I'm kind of an arty girl and I was thinking the other day if my transition was a painting what would it be?
The first thought that popped into my head was this:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fi9sxTYj.png&hash=8ffb9f1e0768f4b8bbdd59724c543a9bef439f99)
Gustav Klimt's The Kiss
Analyzing it later I think it's just the richness of the experience expressed in the lavish use of gold leaf, the exotic quality, the carpet of flowers, the tenderness, the primal masculine and feminine elements. It expresses to me an acceptance of my androgyny. The man I was who brought me to this shore and gave way, lovingly, at long last, to the woman I am becoming. A union of my present with my past. A peace. And just the sweetness. Obviously it's harder to describe in words but a picture. That's a different story.
I would love to know how other transgender people would answer the question. "If your transition were a famous painting, which one would it be?" (hint: don't overthink it)
Somewhere between this...
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edvardmunch.org%2Fimages%2Fpaintings%2Fthe-scream.jpg&hash=3f05b118a5e34a98d1459c3cd892635a2297279b)
and this...
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg/687px-Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg)
;D
accelerating and looking up.
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/9e/b3/48/9eb348d91196a3f71a24007188244173.jpg)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1347.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp717%2Fsofisage%2FSave%2FPart%25201_zpsyixftt70.png&hash=5a0668471513d451e92a9f931c0c29973e9bbabf)
Before, I was asleep. I had a dream. And then I woke up.
All of these images are of Swords. Swords is an aspect of Air, of the intellect. There's a reason why the suit of Swords in the Tarot progresses to more and more gruesome images -- because the spiritual journey cannot be completed through intellectual means.
For 29 years, I was at peace staying in my head, in my intellect, but spiritually I was asleep. Gotta love that Saturn return, though! Because that's when my spirit inside recognized that I had to take off my head, put it on the ground, for that's how you enter the house of love. The shock of self-awakening was traumatic. I couldn't believe it. But I couldn't deny it, either.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1347.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp717%2Fsofisage%2FSave%2FPart%25202_zps3b3bzoth.png&hash=dfafa21f6710b6d2ac2afaf6adf9e3f9c4bb7eb8)
I panicked. But I did my research, and began my journey. Which culminated in a change of identity.
The Five of Disks is even more dire in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck -- material impoverishment outside the walls of a spiritual sanctuary. I was concerned with my material life, rather than my spiritual life. But being of an intellectual bent, I had a way out -- I had to go back with my strong suit. The Six of Swords in the Thoth deck is called "science" but in Waite-Smith we see a boat of swords crossing a body of Water -- Water represents one's emotional life. As such, it was my first integration of my interiority while still carrying my intellect along for the ride.
I chose the Queen of Cups to represent all my medical changes -- HRT, facial work, bottom surgery. The face of this royalty is obscured. But she is undoubted female. Notice the reflection on the water -- for me, this was "passing through the looking glass" as it were, as well as reflection my own self-acceptance and self-love.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1347.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp717%2Fsofisage%2FSave%2FPart%25203_zpsfpzcba1t.png&hash=c60cda3cdd5d81ef504c314ad6b01c1e176f0ce9)
After transition, celebration with female friendship. And then, the alchemy of transsexing. Which leads to being at one with the world.
Cups is about emotion, and the Three of Cups to me represents emotional connection with other people -- not romantic connection, but kinship, friendship. I started to learn who I really was and how to get along in the world through my relationships with other women. And I focused on this way of life for a long time.
The second card, Art in the in the Thoth deck and Temperence in the Waite-Smith deck, to me represents the art of alchemy, which is all about the unification of opposites. It represents "transsexing" -- where all of that past that I had to let go of, all of those memories, became transformed. It's the different between having an intellectual understanding of one's personal truth, and feeling it deep inside, infusing all of one's life. My memories of growing up were now the memories of a little girl.
And since then, The Universe. Being at one with myself, being at one with the Universe. Doesn't mean that everything is perfect, because the Universe isn't perfect. I still face challenges from the four corners of the world, and note that one of them is a disembodied male head. Or maybe they're angels. I don't know. But I carry two Wands -- symbols of spiritual mastery. I am naked, and yet clothed -- a union of opposites. I am surrounded by a wreath, a symbol of victory.
Suspended in mid-air... no wonder so much of what I have to say is from a perspective that takes a long view of things...
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Claude_Monet-Waterlilies.jpg)
Crossing the bridge to find Me.
The bridge. Of course. (face palm)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FtbfzlJl.jpg&hash=d31d75801784b213acece352c8bcc008a75dacbd)
I should have seen that symbol coming a mile away. But it makes sense now that I think about it. Thanks to everybody for playing. Much food for thought. I like the spaceship. Strong masculine and feminine elements (rocket and sky). Reads androgyny to me. Much like Munch's Kiss.
Found this Creation of Eve on the internet. Not even sure who the artist is, but I love the expression on her face.
That magical moment when a new woman looks upon her world for the first time.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FiUFeewm.jpg&hash=c2286dabf4977525907ba55efce82f295af27888)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cd/eb/aa/cdebaaa287b74a3983815b0397d4e309.jpg)
How i feel now would be the above before it would have just been darkness
and now it's filled with the colors of the universe. before it's like a scary outlook on life
I'd like to think it was primarily "Liberty Leading the Troops
http://www.artble.com/imgs/b/d/4/134968/249226.jpg (http://www.artble.com/imgs/b/d/4/134968/249226.jpg)
Alas....
More like
http://coconutheadsets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sisyphus.jpg (http://coconutheadsets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sisyphus.jpg)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cd/eb/aa/cdebaaa287b74a3983815b0397d4e309.jpg)
I love it. Darkness and light. I can
so relate.
Quote from: JoanneB on January 12, 2017, 08:21:31 PM
Alas....
More like
http://coconutheadsets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sisyphus.jpg (http://coconutheadsets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sisyphus.jpg)
Joanne. I think most people are rooting for Sisyphus. I know Camus was for sure. In a pretty significant way. I do so hope you get that final stone in place someday.
Maybe what you need is one of these: :)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FnwT2vOd.jpg&hash=1a41f2631e44b4a861d09070fadd757e56d22b4c)
Not the just the people:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftmlarts.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F07%2Fpm071ph-maxfield-parrish_daybreak.jpg&hash=68df4afc750b47d1f1f161c6fc3212cdf953935b)
I think, at this point, my avatar, which I drew on an older computer, using very old software. I lack talent, I lack sophistication, or an eye for art :) But it caught what I am feeling.
I'm disjointed, out of place, depressed, anxious, I feel sort of robotic most days. It is uncomfortable, unpleasant, out of place, and ugly. I'm at that stage right now, where I am still figuring things out. Not to say I am at the lowest point in my life, nor am I trying to seek attention through all of the diatribe I have written about my feelings. It is the place I am at now, but it is not permanent.
I hope to draw something nicer in the future. My skill is lacking, but I am sure I could draw something a little easier on the eyes, and bring something of what I feel onto the virtual canvas.
Quote from: zamber74 on January 14, 2017, 12:32:32 AM
I think, at this point, my avatar, which I drew on an older computer, using very old software. I lack talent, I lack sophistication, or an eye for art :) But it caught what I am feeling.
Very cool. Expressive. I like it.
I'm envisioning a self portrait of a collage made up of bits and pieces of who I've been in the past and maybe of prescription labels and such as well.
How is it that I somehow overlooked Botticelli's Birth of Venus?
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FxNsRE4a.jpg&hash=4337646b91ab3ef95e3d3fabb6871d0f67335d9a)
If I were painting it myself to describe it so far?
Splashes of color thrown onto the canvas, red, purple, green, blue, dark greys, with a dadaistic picture of me in the middle I think.
Zamber, I'm right there with you most of the time. Disjointed with the world around me is a good way to describe things some days.
Sophia, your way of seeing things always amazes me. A telling story of pictures for certain.
On second thought a lotus flower. Something beautiful emerging from a dark pool! That's it! ;D
Mine feels something like this:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1249.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh516%2FErintheGrayLady%2Ftrial001_zpsnyuk8ofm.jpg&hash=85a390390fb4f70fefe34d7003984ea65594b16a)
Hoping it be like
http://i.imgur.com/SliMAK4.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/SliMAK4.jpg)
But probably will be more like
http://i.imgur.com/yV8PUV8.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/yV8PUV8.jpg)
Quote from: Jane Emily on January 20, 2017, 08:59:10 PM
How is it that I somehow overlooked Botticelli's Birth of Venus?
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FxNsRE4a.jpg&hash=4337646b91ab3ef95e3d3fabb6871d0f67335d9a)
This is the image which came to mind when I saw your thread posted elsewhere. Upon further reflection I would choose Botticelli's Primavera because I love the 'chiffony' flowery dresses. Super cute!
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=botticellis+primavera&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=ismvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK3emVrpTSAhURM8AKHYouAosQ_AUIBygB&biw=768&bih=928#imgrc=BRH-ZUCMIwGZ-M:
Reflection seen clear,
hidden in plain sight shining,
I am here clearly.
(https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/woman-holding-mirror-on-grass-reflection.jpg)
(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTeSP8yoHtRL-zmVWw8F4_a36-11W4UDTKiewbe2JQl518PK8kpWw)
ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!! there it is
For me, it would be "Flaming June", by Sir Frederic Leighton. Dreamy and bright... And I am myself a June girl... 👧
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170219/058757a504b21e7516c7b1bbc550d835.jpg)
I find this painting so soothing... But at the same time, exciting because I begin anticipating the awakening of the girl and I am so sure she will feel very calm, happy and whole.
Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
Mine would be a Jackson Pollock ;)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG)
Quote from: IdontEven on February 19, 2017, 08:30:31 AM
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG)
Beautiful. ☺
Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
if my transition was a painting it would have gone from the boring ass plains of kansas and missouri
to the gorgeous mountains of Colorado. [emoji6]
That describes my transition perfectly.
Although technically not a painting, this sculpture is an artwork that I think really expresses feelings many of us are familiar with when we finally begin a magical process we call transition.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FrUp61vm.jpg&hash=52027f12cecc97291cf138ea2042e84685b53f59)
Freedom
by Zenos Frudakis
Located at 16th and Vine Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Strikes a chord, for sure, Jane :)
Also technically not a painting, but for some reason this GIF I saw on Twitter last night really . . .
Well let's just say I like it. So here it is:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FhNS0mUw.gif&hash=1eec875340ad2d2d3d3b653039be68cc6328fb81)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FCRKYCfM.png&hash=9a8b4acac18ec437ce12d199b9bf0d1e343fbae5)
The Headlight Series
- Stephen Shaheen
...It would be a blank canvas, representing my fear/hesitance of even attempting to begin.
Quote from: Geeker on May 03, 2017, 03:15:59 PM
...It would be a blank canvas, representing my fear/hesitance of even attempting to begin.
**free hugs**
Well, I'm sure you have filled in some of that blank canvas with some penciled in desires. I would start with processing that, and envisioning how you might move forward. We are here to help. Just ask! :icon_chick:
Maybe this one . . . which is a riff on The Creation of Adam. With automechanics. I mean, it's the archetypal creation of a man image, but I'm not a particularly archetypal person. I'm just some shmoe that would look a lot more at home in a mechanic's shop than in the fluffy clouds of heaven.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi531.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fdd359%2Fophelia_interrupted%2Fcreation%2520of%2520an%2520automechanic2_zps6eunvjiz.gif&hash=362a9f5d625be68bbf8a86208ac39ba13521c29f)
(https://i.imgur.com/C4LnbA4.jpg)
Quote from: Janes Groove on February 25, 2017, 07:17:59 PM
Although technically not a painting, this sculpture is an artwork that I think really expresses feelings many of us are familiar with when we finally begin a magical process we call transition.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FrUp61vm.jpg&hash=52027f12cecc97291cf138ea2042e84685b53f59)
Freedom
by Zenos Frudakis
Located at 16th and Vine Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This is Gorgeous Jane!!! It's alive with freedom and the power of release from all that seeks to hold us back! 😀❤️🌻
Was it Dali with the droopy clocks?
That's me. I don't get it one bit but it still exists
It almost has to be Salvador Dali with the droopy clocks. The Persistence of Memory I would guess.
(https://goo.gl/images/yf0NpO)
The Burning Giraffe was my screen and phone for the first year on hrt. It just felt like me, I had emptied my drawers and was filling them with the stuff that should have been in there from the beginning. It is also Dali. I have a copy of his versions of The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
(https://goo.gl/images/dbupd6)
Christian's World by Andrew Wyeth broke my heart, I stared at it for an hour the first time that I saw it. Then I found out the story behind it, wow, it became even more special to me. Lol, I have a $75 print of it in a $500 frame, messed up priorities probably. That was the second half of my transition.
I have never been a fan of Pollock. It is too much, his one piece in the Museum of Modern Art actually made me nauseous. I love some of Lee Krasner's, his wife, paintings though and I wish that I could afford one.
I really hope the paintings show up, I have a serious technology handicap so...
Here's hoping.
I am sorry, I cant make it work. 😢
Quote from: FinallyMichelle on February 17, 2018, 03:25:39 PM
It almost has to be Salvador Dali with the droopy clocks. The Persistence of Memory I would guess.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsalvadordaliprints.org%2FThe%2520Burning%2520Giraffe%2520Salvador%2520Dali.jpg&hash=b631ef6d7a22ee045dcbb6e37356e1394202a39f)
The Burning Giraffe was my screen and phone for the first year on hrt. It just felt like me, I had emptied my drawers and was filling them with the stuff that should have been in there from the beginning. It is also Dali. I have a copy of his versions of The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fartanddesigninspiration.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F12%2FChristinasWorld.jpg&hash=9a5c94d80b9b2c5e8704816242e72e2dfd8ce4e5)
Christian's World by Andrew Wyeth broke my heart, I stared at it for an hour the first time that I saw it. Then I found out the story behind it, wow, it became even more special to me. Lol, I have a $75 print of it in a $500 frame, messed up priorities probably. That was the second half of my transition.
I have never been a fan of Pollock. It is too much, his one piece in the Museum of Modern Art actually made me nauseous. I love some of Lee Krasner's, his wife, paintings though and I wish that I could afford one.
I really hope the paintings show up, I have a serious technology handicap so...
Here's hoping.
Oh my god, thank you Dena!
I don't know why I have so much difficulty with some things.
I had to go a couple of links deep to find a usable URL. Unfortunately often the URLs aren't linked to an image but instead to a page containing the image. In the case of the second image, I needed another source for the image because the one you linked to wasn't usable.
I don't think that I could have possibly figured that out. Sorry that you had to go through all of that. I really appreciate it. 😊 I couldn't stop crying.
Can't seem to post the painting only the url. https://anacaroliny.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/reverie1.jpg
Warning video is closer to the mirror than it seems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acdY-j8t7ec
Responding to the title of the thread and to a quick control-F search....Has no-one suggested the Scream yet? or like, "der Schrei der Natur" if you prefer. Because that seems to sum up my transition so far pretty darn well................
Quote from: IdontEven on February 19, 2017, 08:30:31 AM
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG)
Probably a few of Fuseli's paintings would fit for transition. The Nightmare is probably the best though. It is darker hanging on the wall than I thought it would be. Not just visually but emotionally or whatever. The print was expensive(for a print) and full sized and I wish that I would not have bought it. Not that there is anything wrong with it but I broke the frame that I had made for it when I moved and I don't have the tools anymore to make another. 😞 Frames are expensive especially one that size.
I like the Pollock idea as transition even if I don't like his art.
I like this thread. Art is feeling and I have often used it to express what was going on inside. I have a huge collection of prints, I know cheap right? 😁 I wish! 118 prints and the cheapest was thirty dollars and some of the original P Buckley Moss prints were over a thousand and I bought them 20 years ago. Those could probably be considered an investment, I was offered $7,000 for the one horse print.
We use music all of the time to express what is inside or because it expresses what we are feeling, some use poetry 😉 music is poetry too if you think about it, I like both but I like art more. And we can take it everywhere in our pockets, I open my phone and there it is. When I no longer see it because it has just become part of my phone, I change it to something else that matches my feeling.
I guess all of us from the Island of Misfit Toys have our quirks and ways of expressing ourselves.
I went from a DeKooning (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrI5sR24CY8/TI-Ebne6ZxI/AAAAAAAABFo/2xDSiM_ouQk/s400/Kooning_woman_v.jpg), to a Reinhardt (https://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/ad-reinhardt/untitled-6-1966.jpg), and I think I'm coming into my Klee (https://weheart.moscow/wp-content/uploads/klee.jpg) phase now.
Who knows where I'll end up next! Maybe somewhere between the organic energy of Egon Shiele and the calm, deep "knowing" of a Rothko...
Quote from: BT04 on February 18, 2018, 12:57:45 AM
I went from a DeKooning (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrI5sR24CY8/TI-Ebne6ZxI/AAAAAAAABFo/2xDSiM_ouQk/s400/Kooning_woman_v.jpg), to a Reinhardt (https://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/ad-reinhardt/untitled-6-1966.jpg), and I think I'm coming into my Klee (https://weheart.moscow/wp-content/uploads/klee.jpg) phase now.
Who knows where I'll end up next! Maybe somewhere between the organic energy of Egon Shiele and the calm, deep "knowing" of a Rothko...
I am so glad that you put Rothko there. 😊 I kinda see Reinhardt as a Fortune 500 company lobby to Rothko as your favorite aunts living room. Efficiency vs warmth. I don't know why the one artist always makes me think of the other.
You are going in the right direction. No one wants to end up a Basquiat.
I hope. 😊
Quote from: FinallyMichelle on February 18, 2018, 01:36:39 AM
I am so glad that you put Rothko there. 😊 I kinda see Reinhardt as a Fortune 500 company lobby to Rothko as your favorite aunts living room. Efficiency vs warmth. I don't know why the one artist always makes me think of the other.
You are going in the right direction. No one wants to end up a Basquiat.
I hope. 😊
I love Basquiat! Of course you're right, I wouldn't want to
be a Basquiat...
My grandmother has always said that she felt DeKooning hated women, and judging by how well his work captures what it feels like to be "stuck in a woman's body" when you are anything but, I definitely feel there's a kernel of truth to that. (Never liked his work enough to find out what the art historians thought.) He perfectly captures the fake smile, the ugliness I see in my own curves, and the thousand-mile stare of someone forced into mimicry and trying to check out.
Reinhardt captures the uneasy peace of dissociation for me. The cold, calculating sense of being sucked up into your head and forgetting, for a moment, that you even
have a body. Not a good place to be indefinitely, but it works in the interim. Moreover, it also hints at a sense of pride - the verticality suggests squaring your shoulders and keeping your chin up in spite of wanting to be anywhere but here.
Klee represents learning to come out of that emotionless sense of order and learning to piece together actual things from the dissociation again. Here it's the suggestion of an environment or city - I'm not quite at the point where I'm comfortable with figures and bodies, mine still confounds me - a kind of organic take on the same grid theme emergent from the color fields. It's relearning to be OK with the unevenness, the quirks of being human, trans or not.
I'll always have that headspace, though, but hopefully it will in the future be much more emotionally adept, like a Rothko; and at the same time I hope to wind up with a body easier for me to acknowledge, easier for me to celebrate and move with, and to appreciate all the little fun, and sometimes grimy, oddnesses of material existence a la Shiele.
Really, though, I've always loved abstract expressionism and color fields. More than anything else I've felt that Rothko and others like him have been able to paint emotions as if they were places you could visit, walk through, and stand in.