Chelsea Swan

MOVING FORWARD

I wanted to have a little bit of a further experiment. I did some letters backwards by accident but I think it works well. With the letters I tried a new foil that I found that is a yellow pink and blue fade which is perfect for me and my colour themes. I love love love those letters, they stand out so much even if I do loose the iridescence and the shiny ness. You can cover the pain with bright happy colors too sometimes. I also did not add the nail gel to see if the iridescence come through more but I do think that I prefer my fetish smooth shiny letters that you want to touch. No touch. as for doing more patchy ink, it spread so that did not work so well but I dod think it could work and would show the drawings more but then you also have to be careful with the tread colors being lost as the pass from a blank area to a color area. As for the metallic thread if did get lost a little, from far away you can barely even see the drawings, but maybe that is good, like a discovery, or a reveal, hidden things and secrets, inviting you in, it is in line with the themes.

I always work very intuitively. I came up with the wording first and it’s just what came to mind at the time, what I wanted to say. I am thinking more about autoethnography, and the act of keeping a diary and the expression of inner thoughts and feelings, and I wanted to just get out what came to mind in the moment. Lick it up baby boy is about a conversation I overheard between two guys about some guy dating a girl and them joking about just telling her to ‘lick it’. Even when I was young I was aware that me eating a lollipop was somehow uncomfortable and attracted a attention which I then realised to be sexual. Liking it carries such connotations of a submissive and degrading act, and in my mind at least, links to childhood and degradation and mockery. It is opening yourself up to being vulnerable as it is an act of trust and hope of being respected, for men to laugh like that is cruel. I wanted them to lick it up. I originally tried to draw a tongue but it felt a bit on the nose and obvious. I always go with the idea that you should not double up, it’s too easy. Instead I tried to draw a figure in a state of vulnerability. I could have done better but I am still getting used to what I can do on a machine.

Shut the fuck up was me imagining that poor girl if she heard about this conversation, if she was stood there, all the things that have ever been said about her and her body and degraded her and how angry I was for her because I have been there, I too have had my most intimate experiences shared like they were not mine to own, shared so flippantly and in the name of fun and jokes because I didn’t really matter. I wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up but I was at work and all I could do was stare with malice. I often feel powerless to stop the bad things from being said or happening because of the ‘rules’ I have to follow. I hate the system and what it allows. I have done sparkles all around her as all the things she does to try to be pleasing, appealing, fit in, and I have done arrows pointing outward as she projects herself into the world and one arrow coming in to attack her, with the idea the one attack gets processed and filtered into the projection. Aesthetically this is my favorite. I think everyone should always shut the fuck up.

Finally I did ‘hear me now pricks’. In terms of dyslexia it was a nightmare knowing which version of hear to use. This one is based on the idea that, as a woman, we tell people these little hurts, and the bigger abuses, and so often are not heard. They can joke openly, but if we talk about our pain, what has been done to us, the pain it has cause, we are either told we are overacting, making a big deal, don’t have sense of humor or are lying. When I was younger bad things happened and I was not believed, I have taken part in the act of not believing and am ashamed about it now, I often don’t believe myself. I would love to have automatic legitimacy when we speak, to be heard. I did a figure that is almost bound with arrows attacking them. I am not sure if this is the woman who is being attacked and is bound not to speak about it, or if it is the men bound and having all their shitty comments and actions screamed back at them, being forced to feel and hear all that they have been part of.