Reframed: Marilyn Monroe

'Marilyn Monroe is a mirror for people's ideas about sexuality and women's power', states the new four part CNN documentary series 'Reframed: Marilyn Monroe'. 

After watching, I felt this has never been more true. In an age where women's agency and freedoms are talked about and hashtagged in the news and social media there was a strong and evident agenda to reflect Marilyn as a trail blazer and feminist in this retelling.

The programme succeeded in ditching the usual tragic trappings most documentaries focus on when speaking about Marilyn the icon. Gone were the familiar 'beautiful young and dead' undertones to be replaced by representations of a hard working determined artist and star.

It was thrilling to see Marilyn make decisions and achieve against the odds. Wonderful to hear how she became a pioneer in a male led film industry, leaving Hollywood to set up her own production company, learn her craft and take chances.

To further this feeling of empowerment, the programme consisted of only women talking about her career, giving insights, or in Dame Joan Collins case, recollections, of the star. By taking men out of the picture this became a safe space where agency was given back to a woman whose image was established for the consumption of men.

Yet, even in this, Marilyn was given influence, as Bonnie Greer stated;

'We as women are constantly constructed, we construct ourselves, we collude in it, and you have to as a woman negotiate this, even if it's unconscious, every second of your life. Marilyn knew the machinery of womanhood very early'

It seems strange that a documentary so dedicated to lifting Marilyn Monroe up should then make some glaring mistakes that, if taken for fact, give a false impression of her. For instance, Marilyn's marriage to Joe DiMaggio was touted as a publicity stunt which is difficult to believe as they were both incredibly famous successful people at that point in their lives. Both parties met and fell in love years before their marriage and it's hard to see Marilyn being that callous or shallow where love and security were concerned.

Another bone of contention came when a rumoured love affair between a young Marilyn and her photographer Andre De Dienes was stated as truth. Over the years many men who knew her on a professional or even passing manner have claimed to have slept with her, and this for me is just another of those bragging stories that without evidence can only be met with skepticism.

But, mostly this was a new Marilyn for a new generation. 'Reframed' chose to show her story through the lens of a modern woman helping her to rise above the sexism and stereotypes of her time. While this did present new angles on events in her life giving much earned praise to her achievements and ambitions, the documentary was so fixated on getting the idea of a strong female across that it chose to leave out key points of her story that couldn't be rewritten as a personal triumph or breakthrough.

Crucial moments involving both husband's, Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, were downplayed or left out altogether. When events led to Marilyn's traumatic stay at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic (where she had been locked in a padded cell by order of her psychiatrist), the documentary only stated that she got out, failing to mention that if she hadn't got a message to DiMaggio,  by then her ex,  he wouldn't have fought for her release as he had.

Likewise, the emotional difficulties that came from her marriage to Miller were only skimmed across never giving the deeper extent of her heartbreak and dismay that led to professional loss and ultimately their divorce.

Though flawed in places, Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, made a genuine effort to shake off many of the preconceptions and stereotypes associated with the star and reminded us that living in the midst of all the attention, myth (some self created) and stardom was a real person with real ambitions and struggles just like any other woman. 

Her struggles took place in an era when women's options were small, and expectations were high, yet somehow she managed to elevate beyond anything we could ever imagine and has become more than a person. Even today, 60 years beyond, Marilyn is an ever evolving idea of womanhood and a true reflection of our desires, efforts and successes as we progress through the ages.

Everything I See I Swallow

I've just seen a woman tied up and suspended from the ceiling. Her pale naked body contrasted with the red ropes that criss-crossed her skin as her flesh swelled slightly around the cords. Her entire shape was transformed as the ropes cut off her ability to move and forced her into an unnatural position. As she swung round and round, she was no longer like you and I, she looked helpless and immobile, bound fast, but she was far from powerless, she was completely in control.

I've just left the theatre from a showing of Everything I See I Swallow, a commissioned production taking place at The Lowry as part of their Week 53 celebrations. My mind is humming with thoughts of the things I've seen and heard.

Using a mixture of aerial skills and Japanese rope bondage known as Shibari (or Kinbaku) Everything I See I Swallow explored the complex and difficult relationship between long standing feminist ideologies and modern feminist viewpoints as portrayed by the play's characters, a young woman called Olivia who has found empowerment through submission and her mother, a woman who has tried to bring her daughter up to own of her own body, and steer away from damaging female stereotypes.

When the mother finds out that that her treasured peach of a daughter is posting naked images of herself in rope bondage on Instagram she is horrified and dismayed. In an attempt to protect her precious offspring she hammers home the feminist theories she herself has been educated on and the words of feminists past tumble from her in desperation, words we know she has read and memorised from the piles of feminist literature heaped round the stage.

Is Olivia doing this just to get online followers? Does she realise how harmful these type of pictures are? Or what a bad message they send out to other young women? Has her mother taught her nothing?

For the daughter the experience of being tied up is anything but exploitative. The beginning of the play starts with her hanging chrysalis like bound in her ropes, and like a butterfly, she hatches from their bonds a new person. As she carefully removed each knot, untying them herself and stepping to the ground she explained her journey to freedom.

For Olivia it was the pressure of living up to an acceptable version of femininity placed on her by society that truly confined her. It was good to be pretty, but bad to be pleased about it. It was expected that she should be flattered that men found her attractive, but bad to act on her own sexual desires. In time she felt ashamed by her own sexuality, hiding her body away. Yet, having the realisation that what really turned her on was submission was a turning point for her. A chance to actively play out the role of passive female through choice.

Choice is the really important message Olivia is trying to convey. No-one is forcing her to submit, it's a completely free decision and one that she gets pleasure and her own agency from. For her mother its hard to accept that something so intrinsically derogatory can be positive. As Olivia tries to explain her reasons for bondage, the mother is conflicted by her need to protect and nurture her daughter and get on board with such an alien idea.

To some degree this is an argument I've heard many times before. Topics like burlesque, Grid Girls, even make up and high heels have been compared to constraints invented by men for the pleasure of the male gaze; for every woman who feels legitimised by these sensual and sexual tropes another feels belittled and stagnated by them. It's never a simple issue of who is right or wrong but a tangled web of time and place, personal experience and choice.

For me, the play spoke eloquently about these precarious arguments in a focused and engaging way. It was easy to like both characters and understand where their very opposing views came from. The daughter's inner monologue describing her daily struggle to find her place in a male dominated world where she felt both comfortable and respected touched on unspoken emotions I, and I suspect many women, have often felt. Modern living for the younger woman really can be an ongoing journey of awareness and analysis, measuring your worth against a man made scale of what is acceptable and realising you can go against the norm. However finding the strength and understanding to do this isn't always easy.

The daughter character found that being tied up through choice and enjoying it subverted the struggle. It turned the power play on its head. Essentially she found full ownership of her body both physically and mentally by fully living in a moment where she was 100% compliant and enjoying herself. This was beautifully illustrated by a segment of the play where sensual music thrummed, the lights glowed red and through a crimson haze we saw Olivia look directly at the audience with a suggestive grin. She moved with fluid motion across the stage wearing diamante and little else. Finding the coils of red rope she expertly began to tie specific knots winding them over and around her torso, between her breasts and down her back. Within no time she was transformed into the living work of erotic art swaying gently above the floor suspended by her bondage.

Then her mother entered. The music stopped abruptly, the lights turned white and her mum's disapproval stole the moment of all it's magic. Olivia was instantly unsure and awkward and clawed at the ropes to remove them. 

The mother character, like many feminists who grew up during the 60's 70's and 80's had first hand knowledge of what it was like to be sidelined and marginalised to a much greater degree than the young women of today. It is because of the older generations relentless fight for equality that young women like her daughter have been able to find their own voices and make such unlikely life choices while they are still young. The disconnect occurs when these choices seem to go against the older generation's moral compass. What this play reinforced for me was that the fight was for nothing if the old school don't support the freedom of choice even if it may seem to take on a patriarchal leaning. Choice is a huge step towards the ideal of equality. Understanding, conversation and support are key to moving forward.

Everything I See I Swallow was a beautiful and moving production that often left me in awe at the incredible aerial work which was used to describe memories and emotions. Both actresses, Maisy Taylor and Tamsin Shasha were fantastic at climbing high above the audience and creating elegant effortless shapes that defied gravity. The ropes they climbed could be both a device to bind them or give them opportunity to fly, depending on their state of mind. 

This was a thoroughly insightful look into the psychological, sexual and emotional journey of feminism within the modern world, an ongoing journey that is taking new and unexpected turns. It is up to us as a whole to make sure we don't get tangled in all the politics along the way.

Ban the Nymph - Manchester Art Gallery and moral censorship

He leans down to place his pitcher into the clear water of the pool but is startled to find himself surrounded by a group of beautiful red haired nymphs. They emerge from the water, bare breasted with flowers clinging to their long tresses. He looks down and finds one of the women has taken hold of his arm, she looks deep into his eyes and he can't resist the power of her gaze.

Hylas is never seen or heard of again.

Yesterday I heard that Manchester Art Gallery have decided to 'temporarily' take down one of it's paintings from the PreRaphaelite gallery in order “to prompt conversations about how we display and interpret artworks in Manchester’s public collection”

The removal is part of a gallery takeover for a forthcoming exhibition by Sonia Boyce and hopes to prompt debate about how females have been portrayed, as either passive decoration or femme fatales, and also raise awareness of how works should be contextualised in the future. I think it's a genius publicity move but one that could be so so detrimental to how we acknowledge historic art in the future.

Hylas and the Nymphs created by JW Waterhouse in 1896 is the painting in question and despite the curator Clare Gannoway insisting the move isn't to censor or deny the painting's existence I can't help feeling that to make an example of it in this way will forever mar its appreciation.

She said, 'For me personally, there is a sense of embarrassment that we haven’t dealt with it sooner. Our attention has been elsewhere ... we’ve collectively forgotten to look at this space and think about it properly. We want to do something about it now because we have forgotten about it for so long'  

I find this very unsettling. It somehow implies that as a society we can't handle anything that questions a safe and sanitised version of the world. Why must we judge the aims and morals of a painting that is over a century old by today's standards? Surely it is better to study the context from the era in which it was painted to place into the framework of our own understanding so that we can learn from it, not point a finger at it.

I understand that the story inspiration for the painting fueled a Victorian erotic fantasy. As a classical myth it gave license for a society that was easily morally outraged to enjoy a bit of titillation and sensuality. Young, beautiful naked girls (the same girl in fact, painted seven times) all wet and covered in flowers suggestively tugging at a young man's arm to join them for... well who knows what, the myth never actually says, and the Victorian imagination could be very kinky.

I also understand that the painting holds layers of meaning. The usual male and female stereotypes being turned on their head. The strong Hylas is struck passive by the intense energetic sexual force of the nymphs. As he enters the water he loses himself... a little death... The power of the female sex overwhelming and destroying him. Victorians reveled in their fascination with sex, and more importantly their fascination and fear of female sexuality.

The painting's style is inspired by the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) which strived to show truth in nature, both of the natural world and natural psyche. It wanted to do away with the sterile primness that had become the fashion and show real feelings and ideas that subsequently shocked and upset the art elite of the time. They painted about love sex and death. As a long time lover of the PRB's I very much appreciate Waterhouse's work for these very reasons.

The ideology behind the female form was so different from what is acceptable today but I understand how and why it was and that doesn't make me appreciate the work any less. I can clearly separate what the artist was trying to achieve from my own modern feminist values and enjoy the art from a place of pure pleasure. Taking away the painting denies future generations an opportunity to learn it's background or enjoy what is truly a beautiful piece of art. 

Also it does seem ironic that a painting that aimed to shake up the art world back in the 'stuffy' Victorian era is now being treated in a similarly 'stuffy' way by an easily outraged age.

In a week when F1 has just announced that it will no longer have 'Grid Girls' at its Grand Prix and Darts PDC is to scrap its 'walk on girls' it's a clever move to then take away a provocative 'girl' heavy painting from a city art gallery, but I just can't see how the two eras can be compared.

As a society we are definitely at a stage where having women appear in part, for decoration and male enjoyment should be questioned. But this opens up further questions still about a woman's right to choose to appear in this way, for what is feminism if not to support female choice? This in turn asks questions about promoting the 'wrong' image of women and how that feeds into the everyday sexism that many of us face. 

If Waterhouse's Hylas and the Nymphs were to be created today then we would have every right to ask the same questions. But it remains an historic art work and should only be judged by historic values. We can hypothesise about its relevance to today's standards, and we should, but if we begin to judge every art work from the past from a modern moral platform we lose sight of all the things they could tell us. We could be setting a dangerous precedent that dismisses any art work that hits an over sensitive nerve.

I am impressed with Manchester Art Gallery for having the gumption to create modern debate about historic art. How often does art, or specifically British historic art make the headlines? It is heartening to know that the public care enough to get involved and make their voices heard. I for one felt compelled to write this to get my feelings out in the open because this REALLY MATTERS!

I just worry that this could start a trend that gives an increasingly self absorbed generation the right to sneer with contempt at the past and ignore all the lessons it has to teach us. Who is to say that in a century from now the art work of today won't be viewed in the same way?

Please Manchester Art Gallery give us our nymphs back and don't treat us with kid gloves. You say this wasn't to censor, but by taking away the very thing that prompts the debate you rob us of the chance to make up our own minds.

International Women's Day: the Helen Gurley Brown effect

It's International Women's Day this week (March 8th) and I thought I'd mark the occasion by commemorating a woman who changed modern culture. You may or may not have heard of Helen Gurley Brown, but her impact on Western women's attitudes to sex, careers and relationships is immeasurable. She helped create a change in women's lives for the better which led to lifestyles many of us can now take for granted.

To fully understand Brown's effect on modern culture you must first try to imagine how life was for women up to the early 1960's. This was a time before the feminist movement had taken hold and women in the UK had only gained the right to vote a few decades earlier. Life for many women was expected to follow a particular and limited course; marry in her early twenties (or late teens) and begin a family which she would then dedicate her entire existence to. Being a wife and mother were a woman's main duties. To somehow avert these fates was often seen as failure or a waste or to be pitied.

However by the early 1960's strict social attitudes towards gender were beginning to broaden. The Kinsey Report of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female from 1953 had already caused ripples of shock by just talking about women's sex lives beyond marriage, a thing never before done on a public scale. While the new phenomena that was Playboy Magazine, championed the idea that women enjoyed sex as much as men, again unheard of in a world that valued women's virginal (unmarried|) or maternal (married) state but never the idea of her actually having sex outside of these two polar ideals. Women who had sex for anything but procreation were still generally seen as fast, loose and social pariahs. To confuse the status quo even more, a new method of contraception was introduced with the coming of the 60's and 'the pill' offered a new sense of freedom for women wishing to avoid pregnancy.

When thinking of the figureheads of the feminist movement which naturally evolved alongside and aided by these cultural shifts, it's easy to think of influential women like Gloria Steinem or Betty Freidan whose journalistic and literary works stand out as seriously empowering women's voices. Yet another woman was making her mark in an altogether different way with no less impact. 

 

Helen Gurley Brown caused an international sensation when she released her book 'Sex and the Single Girl' in 1962. This highly accessible book was written in the style of one girlfriend talking to another. It did away with the cold sterile scientific language of earlier books on the subject of S.E.X and introduced the idea that women not only had sex outside of marriage but they enjoyed it and actively went in search of it. Brown, by then a married woman herself had done the unthinkable and published a book detailing her own (mis)adventures as a single woman spanning almost 20 years and over 100 lovers.
 

 The fallout from this was huge. Overnight Helen Gurley Brown became a household name for all the wrong reasons. She became 'that woman'. It's fun to witness Brown's guest slots on a myriad of TV and radio shows during the 60's (you can find many on youtube). Always introduced as 'the author of 'Sex and the Single Girl'' her shameful notoriety went before her and audiences were deliciously shocked by her unique opinions. On one of her many appearances on the chain smoking confrontational host Joe Pyne's show she was called a 'terrible woman' for writing about how to have affairs with married men. Yet despite the public's moral outrage Brown never became flustered during these PR outings and kept her feminine charming composure at all times. 

In fact the HGB brand was a big seller all round. Her debut book inspired a film of the same name starring Natalie Wood and spawned book sequels, 'Sex and the Office' and the 'Outrageous Opinions of Helen Gurley Brown'. It's important to note that in tandem to Brown's ideas about sex she talked about her career and in turn the notion of women like herself, working and succeeding in the work place. When 'Sex and the Single Girl' was published HGB was one of the USA's highest paid advert copywriters, and she'd worked her way up there from nothing. This was in an era when women's roles were still very marginalised for the majority, and women with a career beyond their families were virtually non existent.

It was while touting a new idea for a magazine aimed at the HGB audience that Hearst Publishing decided to give Brown the opportunity that led to her second life changing career move. Rather than risk a whole lot of money on a new publication that might not take off, in 1965 Hearst gave her the role of editor in chief for their then floundering magazine, Cosmopolitan. The rest as they say is history.

Brown took the safe women's journal that up to that time had spoken about how to be the best housewife with quaint little tips for cooking and home making and replaced it with the HGB vision. She wanted to talk to women who had lived like her, working hard to make their own way whilst making their own decisions regarding relationships. She made it normal for women to talk about sex and own their sexuality. Yes, these women still wanted to get married and still wanted children (it was still the 60's after all) but they had interests that also reached beyond these traditional values. Cosmopolitan now ran articles like 'Why can't a woman be like a man?' and 'Is there life after marriage?'. In 1966 one issue ran with the spookily prophetic 'Dating by computer. Actual experiences of four career girls'

Helen Gurley Brown revolutionised the women's magazine industry making Cosmopolitan the most successful of it's kind, so popular it branched out into Europe and countries like Russia that were way behind in the sexual cultural shift. There is no doubt Brown's input helped to open the eyes of millions of women around the globe encouraging them to see beyond the narrow options that were laid out for them.

Despite her reach and obvious impact Brown was never fully accepted by the feminist cause. She was (and debatably still is) snubbed and sometimes ridiculed by the feminists of the day for her too feminine and literally 'girly' outlook. Perhaps because as she was telling women they could be sexual and successful she was also telling them to be beautiful and liked.

The HGB brand can certainly be criticised for promoting unrealistic ideals of beauty by creating the 'Cosmopolitan Girl' who graced each cover with her huge hair and perky cleavage. Brown cashed in on the ideal of a girl who not only lives life to the full but looks like a model while doing it. The thing is, the ideal sold.

While we can see the symbiotic impact that women's magazines still hold today, on one hand telling women they are empowered and on the other insinuating they aren't pretty or thin enough (that is a whole other blog post!), it's impossible to not give Helen Gurley Brown her due in changing women's attitudes to sex and working life for the better. If she hadn't been the first to take the idea and run with it we might never have seen other women embrace their potential and break down similar barriers.

In popular culture we might never have had Alexis Colby throwing her weight around in Dynasty, or Carrie Bradshaw and her friends exploring Sex and the City or in turn the likes of Lena Dunham writing and starring in Girls. Each incarnation is a product of it's time and open to comment but each also is a powerful platform talking about sex and success to women, and that would never have happened without HGB's influence.

Cosmo gently let Brown 'retire' from the editor in chief post after 32 years at the helm. Instead she took the title of International Editor for all 59 international editions of the magazine whilst in her 70's. She died aged 90 in 2012 leaving a lasting legacy. If you buy an issue of Cosmo, to this day on the staff listings page, you will find the words 'Editor in chief, Cosmopolitan (1965-1997) Helen Gurley Brown.

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I purposely haven't mentioned anything about Brown's personal background, her difficult family situation, small town upbringing or the many jobs and love affairs she had while struggling to manage her life. She was obsessed with her weight (while being stacked like a rake), a huge fan of plastic surgery and a workaholic. She was a very eccentric woman, definitely flawed but fascinating and highly influential. To find out more I'd recommend the book Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown by Gerri Hirshey and also the many videos which can be found on youtube which cover her rise to celebrity in the 1960's through to her old age in the 2010's. She made many guest appearances on TV shows both trivial and intellectual but her message is consistently clear and delivered with a beguiling shake of the head and a smile, it's hard not to become seduced by her.

The lights are much brighter there

Here's the second interview for my Gentlemen Prefer Blondes update series. I'm catching up with the first people I ever painted from over a decade ago in order to update their original portraits based on their life experiences and individual stories. Find out why and how I intend to do this HERE.

Alex is someone I've known for about 20 years. She is my brother in law's niece and a few years younger than me. Although we never got to know each other really well we still both fell into the alternative scene of the early 2000's so had some shared memories. For instance we went to see Blur together at Manchester's G-mex, when it was still called the G-mex and I remember bumping into her regularly at The Ritz when it still had it's rock night on a Monday. She posed for me back in 2003 in a makeshift photo shoot at her then shared house, where we discussed boys, clothes and the film Girl Interrupted, the theme song of which she chose as inspiration for the quote for her portrait.

The Lights are Much Brighter There acrylic on canvas 2004

Now, Alex works as a Marketing & Communications Manager for the youth charity Mahdlo based in Oldham and her as her chief love, an actor. She is also a founding member of The Unnamed Theatre Company. Our interview began on a pleasant Sunday morning in Manchester city centre over steaming mugs of tea:

Tell me more about your theatre company

It's a group of stage managers, actors and directors working together. We couldn't agree on a name hence it's called The Unnamed Theatre Company. Our first show was in August, it was 'In Flame' by Charlotte Jones and ran at Joshua Brookes and Oldham Library.
 

How much does being an actor figure in your sense of self? What does it mean to you?

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. When I was 18 I wondered what I was going to do at Uni but the performing arts courses with their ‘jazz hands’ always put me off. So I studied philosophy instead.
 
In my mid 20’s I still wanted to do acting and performance. People assume you must be extroverted but I hate being the centre of attention in public. However I love performing

Why do you think that is? 

I’m really nosy and I like figuring out the psychology of things. Last year I was doing a play and thought ‘this is a really odd thing to do with your time!’ No matter how hard work is I go to classes and once there I always come out feeling great.

You've told me before about having anxiety and depression, how have you managed to deal with that? 

I’ve had depression on and off since my younger years but I never figured out why. A few years ago I was in a crappy relationship and I thought it was me that was the problem. Doctors just tried to give me drugs so I went on a course of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). I finally gave myself the time and space to tackle my anxiety. 

The CBT was really useful; it taught me small daft things like thinking, ‘I Could’ instead of ‘I should’. It took off some of the pressure I put on myself.

Six months after the course I got a new job,quit the Philosophy course which wasn’t working for me and got out of the horrible relationship.

I still get anxious but I can manage and the overwhelming sense of doom has gone. It takes time but I wasn’t afraid to tackle stuff anymore. After that I got into acting. I’m more comfortable. It’s true that in life you only get out what you put in.

   

When I look at your Gentlemen Prefer Blondes portrait I see the rock/grunge scene of the early 2000’s. It makes me think of dancing to Marilyn Manson, reading Kerrang magazine and trying out smudgy makeup looks.  Personally I find your portrait very evocative of that time and the sub cultures that defined it. Can you explain your look in your portrait and why you were drawn to the alternative scene? 

The alternative scene has always been incredibly important to me; it allows outsiders to have a sense of belonging, to meet like-minds and like-hearts, it encourages experimentation in self-expression. We used to go to the Star and Garter every Saturday, Rockworld on Thursdays, The Ritz on Mondays...

When I was younger I felt it was important to *look* different because I felt different. Clothes and aesthetics were hugely important to me in terms of exploring my own identity and that of other people. As I’ve got older, that exploration and sense of identity is still there but manifests itself in so many different ways – whether it’s embracing punk or DIY approaches to building communities or putting on events; discovering art, books, films, music, politics and philosophies that are tied to different subcultures; finding strength and inspiration in zines and the riot grrrl scene… I don’t dress wildly different to when I did then. Maybe fewer pairs of ripped fishnets, but still a lot of black and a lot of leopard print!

What things that inspire you now? 

Ru Paul’s Drag Race! I started watching it when I was such a crap place. It’s so fun and celebratory. Again it’s about pop culture and sub cultures.

I try to see as much live performance as I can as it reinvigorates me and I get inspiration from friends and my support network.
I watch films obsessively and my mum is a big inspiration too obviously.

You look very young and hopeful in your portrait yet the quote you chose implies a yearning for something more. Can you explain how you felt at the time, what you were doing and what your outlook on life was like? 

I always had a head full of ideas and dreams and hopes but didn’t have the confidence, knowledge or experience to know what to do with them. Having come from a working class background in a small town but close to a city, I always felt the world was full of possibilities but didn’t know if those possibilities were for me… I guess at the time, I was uncertain but hopeful that they might be.

Do you identify with that quote at all now?

Yeah I think so. It’s good to be happy but I don’t know if you should ever be fully content. It’s not so much a comparative thing, more an explorative thing. Back when I posed for the painting it was as if the lights were much brighter there...and they weren't here.

But now it’s more a case of yeah, I’d like to try that, like starting a theatre company and acting.

 

I'd also say that although the pose you strike is confident there is a certain amount of vulnerability that comes across, of untested youth and a feeling of invincibility. When you look at the picture now 13 years on how does it make you feel? 

I think that’s quite accurate of how I was at the time. Often on the surface, looking confident and feeling like I owned how I looked and how I felt, but with a lot of underlying insecurities – definitely posed rather than looking at the camera, and thinking about the future or a world outside of my experiences. 

If we were to do a photo shoot now, how do you think you’d react? 

Now I’m much more comfortable in my skin. I’ve got used to the fact that I can’t look ‘selfie hot’ all the time.

I did a performance just after my MA where I wanted to do something that took me out of my comfort zone so I came up with a piece called ‘Grapheme’. I stood completely naked for 24 hours in the foyer of East St Arts in Leeds and got written on by the public. I was blindfolded too. It was a chance to do something that terrified me but people wrote so many nice and positive things.

Before I did it I was like, I need to lose weight, get toned up! But I didn’t. It was weird because people assumed that as I was blindfolded I couldn’t hear them either. I heard one girl say ‘urgh, don’t write on her, she’s got stretch marks’. But the talking about me made me less concerned about what other people think. After doing that, I can tackle anything!

I was playing with the idea of the ideal woman for this work back in 2003/4. I was celebrating femininity. Can you tell me what your opinion of the ideal woman is or even if that phrase has any relevance to you now? 

Patti Smith. Bold, trailblazing, artistic, curious, compassionate, punk, unafraid to show vulnerability but capable of kicking arse… 

Feminism is obviously very important to you; what does it means to you? Everyone’s definitions seem to differ...

To me personally, it’s about inner strength, having a voice and community and creating a positive platform to tackle issues like under representation and fair representation.

I think there does need to be an attacking stance in some cases but it should always be personal to the individual. The tricky thing is the amount of infighting within feminism. There’s a superiority thing of ‘my philosophy being better than yours’. But you can’t embrace something about equality if you think like that. It drives me nuts!

 

Do you think Western societies ideas of the ideal woman have changed much since Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was produced?

I have been lucky to be surrounded by incredibly intelligent, brave, outspoken, creative women and to have had access to communities (online and offline) where a lot of progress has been made in terms of open dialogue, body positivity, feminism, LGBTQIA rights, etc… but working with young people, you can see that there are so many issues still permeating society’s view of women, from the media, selfie-culture, etc. 

Plus with the increase in trolling and online bullying (Men’s Rights Activists, victim shaming, rape culture), as well as ongoing global oppression of women, in-fighting amongst feminist / women’s groups, it feels like it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to speak out or at least that there are whole new ways for women to be attacked for doing so.

What would you tell/advise the person in the portrait if you could, knowing what you know now?  

Don’t panic. You want to have your shit together NOW. You want to know yourself NOW. You want to figure everything out NOW. Some time from now (OK, some time around 2015 – DON’T PANIC!), you’ll figure out a whole bunch of things and be happier than you’ve ever been. On the way to that point, you’ll do some amazing things and meet some amazing people, you’ll have some dark times, you’ll make some terrible decisions, you’ll doubt yourself, you’ll make some great decisions, you’ll get through it all, you will end up with the most ridiculous collections of anecdotes that you will be able to laugh about one day.
 

I’d tell her to value herself, look after herself and to trust her instincts more. And I’d use RuPaul’s words of advice...

 

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Thanks very much to Alex for talking to me and being so candid. She is someone who is living every facet of her life with a sense of purpose and I really admire that. I like the way Alex is political and faces issues through pro activism and the arts. I found her tackle with depression really uplifting and the thing which stood out most for me was her art piece she performed allowing people to write on her naked body. 

The idea of facing ones insecurities while being so vulnerable was obviously a huge part of what now makes Alex who she is. I really like the idea of writing upon the skin and changing a surface through this kind of interaction and this is something I am playing with in order to update her original portrait. I'm thinking about key words which Alex herself had mentioned and the idea of stripping something down and building it back together...I'll be posting more here as the project continues...