- ---o=O=o--- -

So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2: 21-22, NIV

- --o=o-- -

As I was growing up, the realms of girlhood and womanhood always felt shrouded in secrecy. Sharp divisions between the sexes were built into society, reinforced by religious beliefs, and sealed by my parents' inability to speak candidly about life. As a young artist I avoided drawing and creating adult female characters, because I didn't know how to resolve the issue of depicting breasts. To draw even a fully-clothed woman with breasts one must still acknowledge the existence of breasts, one must imagine the shape of them. What might that reveal about the artist?

I felt a sort of fear and desperation in living with the assumption that men and women are fundamentally different and separate. The separation between "us" and "them" lingered as an omnipresent paradox: solid but invisible, obvious but unspeakable.

Gather crumbs

Chapter 1 | Return to title | Chapter 3