

Here's how I've used the technique a couple of times lately:

When I was at an art opening several months ago, I went up to speak with a friend who was speaking with a male acquaintance I've known for about 20 years but had only spoken with 2-3 times previously.  He, let's call him Johnny, came up to me, heavily put his thick and husky forearms on my shoulders and said, "Hey, babe, let's go out in the alley and make love."  My friend laughed and said, "Oh, Johnny!"  I told him, "I don't think my husband would like that at all."  He said we could send my husband up on ladders to fix the downed power lines (it was around the time of a hurricane).  I told him no thanks.  My friend and I laughed uncomfortably and made light of it all then went on talking, the three of us, about innocuous things like the hurricane and downed power lines, but all the while I was disgusted by the way Johnny spoke to me.

The next day I decided to do something about it because it really pissed me off.  And besides, I was thinking about those female Bonobos.  I wrote Johnny an email which said,

Dear Johnny,
I don't know if you remember our interaction at [the art opening] the other night or not.  I came over to speak to you and [my friend], and you put your arms heavily on my shoulders and said, "Let's go outside in the alley and make love."  I laughed uncomfortably, trying to let the remark pass, and said, "I don't think my husband would like that." to which you replied "We'll send him to put up power lines."

Johnny, I want to let you know that your comment made me feel very uncomfortable.  Your arms on my shoulders were also unwelcome.  In the future, I would like you to please refrain from such behavior and such comments in my presence.  I do not welcome them at all.  They are not flirtatious.  They are not cute or funny.  They make me feel uncomfortable.

Thank you for your kind regard in this matter.
Susan Singer

I could feel my adrenaline pulsing through me as I wrote the note and couldn't decide whether I had the courage to send it or not - until I thought about cc'ing my friend who was also there.  Doing that made it something Johnny couldn't ignore because my friend was involved also.  I wrote my friend an additional note to explain what I'd done and why.  She was cool with it because she'd known this man a long time and had experienced his unwelcome attentions herself and had seen him behave similarly to many other people.

To his credit, a few days later Johnny wrote me a brief note of apology.  Then, even more to his credit, when I saw him a week or so later, he didn't mention my note at all - that was fine with me - it would have been very awkward if he had - but he was friendly and appropriate.  It was a giant relief.  I felt elated that I had written him, told him that his behavior was NOT OK with me, and had caused a change in his behavior towards me.

I am thankful for my friend's willingness to participate with me and for Johnny's ability to take "coaching."  I think it can be scary to tell people what I don't like, but, man, it sure is empowering, especially when they change their behavior!

A few days later I had a second opportunity to use the Bonobo sisterhood.  A friend of mine had written something on Facebook about ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, taking a bath.  Someone who had friended us both, but whom neither of us knew personally (we'd only friended him because he was friends with someone else we knew), wrote a comment which made my friend, Betsy, uncomfortable, along the lines of my painting her with just her bubbles on.  That could be a cute comment - maybe - if you knew the person and your relationship was flirtatious anyway, but for a total stranger to say it felt icky to Betsy.  She deleted his comment and wrote to ask me about it and the person who'd written it.  I told her I didn't know him and had gotten some uncomfortable vibes from him too.  We decided to work together on it.  She wrote to tell him that she'd deleted his comment because it had made her feel uncomfortable, and I wrote him a lengthier note to ask him to please run his comments to me or about my posts through a strong PC (politically correct) filter before posting.  I cc'd Betsy on the note.  He responded saying he wouldn't say anything ever again.  I told him I wasn't asking him to do that - I just was asking him to please be more aware of what he said and to try to make sure what he was saying was appropriate.  Since that time, he has been a gentleman in responding to my posts.  Another friend, who friended him because she saw he was a friend of mine, asked me if he was weird or was OK, and I told her the story - I have a feeling there's something a bit off about him, but all I know for sure is that asking him to be more appropriate worked, and I think one reason it did is, again, because I did it with my friend Betsy's knowing about it - and the man knew she knew.  It's much more difficult to ignore two "crazy broads" than one isolated one.

Have you had any experiences of Bonobo Sisterhood?  I encourage you to give it a try the next time someone does or says something which makes you feel yucky.  Call out your sisters and take the confused jerk to task and ask for better behavior the next time.  The world might become a much nicer place if we do!  (And I hope you'll post your experiences here so we can all cheer for you when it happens!  And if you need some Bonobo sisters, I'll certainly be happy to be your witness!)

Finding her Peace

I'm enjoying the process  of making this piece tremendously.  It's very different than any I've done before.  Usually I'll start a painting and I'll know basically how it'll look when it's finished since I'm just copying a photograph.  With this one, I knew I wanted to work with this image of my model (whom I'm calling Nan) AND I felt called to work with the myriad images of models from women's and teen's magazines.  I spent 2-3 days looking for and cutting out pictures then it took another day to get up the courage to paste them onto the canvas.  Then I toned them down.  A lot.  That's the stage the piece was at in the first picture.

The next day I did a lot of work on Nan then got frustrated because she wasn't standing out strongly enough from the background/foreground of the models, so I darkened that substantially more then put a dark ring around her painting.  Now it looks like something was burned to make her stand out.

This afternoon when I was finally able to get back to the picture, I realized I wanted to put leaves on top of the models to hide them even more and to evoke woods more strongly.  First I took a ladderback chair outside and sat in the garden drawing vines.  We have a jasmine vine as well as a hydrangea.  Neither one was exactly what I was looking for.  Then it occurred to me to go find a beech tree - that's what she's hugging - and draw those leaves.  I got a good number of them then came inside and drew them onto the canvas then painted them.  I can see they need to be more opaque to show up better, but I think I like how they're looking conceptually.  The models are still visible if you look hard enough, but they're less dominant, kind of like they are in most women's brains - they're in the background, subdued - usually - but omnipresent.  There may be other things in front of them, but they're always there, lurking in the shadows, peering through, affecting us.

The title keeps changing.  Today "Finding her Peace" feels better.  Who knows what it'll end up being!  Stay tuned!  Or if you have a good idea, please write and suggest it!

Where She Finds Herself

A couple of months ago, before Not Barbie, an acquaintance asked me to photograph her.  I was a bit surprised to find she wanted to go outside, but I was game for it.  I have woods beside my house which are dense enough that the neighbors can't really see what's going on unless they are out on a walk.  This model, I'll call her Nan, told me she'd been going through a tough time recently - way too much stress, too much responsibility, and definitely not enough fun.  When I mentioned the possibility of photographing her outside, she jumped on it immediately as if I were offering her a ticket to sanity and peace.

When we got outside, she disrobed and immediately began to explore her surroundings.  She went inward, communing with the trees and bushes, many of which had just fallen during Hurricane Irene.  I photographed her among the fallen trees and dying leaves, giving me the sense that she was sitting in her nest, a home which offered her natural safety and protection.  She got up to walk some more.  She had been told by a psychic that trees were very important to her and she should spend some time in the woods.  She went over to a large birch and embraced it.  I could sense an exchange of energy as Nan received strength and succor from the giant.  I photographed her in that moment.

When thinking about which painting to create from the photographs of her, I was strongly drawn to that one.  I also had the idea to collage pictures of models onto a canvas and have them surround one of my models.  Nan's picture seemed a good fit for that.  I worked in Photoshop to try to figure out the composition.  I spent two days, in fact, playing with possibilities and options, trying to figure out what I was trying to say and how to say it. I guess all that thinking and experimenting was helpful, but I didn't come up with anything through that process.  Instead, I got sick of trying and finally just went to the canvas and painted a very rough sketch of Nan.  Then I went to my large pile of models I'd cut from several women's/teen's magazines my daughter had given me permission to destroy and began to arrange them around the outside of the oval.  It was exceedingly time-consuming to find them, cut them out, arrange them, glue them on, etc., but it was a fun process too.  Once that was done, I felt like they were too dominant, so I toned them down by glazing them with veridian and cadmium mixed with Golden's Semi-Gloss Gel Medium.

After that, I drew Nan on the canvas more carefully then couldn't wait to start laying in paint.  I got out my palette mud - what's left over at the bottom of the jar where I keep my turpenoid when it's too dirty to use anymore.  I pour off the turpenoid so the sediments can fall to the bottom then scrape out the paint that's left in the jar still.  I put that in another jar and keep it for when I need to tone a canvas or for whatever else - you never know when it'll come in handy!  It was perfect for the tree.  First of all it was almost the exact right color.  Secondly, it had a lot of glop and gloop in it - perfect for texture for the bark.  I got out my palette knife and started scraping it across the canvas.  Sloop, droop, slop, mess, scrape, glub, glob.  I took some texturizing tools and dragged them through the mess then added more paint.  It was really fun!  Kinda like making mudpies.  I really wanted to get my hands in there but managed to keep that impulse under control.

That was yesterday.  Today I couldn't wait to get back to it.  (I love that feeling - when I wake up wanting to paint, thinking about the canvas, excited to get back to it.  It's not an every day occurrence, so I've come to really appreciate it when I have it.)  I taught art at Crossroads then rushed home, had lunch, and came on out.

I assessed what I'd done yesterday and still liked it so I began painting her shoulder.  I don't have the light right on it - the white part doesn't read well since it's too confusing what the light is supposed to be.  I'll change that tomorrow.  I moved on to her face.  For some reason, it seemed very, very easy to paint her face.  I think her features must be somehow similar to mine.  They seemed very familiar and simple to paint.  She doesn't look completely like Nan yet, but it's a very good approximation for a first day of work.  I was feeling tired but couldn't wait to keep going so I painted the hand quickly - I wanted to fill in the entire canvas.  Then I did some more work on the tree to make it look more realistic.  I'm excited by the texture of the bark!

When I look at it now, I'm starting to see the message I'm trying to get across.  Chris came out to the studio when he got home from work and said it looks too chaotic to him - all those faces are bothering him because he wants to focus on her meditative sensibility.  THAT is pretty much my point - how can a person stay attuned to nature, or become attuned to nature, with all the input from the media and the rest of the world?  It's a real challenge to not let the thousands of images we see daily overtake us.

I may lessen the impact of the surrounding images a little bit by glazing it again so they'll be darker and less prominent, but I haven't decided yet.  Perhaps my dreams will tell me.

In the meantime, Nan can meditate on the tree, and all those faces can try to attract us to buy whatever it is they're offering (sex, clothing, lipstick, face powder - whatever), and I'm going to go to the grocery store then make dinner and share the evening with my precious husband.  Have a good one, y'all!

Shameless Survivor

I just realized I never posted the finished version of Shameless Survivor so here it is now.  This woman was part of Beyond Barbie's night called Through the Fire, a presentation on intimate partner abuse.  Lisette, the woman pictured here, was shot by her husband who then killed himself.  She read three entries from her blog, http://www.shamelesssurvivors.com/.  They were so powerful, they left me speechless and have resonated with me all week since then.  The one I found most moving answered the question so many people ask her, "If your husband was so abusive, why didn't you leave?"  She read a list of reasons she didn't such as feeling so bad about herself (because she believed what he said) that she had no ability to leave.  It was tough, powerful stuff to listen to. 

If you or someone you know is in a relationship that may be abusive, please know that Lisette's blog can be a resource to you, and there is much other help available, for example, Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE or YWCA.

May this painting help encourage others to seek the help they need and to know that they deserve to be treated like the wonderful people they are.

Guardian Angels

In keeping with my new old fascination with patterns, I bought a bunch of books on patterns at the estate sale of an artist who recently passed away.  She was a fiber/quilt artist and had dozens of books on patterns.  I felt like I hit the jackpot!  The ones which called to me most strongly, for some reason, were African patterns:  Nigerian, Ethiopian, and more generalized African.  When I got home from the sale, I went out into the studio where I began to browse through the books and copy out patterns which appealed to me the most.   I learned that the Ethiopian patterns were from scrolls which were made for people to help heal them.  Many of the images were demons, most seemed to be angels.  They were drawn on scrolls along with text and were carried on the person all the time or kept in their homes.  One, for example, was for a pregnant woman and was meant to protect her and her child. 

 

I decided to incorporate one of the patterns of Guardian Angels into the painting I was just beginning.  I put it into the background as if it were wallpaper.  I was also thinking that the woman I was painting has the feel of an angel as well - a strongly protective one - so I chose to call the piece Guardian Angels. 

Here's the finished version:

Working small, and so glad to be painting again!

Today I finally got back into the studio to paint for the first time since Not Barbie opened.  For some reason I was called to do this piece - I imagined it a bit differently than this, but I couldn't find the picture on my computer which was in my head, so I made this one work. 

I first painted the background with all sort of colors - there are actually 8-10 colors in it though it doesn't look like it.  Neutral is a hard color to create! 

Because I don't usually work so small (19"x15") I decided to paint the couch first so I could get used to working so small - choosing brushes, etc.  It felt exquisite to apply paint to canvas again.  I forget how much I love to do it when I've been away for a while.

After the sofa reached a certain level of completion, I began work on her body.  The light was beautiful coming in the window to her right (our left), so it was fun to render that.  She also has a wonderful laughing expression which was tricky and challenging but fun to capture.  I just noticed I forgot to paint her necklace.  Guess I'm not finished after all!  I also notice that some of the grid still shows through the sofa cushions and the background in some places, so I have a few more hours' work to do.  Ah, the pleasures of an artist!

I haven't found a title for this piece yet.  Let me know if you have any ideas for me!

Life, Death, and Dance by Khalima

Today is the first performance for Beyond Barbie - Strength in Motion: Dancing our Sacred Bodies.  One of the dancers, who calls herself Khalima, wrote a magnificent essay about her relationship with dance, particularly the piece she will be dancing tonight.  I quote it here with her permission:

Life, Death, and Dance

by Khalima Dance on Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:09am

Life, death, and dance. You may not think these things are so inexplicably linked, perhaps not so seriously, but I’m going to tell you exactly why they are. It is too often that people find themselves at the precipice of death, and are pulled back in by understanding what it means to be alive in that incredible body of theirs. Movement arts like bellydance, which may not seem so serious in the grand scheme of things, can have that huge effect on the heart and body. Bellydance happened to be the gateway drug for me, and so often works this way for others. I lived trapped inside of my body, rigid as stone for so many years, until I was given dance. The tangibility of the body, and the act of channeling experiences through it brings a level of healing I have never experienced in another format.

Today is a day that I am thinking heavily about this connection, yet again. It is what would have been my younger sister Jenn’s 28th birthday. She passed away, tragically, in a car accident on July 25th, leaving behind two beautiful daughters, a host of friends and family, and a maddening anguish in the knowledge that she would never be able to move beyond that fateful day. I have been told that the first year is so hard because of anniversaries, birthdays, holidays…other changes, like the seasons, or walking past the medical examiner's office on the first day of school have also threatened to tilt me back into the dark void that encompassed those first few weeks when the veil between worlds had been removed.

I am thankful though, for answers to the pain that come flying at me like waves of alchemy on a sea of despair.

I reflect on the performance that I will be giving tonight as part of Susan Singer's “Beyond Barbie” Thursday night series, a celebration of women's glories and griefs. I shiver a bit when I think about it, and how the piece I will be dancing has revisited me in one form or another during times of loss, whether I knew it or not. I decided to perform to the unrelenting piece of music, titled “Farewell” a month before Jenn died, building off of previous versions that I have danced, also at times of loss that I was unaware of at the time. Little did I know when I chose this, that the haunting melody of cellos that seem to curl up from beneath the earth and sinuously wrap themselves inside my body, reaching into the firmament, would serve again as catharsis for some of my deepest loss, and in a show designed to give people a taste of what it means to dance from the heart: how it heals us, carries us through, and gives meaning to all that we experience and know.

Tonight's piece is based on the High Priestess card of the Tarot, and what she represents: innate knowledge and going inside of oneself to find deeper truths. She sits wide eyed, quietly beckoning to the pomegranate covered veil behind which lies the deepest, most secret knowledge. Where you find the High Priestess, you know you will need to be alone to find out what you know already, and be ready to penetrate the deepest levels of understanding, to illuminate your world, and be fearless as Persephone as she penetrates the strangeness of the underworld.

I understood the deeper significance of the High Priestess in relation to “Farewell” after I danced it for the first time at the first Raqs Luminaire, which is an ever evolving dance production based on illumination of a literal and metaphorical sense, story, and dancing all that it means to be alive or dead. When I conceived the idea for the show, I had no idea of the layers of significance the project would have on my life and others. My wish for the show was taken seriously by whatever powers exist; to be an outlet for all that you feel deepest in your soul, to be lain raw and naked to the world, and find out what you do with it. When I danced “Farewell” for the first time at Luminaire, I was pregnant with a child that would never know this world outside the warm shell of its mother. I had unknowingly set up a ritual and dance to honor that life without knowing it. My body and heart knew what my mind was unwilling to accept, and it carried me to dancing all that it meant to be alive and dead at the same time.

“Farewell” came back to me yet again during the time of a powerful loss in a relationship last summer. I was magnetically drawn to the sound and feel of the piece, and had the uncontrollable urge to work it out through the music, and did so over and over so that it could be presented in a format that an audience could understand. I couldn't dance to much else aside from that music. The ache in my body and heart was a tangible thing. I was vibrating with the energy of it all, and couldn't help but to move, to channel it through the glowing bloody vessel that is the home for a spirit trying to make sense of the wildly spiraling structure that life often takes. In times like these, I feel the energy of what is in my heart and belly float to the surface. I wrap it up in my hands and hips and release it out into the sky.

I often tell people that dance is an imitation of life. It doesn't matter what your method is. It only matters that you're moving, and I am eternally grateful to the people who brought that into my life. Today, I am asking this song to pull me up again. Where layers of despair have worn my desire to move down to nothing in recent times, I implore of this piece to lift me up again, to access the parts that remain hidden. I dance this not only for myself, but to show people that they are not alone. Today I move for my sister, for the joy of her birth, in honor of the time that she had on this earth, and for each soul brave enough to peer inside of themselves and behind the veils that hold us back from the knowledge necessary to grow into beautiful, glowing tendrils of the earth.

The Opening for Not Barbie was perfect!

It's been way too long since I last wrote a blog entry!  I've missed it, but I was so blasted busy putting on Not Barbie, I couldn't see beyond my eyeballs, much less think cogently enough to write a post!  But I'm back.  I hope.

The opening for Not Barbie: A Celebration of Real Women was perfect as far as I was concerned.  There were zillions of people there from so many different pockets of my life, and there were zillions of people there whom I didn't know yet.  I gave an Artist's Talk at 5:30 which was very well-attended.  I think there were about 200 people there for it.  I felt so honored.  I talked about why I do my art and about how we can begin to change the way we perceive and judge ourselves and others.  I'll talk more about it in a later post.

The evening began with that bang and continued fabulously right on til 9:00 when it finally ended.  Many people came and read all the stories by the models, honoring each and every one of them with their loving attention.  Women came up to me with tears in their eyes, sharing how much the art and the stories mean to them.  Men spoke to me about their own struggles with body image and assured me that it is NOT just a woman's issue.  I am wondering if perhaps I should begin drawing and painting men again to help with the inequity some men felt in my show.  Of course I don't mean to be exclusive.  Men are being portrayed with perfect bodies more and more these days.  It's daunting to try to live up to the perfection that feels demanded of us.  More about that in future posts as well...

In the meantime, I thought I would post some pictures from the exhibition in case you can't make it.  I'm thrilled with how well Crossroads works for such a show - it's a wonderful, huge space with a few smaller walls for intimate pieces as well as large stretches for bold statements.

A Celebration of Life on the entrance wall to the Gallery

Don't Mess with Me on the second entrance wall to the Gallery

Some of the largest pieces on the back wall as you enter, Scar Belly, Mother and Daughter Jocks Bound by Caution, and Joyful, Joyful.

Gaye Adegbalola and other pieces

A smaller corner of the gallery with the interactive exhibits and some of the more intimate pieces.

Wall near the entrance with the lights turned on

another view of the interactive corner.  On the left is an interactive exhibit where you can compare yourself to Barbie, Venus von Willendorf, and a full size model.

Shelia x4 and other pieces.  This area will serve as our stage for the Beyond Barbie nights

Illumination and In Memoriam

 

 

The show will be up until November 7 at Crossroads Art Gallery here in Richmond, Virginia.  I hope you get a chance to see it!