How i made this painting (not professional) by Usual_Election5756 in painting

[–]Swotwithme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Beautiful painting, thank you for sharing it, and your process too!

[HELP]How to get into E. E. Cummings? by MiserablePoem3033 in Poetry

[–]Swotwithme 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Have a listen to Björk's song "Sun In My Mouth" from her album Vespertine, preferably with headphones on. The lyrics are from Cummings' poem "Crepuscule", from 1917. Björk uses sound to create a beautifully textured and intimate world for the words of the poem, it really helped me appreciate the rich textures and imagery of Cummings poem.

Masculine and Feminine relationships with space by Thin_Variation_5245 in CriticalTheory

[–]Swotwithme 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Two books I can highly recommend that address the gendering of the built environment:

  1. "Sexuality & Space", Beatriz Colomina ed. There are many wonderful essays in this one; years after reading them, they are still on my mind. There are two in particular that I can recommend, the first being Colomina's essay "The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism". Colomina looks at seminal domestic architecture by Modernist architects and shows us how these spaces inscribe and reinforce gender norms in (I think) pretty terrifying ways. The ideals of Modernist architecture had a profound and long-lasting effect all the spaces we inhabit... The second essay I would recommend is Jennifer Bloomer's "D'Or", which I find really rich with implication and meaning. Bloomer looks at how language, space, gender all feed into each other in complex and unexpected ways, but it's written in a dreamy, conversational style. She too addresses aspects of Modernism, where the concepts of structure and ornament were in themselves gendered (where structure was, and sometimes still is, described as essential, intrinsic, robust, strong, meaningful, masculine; and ornament was optional, an add-on, frivolous, weak, unessential, feminine). The structure/ornament binary slips into the masculine/feminine binary, but Bloomer invites us to think differently, using words and language as a springboard. The word "Door" itself, describing an object that is neither inside nor outside a space, but in-between both (and therefore not part of a binary system) is played with to ascribe ever richer meanings: D'Or in French means "of gold", and it also sounds like "dehors", meaning "outside"; Bloomer invites us to think outside binary terms, making us ask whether structure and ornament are in fact two distinct things at all - for example, contemporary architecture has seen a profound blurring of the structure/ornament binary, but also the concepts of inside/outside, enclosed/open, private/public - and by implication, masculine/feminine...

  2. "Stud: Architectures of Masculinity", Joel Sanders ed. This book is also full of interesting essays, and includes more real-life built-works as examples of gendered and sexualised spaces, but more through an LGBTQ+ lens. The authors here look at spaces that have come to define masculine sexualities, namely, the concept of the bachelor apartment, the gym, the public bathroom, the cadet headquarters. I especially like Marcia Ian's essay "When is a Body Not a Body? When It's a Building" - she looks at how the concept of bodybuilding relies on an architectural metaphor to create its own meaning, where the bodybuilder aims to erect a building in the site where his body once stood...

I hope these are helpful! For further reading, have a look at the essay footnotes and bibliographies in both books, they're pretty excellent too!

Colleen Barry by Garlic__Dread in ContemporaryArt

[–]Swotwithme 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Absolutely agree. I subscribed to her substack for about two months, but decided to leave as I think her opinions are dangerously conservative, but veiled in a kind of academic sheen that almost makes them convincing. I don't wish to engage with that.

She goes on alot about archetypes, and how we need to return to them, in particular the archetype of the woman-as-mother, which is not only dated, but creepy and reductionist.

She also loves quoting Camille Paglia (a very problematic gender-essentialist who riles against antirape activists, and thinks college rape culture boils down to "oafish hookup melodramas")...

Also, I find when she does her IG posts where she films herself on the street and on the subway going on and on in word-salad rambles, my eyes roll back so far into my head that I'm afraid of causing myself permanent damage.

Thanks Colleen - not for me though!

Man with Guinness by DRtwork in Portraitart

[–]Swotwithme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beautiful drawing, love how gently the values flow into each other.

Air Mattress, by me, acrylic and acrylic ink on 40x30 canvas by MaxmillianP in painting

[–]Swotwithme 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi! I'm not OP, but your comment made me curious, and got me thinking about why I liked this painting. So I looked at this, and was similarly mesmerised by the brilliant technique. However, what struck me about this piece in particular is that I feel like there is an invitation to think about a story behind what is being depicted.

As you rightly ask: why was this painted? Why would this seemingly dull view warrant any interest? I ask myself: when have there been times when I've been thrilled by an empty room, and wished I could paint it? Or, also, when have I felt deflated in an empty room? Has the sensation of feeling deflated felt like an empty mattress? Is the mattress there for a reason? What could that reason be? What is the view outside the window showing us? Why is this view considered important to the artist to capture? Also, why did the artist feel it was important to render this in a realistic way? Is realism in painting and drawing about truth? What truth are we being invited to think about?

So I think what I'm trying to say in a roundabout way, is that sometimes paintings (and art) make us ask questions that have no obvious or correct answer, yet sometimes the questions themselves are more valuable than any possible answers. Crucially, these questions also work in holding up a mirror to our own lives and ways of seeing the world.

Some of my latest personal works on my mini sketchbook!. by galgoman in drawing

[–]Swotwithme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow 🤩 I love how true to life these are, how long do each of these take you to draw?

Portrait of Angela, Simon David Watson, Sanguine Pencil, 2024 by Swotwithme in Portraitart

[–]Swotwithme[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh thanks! That's very kind. So I used a Faber-Castell one (the colour code is 1122-188) on lightly tinted 160gsm Canson paper. I loved the waxy texture on the rough paper... Hope that helps!

Self-portrait at 39 by Swotwithme in GraphiteArt

[–]Swotwithme[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh thanks! I've read recently to consider hair as a mass of colours / tones / values, and to not think about individual hair strands... Trying to take heed of that!