My response to women's sanitary products being classed as "Luxury Items"

I was angered to find out women's sanitary products are classed as a luxury and that some men were comparing their preference for being clean shaven to women's sanitary products. It's not specifically the tax which angers me more the principle behind them being labeled as "Luxury Items". 

Women in 3rd world countries are not as educated because they have little to no access to sanitary products and have to stay off school for 5 days to a week each month. That 5 days to a week puts them behind in their studies making it harder for them to further their education.

So a school year is roughly 195 days, roughly 6 months of the year. Take 5 days average from each month so that's 23. So times that by 6 (months) and that's 138 days. So that's 57 days of missed schooling a year that's roughly 2 months each year.

It gets worse the average start of a girls period is 12 and lets say that girl finishes school at 16. so that's 5 years, so total days a child should be in school is 975 and if you total in the time that these girls have to take off that is a total of 690 days they spend in school total from the ages of 12-16 years of age.

Shocking isn't it?

And people are telling us being in a position to be in education for 195 days a year is supposedly a luxury? We aren't after this stuff for free, we want people to admit this is not a god damn luxury!

Stella Creasy hit the nail on the head when she said "Tampons and sanitary towels, even I'm struggling with the words tonight it seems, have always been considered a luxury. That isn't by accident, that's by design of an unequal society, in which the concerns of women are not treated as equally as the concerns of men,".

Jaffa cakes are zero-rated for crying out loud! Yes stuffing our face with Jaffa's every month is fantastic BUT it is far from essential.   

I would love to at some point create some work around this issue but it would be a stretch to incorporate it into my current project, even though I am sure access to sanitary products is an issue for homeless women. 

Dealing with a loss through art

On Saturday my cat got hit by a 4 by 4 and died later at the vets, my parents are on holiday so I had to deal with it head on. I have never taken the loss of a pet this hard before.

I woke up this morning and decided I really want to get a tattoo so I can remember him the way he was before the accident, I don't want the mental image of what he looked like when me and the neighbors son took him to the vets or what he looked like when I said goodbye for the final time.

The process of planning the tattoo has really helped, I had to look at pictures of him so I could draw up a good design. I had to think about my memories of him to come up with the elements I want to include in the tattoo. I'm picking out nicknames me and my parents had for him and hand lettering them. I want the tattoo to be lighthearted and put a smile on peoples faces because that is what Casper did on a daily basis. This design progress is stopping me from blocking it all out and trying to just push it to the back of my mind. And through the process I am learning it is perfectly okay for me to be upset about this. He was a family member and I am so glad so far no one has said "he was only a cat". "Just get another" or "losing a dog is worse". I know my heartbreak is very valid and very real and that art is 100% helping me through the loss.

I don't know when I will actually be able to get the tattoo done but I feel the designing alone is helping me through the process. I feel like I can take something away from this, whatever happens be it good or bad that energy can be put into something more constructive which still confronts the problem instead of running from it.

Hand Lettering

Something I want to improve on this year is my hand lettering, tutors and other people have told me I have a natural nack for it. I am not into the technical ins and outs of typography but I do like my work when it includes hand lettering. In my recreational sketchbooks I like to sort of journal element, the work I do for myself is very much about what is going on in my life and how I am feeling. Some pages feature dairy style entries some just a phrase that sums up my day or how I am feeling in the moment. Sometimes it's just balls to the walls craziness that just rolls off the top of my head.

I want my work to have a more ziney feel, I like the spontaneous nature of it. I can collect, experiment more like that. One thing I don't like to see in my work is blank space, I like my work to be lively and I feel hand lettering really helps me fill in those blank spaces.

Some YouTube tutorials

How To DIY Modern Calligraphy
Hand Lettering Step By Step
Modern Calligraphy: Marcelle Lettering
Brush Script Lettering Basics This one is really helpful

Overthinking worriers are natural artists?

New Research Says Overthinking Worriers Are Probably Creative Geniuses

 I was reading this article because I am a chronic over thinker and I suffer from anxiety so it caught my attention. Also I am always interested in research about mental health and creativity. I remember someone asked me once if I thought that my trade off for being creative was my health and I think in a way that is true. My mental health has been a problem for over half of my life, before my mental health started to decline I wouldn't say I was particularly talented creatively, yeah I drew a proper stick man before any of my classmates in nursery but noting spectacular.

I remember becoming engrossed with art around 11 years old, this was also around the same time I started experiencing anxiety and a little later on depression. Being creative was for me the most natural cause of action especially when I was younger because I didn't know exactly what I was experiencing yet so I found ways to represent it through art.

So in a way I didn't find this article enlightening but more reaffirming what I had believed to be true for many years. It was comforting in an odd kind of way.

I am homeless but I am a human being

Today I watched this buzzfeed video and I think it informs people about homelessness and the stereotypes homeless people face in the right way.

I am homeless

I was in Manchester on Wednesday and one of the homeless guys came up to me and my friend, I remembered him and how I had given money to him before. He gives people poetry in exchange for their charity. The last poem he gave me was on the back of a betting slip and sadly I misplaced it, that poem brought me to tears and I instantly thought I need to bring attention to this. From what I can recall the poem he gave to me the first time was about how he used to be addicted to drugs but now he was clean. This time I was glad to see he had gotten a note pad instead of writing on the back of betting slips, it's such a small change for most people but for someone on the streets paper is a luxury item. My friend gave him some money (I have a rule that I only give what I have in my pockets) and my friend told me to chose a poem, he just so happened to have a poem called stereotyped so I asked for that one and told him about my project. He seemed so happy when I told him I wanted to dispel stereotypes around homelessness he said "that's good, there is way to much of it believe me."  He was the one who inspired this project and I told him his poem will really help. He smiled and I am so glad I saw that.

Uni project and upcoming stall

My university project 'Outside The Penthouse' is about dispelling preconceptions of the homeless.
Going straight into doing work about homeless people didn't work out very well, I found myself really hitting brick walls, thinking that my super vivid style just wouldn't fit the message I was trying to convey.

I had the idea of depicting the homeless people as monsters because a lot of people seem to adopt the attitude that they shouldn't exist and to validate this I feel people connect negative connotations to homeless people. The most common being drunks, druggies, lazy and uneducated.
I wanted to pull the carpet out from peoples feet and show them how they have been thinking about homeless people compared to how they should be viewing them.

A big challenge with this project it to keep it out of the realm of being too condescending but also try and make it so it isn't a guilt trip. Talking to members of my class they told me that most charity ads are patronizing or tell the viewer though the use of black and white that this should make them feel sad. People don't like being told what they should feel on a subject, that's the reason why differing opinions can spark arguments. I have thought at length how I can stay clear of all of these things and realized it's probably not possible to do, my priority instead has to be keeping these factors to a minimum.

People told me they would rather see something that is uplifting and that will inspire people to help rather than something gloomy which would just depress the intended audience.

My tutor recommended I step away from the theme of homelessness for a bit and focus on creating characters (which is what I enjoy doing) and that has really unblocked me creatively. Since switching the focus I have been coming up with concepts I really enjoy. The project before had become a chore but now it has become something I do for enjoyment and if I have learned anything forcing creativity rarely gives good results. Also my tutor's lecture on metaphor really helped me come up with new ways of communicating my chosen message without blocking myself off creatively.



Switching topic, I have a stall coming up in November and I am focusing on making things that are reproducible in order to keep the balance between my stall and uni work. So far I have come up with the idea of doing lino prints, I had a little look on etsy to see if anyone does pop culture inspired lino prints and found one person by the name of Chase or TheBeardedGoldfish as the shop name is called.

If there is one thing in this world I love, it is Pokemon. And Chase does very unique Pokemon lino prints (if only he shipped to the UK). I have always loved the bold look of lino prints. 

He prints them on to rice paper of different colours depending on the character in the print.

I think the boldness of a lino print would look absolutely amazing paired with a vivid watercolour background that I have recently been creating with Dr Ph Martins concentrated watercolours.

This is also something I would love to experiment with for 'Outside The Penthouse'. Maybe I could even bind them into a zine format.

The etsy shop for TheBeardedGoldfish