This month I have started to experiment a bit. I have spent the better part of a decade fascinated with birds and using them as my main subject matter in my art, but I got the itch to start playing with something different. I was watching the hilarious and poignant Netflix show “Sex Education” when they started talking about vulva’s and shame. And it hit hard for me. I have felt for a long time that my body is some how “wrong” because I don’t look like what is represented in main stream media. And it turns out I am not alone. Women don’t seem to know what normal is or even that there is no normal!
I love bio diversity and that’s one of the main reason’s I’m so drawn to birds. But I thought I should take a moment and turn that highlight on personal diversity too. As I dove down the rabbit hole (or vagina as it were) I discovered many woman have been celebrating the vulva and all it’s glory long before me. Including Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Table” and Hilde Atalanta’s “The Vulva Gallery“. I know what I am doing is not new and it doesn’t have to be. It’s not about creating something ground breaking, we’ve been talking about vulva’s since Georgia O’Keeffe (and probably long before that too!). It’s about becoming more comfortable with my own body and no longer looking to other’s for approval or validation. I wanted to celebrate the wobbly bits, labia majora and minora in all their glory. Showing that they come in all sorts of colours, sizes and shapes. It’s not about fitting into a neat little homogeneous box, it’s about loving yourself and all your amazingly wonderful variations.
If you connect with me and my work and would like your own perfectly imperfect vulva, head over to my shop page now. Each one is completely individual and no two are the same, just like us 🙂
