Ok. So every month my body helps fill this little cup with some bloody bits for a couple days. And for a few days here I have this tissue, remnants of my uterus preparing my body for another month of something that's not happening. There's something very primitive about sitting with a cup of your blood (ok.. admittingly, I suppose knowing the names of all my body parts, not being culturally conditioned/scared of my body already is putting me in a different category than some people, but I really encourage people to get familiar with what is going on with their own bodies!!!!! I am not one to be disturbed by such things.) There's something a little weird about knowing what pain was involved in producing it. I think I first painted with my menstrual blood at least 15 years ago, but those are hidden away and have never seen any eyes but my own.
I've been wanting to paint again with it for a while and this month, I finally got to it. I didn't use all the blood, but these were done over the course of a couple days. For now at least as long as I'm doing paintings of faces, I'm calling this series "monthly visitors", which I like as it both refers to one of the culturally acceptable ways of acknowledging a menstrual period as well as a weird reflection on the people that my uterus and body have NOT produced over the years. Instead I'm using that non-people creating material to create artistic representations of people. So creating people in my own way. I used a wet on dry technique for these 3 paintings.
No humans or animals were harmed in the production of this art.
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