I want to tell a story to the artists and would-be artists out there.
When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.
I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-
I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.
The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."
Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.
So don't forget to draw from observation, and remember that humans aren't mass produced mannequins. Delight in our variation. Because it's supposed to be there.
*gripping your shoulders and shaking you* you gotta promise me one thing, if nothing else. you have to promise me to live, do you hear me. and if it's for nothing else but spite, LIVE. donald trump wants you to feel defeated and alone. let's show him and all the americans who voted for him that we will not stay quiet, we will not be devided and we will LIVE. we will survive that 78-year old asshole, we will OUTLIVE him. so please reach out to friends and family, reach out to each other and STAND TOGETHER.
PLEASE, LIVE!
oh my god...
so the first screenshot is trying to look this up on tiktok normally, "donald trump rigged election" and it says that search violates community guidelines.
the second screenshot is looking up the same exact thing, but with a (australian) vpn on. canadian vpn didn't fix it fyi.
THIS is exactly the type of censorship to be looking out for on tiktok. this actually is crazy.
Pls share
no you dont understand, i’m obsessed with him
no you dont understand i’m obsessed with him
Gun violence is a fucking daily reality for those of us that live with it. I know that we joke about how “America loves its guns” and how we all have active shooter drills now. But that…shouldn’t be a laughing matter!? This isn’t funny??!! Just a few nights ago, I heard gunshots outside my apartment. And last month or so, I was staying in the lab late at night, and security had to lock down the building because there was an active shooter inside my department building which is normally locked by keycard access at night. I spent 4 hours hiding inside my office until security gave me the all clear to go home.
And the thing is, I still cannot imagine the terror these poor CHILDREN went through. I was so angry about Sandy Hook 10 years ago, and I’m fucking furious now. Because the thing is, there’s a certain sect of people (read: Republicans & the NRA) who are just stonewalling everything that we’re trying to do to pass sensible gun legislation.
I need to bring 500 different documents to prove my identity to the DMV so I can get a driver’s license…and that’s for a car, whose main function is to get me around places, but has the potential to harm people if handled irresponsibly. And for SOME GODAWFUL REASON we don’t seem to have the same standards for obtaining guns??? WHOSE MAIN FUNCTION IS TO LITERALLY KILL PEOPLE?
Someone explain this to me.
Not the “oh Einstein was probably autistic” or the sanitized Helen Keller story. but this history disabled people have made and has been made for us.
Teach them about Carrie Buck, who was sterilized against her will, sued in 1927, and lost because “Three generations of imbeciles [were] enough.”
Teach them about Judith Heumann and her associates, who in 1977, held the longest sit in a government building for the enactment of 504 protection passed three years earlier.
Teach them about all the Baby Does, newborns in 1980s who were born disabled and who doctors left to die without treatment, who’s deaths lead to the passing of The Baby Doe amendment to the child abuse law in 1984.
Teach them about the deaf students at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school for the deaf, who in 1988, protested the appointment of yet another hearing president and successfully elected I. King Jordan as their first deaf president.
Teach them about Jim Sinclair, who at the 1993 international Autism Conference stood and said “don’t mourn for us. We are alive. We are real. And we’re here waiting for you.”
Teach about the disability activists who laid down in front of buses for accessible transit in 1978, crawled up the steps of congress in 1990 for the ADA, and fight against police brutality, poverty, restricted access to medical care, and abuse today.
Teach about us.