Women Who Like Drawing Women: A Random Art Post

I'm by no means an artist, but I love to draw. I'm a big believer in using drawing, painting, and other art forms as a way of relaxing and working with my hands to coax out my underdeveloped gross and fine motor skills. But it didn't start out as therapeutic, it was just something I picked up as a child, from years of observing beautiful paintings and drawings all around me.

I was blessed to grow up in an environment rich in art. Lahaina, HI boasts one of the healthiest collections of art galleries in the United States, and my father was friends with a couple of artists and gallery owners. This was partially due to his brief flirtation with doing art himself, he loved sculpture and painting. But, as he said, along with discovering his talent, he discovered what it means to be a "starving artist" and went into real estate. Lost the career in art, kept the friends in the business. So I have many fond memories in childhood of being surrounded by art, and that's transferred into adulthood as an appreciation of art and art history, and my own love of creating art.

One particular theme of my art that comes out over and over again is drawing women and girls. I drew illustrations to stories I wrote, and almost all the protagonists were female. I won a prize from my school in grade two for a story I wrote and illustrated of a group of girl astronauts boarding a magic ship to go to all the planets in the solar system to meet the alien inhabitants of each planet. All of the aliens were girls, and at the end, they all got on the magic ship together and had a picnic on Pluto. I had two major interests at the time: Astronomy and art, and they went together nicely in stories like this.

Since there were lots of prints of artwork in my house, I often tried to imitate what I saw in the prints, and most of them were pictures of women. Women riding horses, women staring in admiration at vases full of flowers, women sleeping and dreaming of dancing, women taking baths. I grew up surrounded by women, and my art reflects this. In my childhood, it was amazing for me to see women in art, for a variety of reasons. The most blatant two are related to imagination and role models: Imagination-wise, I could make up stories about the women in the pictures. The woman looking at the flower vase had made up the arrangement herself, and was entering it in a contest to win a prize she really wanted. The horse riding woman was out to rescue her kingdom from a two-headed dragon from Mars. There was no predetermined storyline I had to follow, like in a movie or a book. It was all up to me.

Secondly, that freedom of interpretation meant that I could find inspiration in these painted figures. They were a sight more inspiring and interesting than any Disney Princess or Skydancer. It inspired my own art, and my crayola markers filled pages of my father's printer paper (Sorry, Dad) with pictures of me and the women in the paintings on adventures. But there was a down side as well.

To this day, I can't draw a decent male. I have tried time in and time out. I can do women, monsters, animals, children, landscapes, and mystical creatures that are vaguely to not-so-very humanoid, but human men continue to be beyond the graspings of my pencil.

I still feel very frustrated by this, and I am trying my best to learn how to draw a human man. I won't give up on it. But I don't feel as bad about it as I used to. It can sometimes be irritating, but I've discovered that it's not as big of an impediment as one might think. Why? Because most of the subjects I draw and the stories I write are about women. And why not? They're my stories, drawing from my experiences. I shouldn't have to apologize for flooding my pages with woman after woman.

But as it turns out, I am not alone. So, to commemorate this post, I'm going to picspam with other women who draw primarily women. Feel free to check out their art, and I hope you enjoy their stuff as much as I do. And whether you are an artist, a writer, or a lyricist, remember that your art is yours and while you can constantly look to improve and expand your horizons, do so on your own terms.

Janice Durr Cua

Zinaida Serebriakova

Audrey Kawasaki

Emma Florence Harrison

Frida Kahlo (Come on, you knew I couldn't go this far without mentioning her in this topic)

Jessie M. King

Mayumi Oda

Lisa Yuskavage

Tamara De Lempicka (Margaret Atwood fans might recognize her work from the cover of The Penelopiad)

In Defence of Libraries

As a news junkie in this political environment, I keep both blogging eyes open to anything that crosses my path which threatens something precious to me. With the teabaggers in office, this happens more than I care for, and I've signed endless arrays of petitions to save various services related to disability, public broadcasting, reproductive rights, and other issues. This time though, I'm going to talk about one which is less headline-worthy, but I think is just as fundamentally important, and deserves to be protected from onslaughts of misguided right-wing stupidity.

I'm talking of course, about libraries.

Amendment #35 would eliminate all IMLS funding specifically for libraries, and leave those that depend on library resources and services high and dry. Libraries not only breathe life into the souls of bibliophiles of all ages, they are a godsend for the poor who cannot afford their own computers or internet access, and rely on the public library in their community to ensure that they can access the internet for job hunting, government searches, and using the web to keep in contact with family, friends and loved ones. When I was internet-devoid for a while, my library proved an invaluable resource, especially during a period when I was filing for SSI benefits and needed to check my student email and use Blackboard. And blog for you dear readers of course.

This goes beyond shafting the poor though. I've come to expect that from the GOP. There's something considerably more sinister about wanting to dis-empower libraries. It is an attack on knowledge and love of learning (philio-sophos, do those words look familiar?) itself. It is an almost guaranteed way of ensuring a deepening poverty of the mind for the youth of America. When I was a child, books were my greatest friend. In a childhood characterized by isolation from my peers, I found solace in books, and when I would scroll down aisles glancing at the author's names on the spines, I dreamed of one day having my own name on a spine in the library.

So from an early age, books were my gateway to a love of writing and illustrating my own books (My greatest childhood memory is winning a prize at my school for a book I illustrated and wrote about a group of space girls travelling to all the different planets in the solar system. Back then, that included Pluto!) and offered me a comforting activity which instilled the germs from which curiosity, creativity and critical thinking emerged. Without those three C's, life would be considerably more colourless, cheerless, and confined to much greater limits.

I'm sure hoping that that's not what those who wish to cut the life out of libraries have in mind with this Amendment. But it is an inevitable side effect which will do more harm to the collective American childhood than any pennies saved ever could justify.

Protect our libraries and the bibliophiles to come who will need them.

Mohala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua- As the faces of flowers open to water, so too do people thrive where the living conditions are good

Trigger Warning for violence and abuse

If I were to comment on every story on autism I see on a mainstream piece of news, I would be left with a major headache and blisters on the tips of my fingers.

But one autism story that has been popping up more and more lately is the story of children with autism being abused in the hands of their teachers, aides, or parents. It is often chalked up to a "few bad apples", rather than a tale of systematic abuse of children with disabilities due to widespread misunderstanding of the nature of autism, how children with disabilities communicate, and a culture that devalues children and regards them as someone to be seen and not heard.

Very rarely does a type of story that is of vital importance to people with autism get discussed: Creating an autism-friendly environment in our schools.

In my own experiences as a person with autism, public school environments put in little to no effort to make the school physical environment any more comfortable, safe, or inviting. Loud, noisy cafeterias where the din from metal against metal, feet against floor, and harsh fluorescent light can cause panic attacks or meltdowns, uncomfortable chairs where certain forms of stimming are uncomfortable or impossible and overcrowded classrooms, extreme heat, and exposure to textures, smells, and tastes that triggered meltdowns, all of these marked my experience as a student when I was young.

This distracting environment miserably affected my academic performance. The sole consolation was that my school was extremely well-planned in regards to surrounding nature- flowers, trees, and bushes which allowed me to observe insects, collect leaves, and create my own mini toys or dolls out of the pods, leaves, and sticks. But not all schools have that good fortune, and for many children, there is no escape from the over-stimulation. The social environment in my elementary school experience was characterized by isolation, due to me being "different" and weird. This didn't bother my young self when it came to recess and free time, because I enjoyed being by myself. In mandatory group activities though, I was forced to interact with others. My saving grace was my ability to follow instructions quite well, as long as the language wasn't filled with idioms I was unfamiliar with. In fairness, my elementary school made certain I was included in these activities, even if I was seen as a "freak" by the other students.

My experiences at a private school between grades 6 and 8 were improved in terms of the physical environment slightly. The classrooms were air-conditioned, the lighting was considerably less harsh, and a few of the classrooms had the luxury of a couch, which I would sit in and read or stim during recess and lunch break. The cafeteria was smaller as well, and the lighting was turned off during the daytime, and sunlight came in through the windows. However, in terms of the social environment, the situation considerably deteriorated. Collaborative learning is extremely important in those school years, but nobody wanted to be paired up with "the freak", so the groups that got stuck with me never let me forget their resentment and dislike of being around me. I recall the teachers doing mild reprimands, but no strong, consistent effort was made to combat the type of subtle, passive aggressive bullying I experienced.

My experience is one of the more mild ones that can happen to a student with autism though. Other children have been put through much worse. Eighteen percent [1] of children with autism have been abused physically, and sixteen percent [2] were sexually abused.

Based on my own experiences and the collective data on the horror of the abuse perpetrated against children with autism, I have to temper my own desire to see the very best actions taken for my brothers and sisters on the spectrum with the reality that many public schools are terrifyingly underfunded, understaffed, and overcrowded. Autism knows no class boundaries, and can become apparent in the family trees of millionaire and construction worker alike. But poor children on the spectrum do not have access to the resources that children born to wealthier families do, and will often languish the worst in poor schools with limited funding. Little effort is made to invest more money into education for disabled children, or even able bodied neurotypical children. More funding definitely needs to be allotted to teaching children and teachers alike about the needs of children with autism, and how an environment that is ideal for all three parties can be met.

But there is absolutely no excuse for the level of cruelty and violent abuse that children with autism have suffered from teachers in certain cases. Regardless of how "difficult controlling the child" was, adults in a position of power exercising such violent control over children whom they are responsible for is nothing short of a failing of our society to understand that children with autism need our love and acceptance. Not violence or exclusion.

My previous point about finances has an additional footnote: While it may seem expensive to overhaul public education not only to better serve the needs of disabled children, but to create classrooms that are inviting and enriching for ALL children will be expensive, it will pay for itself in the long run. Schools were neurodiversity is promoted, where children of all levels of ability exist side by side and all receive the help they need, it creates a society where these children grow up to be adults who have the flexibility and empathy to accommodate people of all backgrounds. I think the ways that could benefit our society speaks for itself. Also, children with autism who are treated well as children and flourish in their environments grow up to be adults who are not afraid of the world around them, and can use their own unique abilities to chip in to a harmonious future.

I have argued before that neurodiversity shouldn't mean we should only value intelligent individuals who are verbal and can hold jobs. People with autism of all ability levels have their own special talents to share. If we nurture these gifts, we will see more people with autism becoming invaluable contributors to their fields and their communities. Not just the "Rain Men" that are so popular in mainstream myth, but all people with autism.

If neurotypical society makes an honest and vigilant effort to understand the needs of individuals with autism and implement them, make them standard procedure, we will not ever need this conversation again, nor will news stories about children being beaten, restrained, locked up, caged, hit, kicked, and sat on darken my inbox on a weekly basis.

That is my first quixotic message to my readers.

[1 & 2]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16293306