_Next of Kin tells my story through three different generations of women. It's not a linear one, neither a chronological one. It is an intertwining story where the past and the present try to connect with each other as well as disconnect._ …
This week... i continued my reading of The Second Sex... i am on the chapter on motherhood, the demands child bearing and child rearing place on women, societal attitudes towards abortion, the stake that men have (or don't have) in home and family... de Beauvoir paints a bleak picture of the marriage enterprise as currently constituted, as it too often "diminishes man" and "destroys woman"... much has changed since the book was written, the roles of men and women have grown more equal even if still unbalanced, and it is in a well balanced relationship that men and women can be most successful together, as family, as man, as woman... several examples of gender fluidity came to my attention this week... in particular fashion designer Richard Tischi argues that society should respect a range of gender concepts within what is though of as male... his current men's collection for Burberry features male and female models... my Iwachu cast iron omelette pan arrived this week, i began to produce omelettes that did not stick so i am on to refining my technique and i have decide to keep an omelette diary... an article on leather fetish fashion caught my attention because it is fetish fashion for women, designed by a woman and photographed by a woman... the sexy presentation of model and fetish fashion is very sexy and while produced by the female gaze, certainly attracts my male gaze, so i wonder where if falls in the world of objectification of women and whether there are feminist concerns... increasingly i am coming to the conclusion that there is a broad range of how men and women present themselves and the main thing is not to insist an narrow definitions of what is appropriate or attractive or beautiful... gender expression is ideally fluid... because i am developing a series of Mt. Beacon views, i researched Hokusai's 36 views of Mt. Fuji, and remembered Jeff Wall's "A Sudden Gust of Wind, (after Hokusai)" image and include it alongside Hokusai's original "A Sudden Gust of Wind" below... …
As I look back on the week I am wondering when this pervasive sense of gloom will end. The news that 45 has deployed the Border Patrol to Portland, that he has established a secret police force to infiltrate so called "anarchic" groups and that he is installing his cronies at the Pentagon, bypassing congress in the process, all disturbs. …
