projects
Throughout the semester Gender Studies students completed a number of art projects, this page focuses on a few that they would like to share.
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***WARNING. Some strong LANGUAGE.***
***This post is not meant to be offensive or targeting towards anyone***
“A Study In Labeling And Dehumanizing”
Anonymous
To me, the most human aspects of our bodies are our eyes. Humans are the only animal with the whites of our eyes showing at all times, and many times the eyes are described as the window to the soul, and rightly so. Our eyes show so much emotion and they are what makes us who we are. In my study, the people are shown to have their eyes covered by a starburst, almost like a slap across the face, filled with stereotypes and labels. Theses starbursts are to show how much of an impact that these hurtful labels can have on someone and how quickly and easily they can strip people of their dignity and dehumanize them.
This print was inspired by the images of Rosie the Riveter from the 1940s. It is a response to breaking the gender norm of women doing hard manual labor that men usually perform. The woman in the piece is dressed in a red dress and high heels, and is swinging a sledgehammer. In the early stages, the image was the full figure of the woman. However, using the partial image seemed to create a more interesting perspective that could be read different ways.
Feminism is the activist movement of fighting against the discrimination of women, fighting for gender equality, and the practice of believing that women should have the same political, social and economic opportunities as men. Culture seems to tell us that women fall secondary to men. We can see this in many different scenarios, such as the workplace. Often times we walk into a workplace and see that the person in charge is a man. The men and women that work under him may do the same job, but tend to get treated or compensated differently because of their gender. The point of the print is to help promote the movement for women’s equality, and to show that they are capable of doing the same jobs men can do. Many times women are overlooked for important positions simply because they are the “wrong” sex. Those that do happen to make it into those positions often times don’t receive the respect they deserve.
After cropping down the print, I was able to see it in another perspective regarding gender. Is this an image of a woman swinging a sledgehammer, or a man at work dressed in a woman’s clothing? The face of the subject isn’t completely shown. Cutting it off at the lips doesn’t label the subject as a male or female, I realized that it could in fact be a piece promoting the transgender movement. This aspect is furthered by the wide-legged stance and the rather muscular leg and arm. Therefore, the subject could be a man who identifies as a woman. Gender and sexuality are different. Gender identification doesn’t always associate with sexual orientation. One person may have all the parts that make a male, but may actually identify themselves more as a female.
TEACHING BEYOND TOLERANCE
Lynzy Slezak
Teaching Beyond Tolerance is originally inspired by the artist Taylor George. She created a comic that included the top left image. I was inspired by the representation of love her drawings created. The comic originally challenged the expectation of who you could take to prom as your date. The comic showed the two women preparing and attending prom together as lovers. I created Teaching Beyond Tolerance around this idea. The canvas is filled with real photos of the students from the class with the people they love. The goal is to show every kind of couple possible. The Gender Studies class is to teach students to go beyond simply tolerating each other and instead see compassion and love for each other. The class allows students to have an open discussion about seeing gender topics from other peoples perspectives. The canvas is meant to challenge and provoke thought from the public. The finished product was a piece that appeared at more than one place across campus to continue to reach a wider audience. I greatly enjoyed putting this project together.
Say Yes To The Dress
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Lynzy Slezak and Heather Bozeman
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Heather and I find that being considered normal or straight is the social norm. We decided to challenge that standard. Texas is one of the most conservative states in the U.S. and the panhandle is one of the strictest most conservative parts of Texas. Anyone who is different is not only an outsider to society, but can experience violence or shame from others who live in fear of them. The mission that Heather and I created for ourselves was breaking the norm by appearing and acting as a lesbian couple out in public in Amarillo.
When I was thinking about what I wanted to do for the project my first thought was pushing the norms and the boundaries as far as I could. I not only wanted to be in a lesbian couple, but I wanted to be a couple that was getting married. Marriage is something that is pretty much denied to any non-straight homosexual couple in Texas. I approached Heather to ask if she was interested in going wedding dress shopping with me as my fiancé. She said yes and we made a plan. I called David’s Bridal to set up an appointment, which I was granted. I initially did not say that Heather and I were a couple for fear of not being given an appointment which would have jeopardized the whole experiment. I simply said that there were two women who needed dresses. The woman on the phone ended up asking if Heather and I were marrying each other. I said that we were and her response simply was whether we wanted to try on dresses in the same area to which we agreed. The appointment was granted with no further questioning. Heather tried calling Apple Annie’s with no answers and the voice mail box full. We decided that since the Apple Annie’s was not going to go through, we decided to go to a place called Bride’s that needed no appointment to be set up.
After getting the appointments set up we decided on a backstory for ourselves as a couple. We decided that we met in an art history class and bonded over a project. I was then the one who initiated our relationship and took Heather out on a date. Later Heather was the one who started the first kiss. Afterwards on June 10, 2016 I proposed to Heather in New Mexico. We then had to agree on a place and date to get married. We had to memorize all of this information and then some, including parents and immediate family names and basic information about each other’s childhoods to be prepared for the appointments and questions that came with them.
For the appointments we brought one “bridesmaid”, a mutual friend that would help record the experience. At David’s Bridal we were helped by two ladies. One seemed to be a little put off by us but was not unkind. The other lady was very excited to see us and had even told me the she had been looking forward to our appointment all week. My understanding was that Chanette, the woman who was helping us find the dresses, was homosexual herself. The most touching moment for me was when she said “I look at the two of you and hope for what I can have myself someday.” She also asked about how our family and friends had reacted to our relationship. She was most curious about our support system.
Heather and I both ended up with dresses that we were excited about. Heather especially loved hers. At the end of the appointment Chanette has us go through a ceremony where we made a wish with our eyes closed for what we wanted most at our wedding. After making the wish we rang little bells accepting our dresses and each other. They then strongly pressed us to make appointments for fittings and bridesmaids dresses. We had to tell them that we were not ready to pick out the dresses because we wanted our parents there to see them before we officially said yes.
Afterwards we went to lunch at Blue Sky and continued to act like a couple and see the responses we got from the other customers and employees. The employees seemed to either not care or notice, but we got lots of nasty stares from the customers. The most upset person at lunch was a woman who stood in line behind us. She was very upset that we were holding hands and talking about the wedding in public. The other people that we noticed the most was the family sitting behind us. They had two girls around the age of ten who literally sat up over the booth to make sure we were holding hands. As we left the restaurant eyes followed us all the way out mostly the older generation of over fifty. This was the most unpleasant part of the day.
Brides was our next stop on the journey. We were greeted by two younger ladies, one a senior in high school and one who was our age. Because they were around our age they were extremely accepting of us and asked lots of questions about how we met and our wedding. They also encouraged us to make appointments for us for the dresses we found and seemed exited to have us back again.
Surprisingly our overall experience was a very positive one. The most expected reactions came from the restaurant. Both of us thought that we would experience more pushback especially in such a conservative area. The experience gave us hope and courage for the people who have a real relationship that is considered unacceptable to some people in society. We have more courage and feel more compassion for others through this experience of being someone who is an outcast to part of society.
Expressions of A Self-made Man
Taryin Tovar
For me art has been a mix of hobby and therapy. There are times where I can doodling something for no particular reason and then there are instances in which I use art in a more serious manner to express emotions that I might otherwise bottle up. Much like the work below I savor this experience in creating with emotion. To me such pieces are filled with how I am feeling at the moment and the art being created in that time is different from when it is completed. This is the type of experience I enjoy when creating and hope to transmit to the viewer.
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This piece specifically possesses a number of emotions I have experienced recently; it is this reason that I used this image as my picture on my bio as I feel it is the image that is most representative of me at this time. Although the form is masculine, typical in most of my works, there is nothing that would definitively mark the figure as one or the other given how varied body types for people can be - as such neither gender nor sex are expressed in this back view of the figure.
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Much in the same vein as Egon Schiele I have distorted the body in a way that I hope would express the disconnect that I experience. My hope is that the viewers of this piece experience something from it. Although it was
mostly born out of a need to convey my emotions in a safe way, the experience afforded in the creation of this piece speaks to the innate struggle anyone could experience when trying to identify aspects of themselves whether that be in with gender, sexuality, or other various social categorizations. In this case, I was simply trying to capture the feeling of being in that struggle.
With this piece I was more interested in the experience to be had when creating and viewing art. That experience could result in seeing a specific meaning or nearly nothing at all - the goal for my art is not centered around a specific identical end point for all viewers. If they can see the emotion that I have put into my work and in turn experience it in their own way, then that would be enough. My artwork isn't about referential meaning to something higher, it is a means to express my emotions and my experience in visual form. Most of my work involves the human form, typically masculine, depicted in a multitude of ways, from the ideal to the contorted. I believe the various ways with which I depict the figure detail the experience I am continuously having regarding the human form, specifically gender.
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Within my piece, I wanted to try to express this struggle in the style of Egon Schiele, whose works I've come to enjoy. Using a style of twisted body shapes similar to Schiele's, I hope to express the emotional and physical experiences regarding body and mind that should be emphasized by the textual aspect of the painting - a manifesto of my own making.
I utilized the odd shape of the canvas in a way that appeals to me and hopefully the viewer, evoking aspects of the fluidity of the human body and its genders. The work depicted is meant to express an emotional experience by means that are aesthetically and psychologically representative for me.
Choosing People
-Kayla Young
I love hearing other people’s views. Being able to express thought, to create ideas and articulate them is one of the most amazing things about being human. Growing up I have learned ideas my parents have taught me, my social circles have formed thoughts in my head, friends, acquaintances, famous figures have all played into how I view my world. I think that being in gender studies has been a good place for people to show me how their thought process works, whether that is similar or dissimilar to my beliefs and worldview. Being in this class has taught me that we all have bias opinions, we all want to create a better world and we all are people who are experiencing a very real life. My views on subject are different than many of my peers. I would not say I’m a hardcore feminist or exclusively a LQBTQIA supporter, however I would say that community and people are the most important thing on this planet. Every person at this school, everyone in this state, in this country, on this continent and on this planet have a purpose and are equally important. This is one reason this class has been so good for me because I do not think exactly like the person sitting next to me. But the fact that we don’t think the same means we are not robots! That we think, create and live differently. If we are going to live out equality it means truly loving the person carrying the confederate flag on their truck just as much as the ones carrying the rainbow flag in a parade. Having differences does not make us weird or stupid, but it means that we can celebrate the fact that people can make decisions, we are not just a piece of metal but we are REAL. We are humans. We all have ears, eyes, noses and skin but every part of us is different, yet we are the same. Lets live as people who value other people BECAUSE they are not us.
I included this computer art picture I designed because we all have different circumstances and opportunities. Like this woman starring at these ladders we make choices. I chose the woman in this piece because it is easy for me to relate to, and she looks like she is on a journey. I feel like this speaks to our life experiences. We are who we are because of the choices we make. What kind of people will we choose to be? People whom are honoring and kind, or people who are do not value others? Let us find out what is just and true and seek after those things and be people who live to help other people. Let's choose people.