It’s a bit strange that this charged piece came so soon after my recent gender depiction dilemma. The feminist content of this new work (alluded to in its title, Bag of Antlers) may seem like the result of an obvious course of action following my recent discovery (see previous blog entry), but it really wasn’t immediate nor apparent to me while working. I collected references and began drawing – I was open to various possibilities. In the end only one of the possibilities made sense and finally clicked, and it happened to be gender-related. I am inclined to call this a complete coincidence. However, I know that real coincidences are rare: in one way or another, this coincidence was probably due to my recent realization that most of my drawings are female.
I have been looking at this inkblot for months now. The shape of the ink was nearly too perfect without any additional drawing, which made the task of choosing a subject exceptionally difficult. Every idea that came to mind was too overwhelming for the ink. It was clear that this piece wasn’t going to require a lot of drawing, but at the same time I couldn’t leave it as is; the untouched inkblot alone didn’t feel quite as complete as Pareidolia, my only drawing-less inkblot thus far.
Right from the start, I knew that the bottom half of this work was going to be a ribcage, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with the greenish curve at the top. At first I thought that it resembled an individual rib (until I added the extra branch – more about that later). But what’s the point of a ribcage with an extra greenish rib floating above it? Was it going to be some sort of an Adam and Eve reference? I wasn’t into this idea. I spent several hours browsing online for interesting spare rib stories. Apparently, one in a few hundred people is born with an extra set of ribs. The most interesting thing I came across regarding this topic was rib removal surgery – there are rumors online that some women ironically (with regards to the story of Adam and Eve) get rib removal surgery to attain a more hourglass-like form.
After several hours of searching, I felt dissatisfied and went back to my apartment to make some food. When I sat down at the kitchen table and stared off into space thinking about what to draw, my eyes locked on a small antler near my windowsill. The antler had a similar contour as the greenish splash of ink! So I took the antler back to my studio and discovered that the contour matched the ink quite well. I went online and searched for ideas that suggest a relationship between ribs and antlers, stumbling upon several interesting articles about how quickly antlers grow and how often deer get the equivalent of osteoporosis in their ribs while their antlers are growing. One of the fun aspects of brainstorming for drawing is the strange stuff I find online. I come across things that I would have never perused otherwise.
I was in the right mood for drawing an antler (despite my conditioning by Bad at Sports to forever perceive antlers as cliché subject matter). Frankly, I’ve seen my share of deer and antler-related art at various galleries, fairs, and museums. Nevertheless, I was excited by the option. It was somehow appropriate and festive to work on this piece during the winter.
The greenish inkblot had rounded ends, which looked like a young, fuzzy antler with the “velvet” furry skin still intact, not a mature one with sharp, exposed bone. Apparently, the deer’s skin grows across the entire antler and eventually peels off and bleeds. There are some remarkably disturbing photos online of antlers losing their “velvet.” Drawing a young velvety antler was a welcome challenge, but I needed some practice and testing before I began.
This association between ribs and antlers – two similar bony structures that have dramatically different purposes – was really interesting to me. There was a lot of potential in this connection, but it alone wasn’t enough. So what if antlers and ribs are similar? I searched for more associations and quickly came across a shocking discovery: the derogatory phrase “bag of antlers,” which is slang for an emaciated woman (usually due to an eating disorder or starvation). There are various phrases out there that refer to women as things that are either beneficial or disposable, not as persons. It disturbed me to realize that this term not only objectifies the woman as a unit, it reveals the clear placement of value within her; it isolates her body as a fleshy object without a character to speak of.
I am happy with the development of this piece and the direction it took. The ribcage and the antler are positioned in a yin-yang arrangement that seems strangely deliberate, despite the fact that the ink streamed unpredictably when I poured it.
