I am feeling icky. I was having hot flushes during class yesterday and it completely undermined and uncentered me. I couldn’t think or focus or contribute. It feels cruel. And personal. A personal attack by my body, on my body.
I’m really struggling to be focused on my work. The last few years have been spent thinking about other peoples work (in working in a gallery) and I’ve been so excited to work on my own practice again. But I feel myself getting distracted by my current housing situation (being in visa limbo and having my studio tools and materials in storage) and what should be minor administrative tasks. Gotta keep trying to push through it – what’s the point otherwise? Just feeling so icky and available to distraction!
I’m going to expand my Materials of Menopause/Peri Menopause notes here with a few ideas on how to play with these materials. Usually this would occur on the walls of my studio. I don’t know if I’ll action these items (and I have a supply of some of these things in my stored studio – so don’t want to re-purchase), but the list feels helpful. I might edit and add in pics later if I make anything of note.
Also. I’m not sure where this is going or what I want to say about Menopause/Peri Menopause, if anything. It just feels pertinent to explore as a theme as it is so front of mind for me right now.
St Johns Wort
- Use the powder from a capsule to mix into a watercolor paint. will it be sepia in colour? Paint a room. Paint a wall. Paint the image of the capsule? Paint a St Johns Wort flower? Paint the bottle. Paint a self portrait? Paint a hot flush self portrait? Why?
- Research the scent of the flower, reproduce.
- Research the dangers of use. Paint? Expand the dangers into a sensory installation.
- Grow. Grow in gallery space? Grow in panty liner?
PH balancing soaps
- Bad raps on scented vagina washes. What ingredients are medically required and what is filler? Ingredient research.
- Do people who undertake gender confirmation or re-assignment surgery get BV? What products would they use? Research. What other problems might exist in a constructed or rearranged (are those words offensive?) vagina? Other bacterias? Research.
- Sex that is orgasmic releases hormones that unbalance PH, resulting in BV (requiring medical attention or PH balancing soaps). Semen also unbalances. Adding orgasms as a material to this list.
- Bacterial Vaginosis. What does it smell like? Day old steamed broccoli? Make scent? Make paint? Are there similar biological elements between broccoli and BV? Research.
Panty Liners
- Yuck. Always wet. Not always right size, never fit in underwear. Crease and bunch up. Thinking of a work I proposed but never made where the floor of the space has a bump or crease, just raised enough to irritate, but not enough to trip.
- Design yuck.
- Packaging yuck.
- Hate them. Can’t make myself think about them too much. Should I?
Spare Underwear
- Prefer cotton, gentle on genitals. Spares are an alternate to panty liners. What other materials might be gentle on genitals? What is the history of underpants? Research.
- Could be a base for a work – like a canvas. Un-pick seams, separate. Examine different shapes. Use gesso or a stiffener to turn hard (and dry). Dye with St Johns Wort. Use as a hanging device?
- Dirty underwear as a material? Scent. Too obvi?
Hormones
- Not easily monitored. Intangible within the body without a blood test. So sneaky. Insidious. Surprised by them ALL THE TIME. No way to prove that day-to-day erratic behavior or thought is caused by them. What is another thing that functions in this way? Covid 19? CO2 poisoning? Depression. Are there any positive insidious things? Love? Lust?
- What could the layout of an installation be that acts in an equally insidious way? Is the work there, but not viewable? Does it jump out and frighten you? Do you think it is one thing and then it is another? Trickery. Magic.
Hot flushes/heat
- Suddenly rises up. Stings the skin. Radiating. Some kind of heat based work that rises from the floor or is sudden. Under floor heating turned right up. Underfloor heating cast into vases or lamp bases (would have to be plaster or something that does not need to be fired). Viewer has to touch to experience. Not Covid 19 safe. Entire walls? Handrails, handles?
- Weighted and heated blankets. Not comfortable, but rather heavy and bothersome. Dead weight.
- What is the material that is in those hand warmers you can buy at the chemist? Research.
Hair or Loss of Hair
- Mimic baldness. Lots of info (marks or objects) then sudden pauses.
- Self conscious. Hair conscious. What are the hairsyles of menopausal or thin haired women? Drawings. Helmet style.
Karen
- Karen is awful. But I must admit I feel some affinity to the rage she experiences – if it is hormone driven and not just an evil she possesses. I see that awfulness in myself sometimes. I hope my Karen is never caught on camera. But if she was, this could be material for demonstrating menopause.
Derision
- The menopausal woman is hated. What are the materials of hatred? Not only is she an angry Karen, she is also emotionally unstable, ugly (FUPA), dry and dumb. And infertile. WHY?
Infertility
- You only reach Menopause when you have ceased to mensturate for 12 months. Anything that occurs before that is considered Peri Menopause (this includes all of the symptoms that are usually associated with Menopause – hot flushes etc).
- Sometimes when I haven’t menstruated for a while – maybe like 3 months, a thought starts to creep into my head that I could be pregnant. This would be impossible as I’m missing some of interior body parts that could make this a reality. Regardless, I buy a test. It is a feeling of hope and hurt that occurs when I’m waiting for the results. You know why I would hope. The hurt comes from so many things. One is that I would likely have to abort the child – due to health concerns. How could I? How could I not? What is this the word for simultaneous hope-hurt and how could this tension be demonstrated or simulated in a visual or experiential context? Is it something that is both beautiful and grotesque? What is that? A beautiful, mutilated, deceased body? BDSM?
Onset of physical unattractiveness
- FUPA, masculine features, loss of hair or growing in unusual places, looking more masculine (more testosterone).
Dryness
- Opposite to WAP. What is the middle aged version of WAP? Who sings it? In Canada, maybe Melissa Etheridge? What are the words. Does it include lube? Could be celebrated in the same way?
Orgasms
- A spiritual experience. Falling into the category of epistemologies? A magic. Sublime. What can be done there at the top of an orgasm? World peace?
- How can it be defined outside of cliches?
- Simulated orgasm. Poppers. Cocaine feels like pre-orgasm.
- The downsides. Releases hormones that give me hot flushes. Can expedite menstruation.
And
Things that are not dildos, that are used as dildos.
- Emergency dildos. Crisis. Research. Meagan used an aerosol deodorant bottle. I was scared it would explode inside of her – they should only be stored at a low temperature. Vaginas are hot.
What does it look like inside my body? Like the insides of my mouth?