Theo
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🕑 Added 2023-11-11 10:41:36 +0000 UTCBefore I start on the picture, something I observed recently: When I took a riding lesson, the other people present were all women. Later on I googled. Apparently, women do gravitate to working with non-humans. One article I found, for instance, stated the majority of current veterinary medicine students to be female ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340187/ ,) with women dominating Human-Animal Studies in general ( women-dominate-research-the-human-animal-bond .) I’ve always found searching for sources to be the most exhausting part of academia, so I hope that’s enough for the purpose of this paragraph. Truth be told, I didn’t need to Google it to . . . understand? One of my favourite works of fiction is Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of The Dead, a crime novel that links the visionary and radical spirituality of William Blake to Animalism and Feminism by means of a pain-bearing, uncomfortable, frequently ridiculed older woman. There. Can. Not. Ever. Be a more compelling protagonist to me. By the way, the riding lesson was wonderful. Apparently the pony thought my mistakes were funny, so I was told. My ego can take the hit, he was a sweetheart.
A Psychology Today article ( why-some-girls-and-women-love-horses-so-much ) argues the cause of the “feminine” attraction to horses to be related to their strength, which can’t be worked with by physical means of control. In fact, horses are sensitive and respond to minimal cues (One of the moments I was most impressed by was when the aforementioned pony stopped walking because the instructor held her breath - standing roughly 3-4m away. She teaches riding without saddle and with only one's lower body first so as to as to sensitize the rider.) While I have no education in the field of evolutionary psychology (or horsemanship) and can't professionally judge the article’s validity, I feel it doesn't explore this topic enough. Maybe it's not only inherent to "women," but could be related to culture overall? it reminded me that I do have a bit of a distaste for typically “masculine” activities and ways of thinking. Someone told me once that I didn’t make a “male” impression on them in person, and that weirdly pleased me. I’m still a dude, but worth thinking about for me. What’s also worth thinking about is the question of femininity and animality, which I touched on with this admittedly penis-heavy commission.
Yeees, now we finally get to it! It was made for Vinny and his partner Boris, AWD and Yote respectively. Original input was heavily focused on the red rockets, but I wanted to expand it. The bit of the original description that stood out to me was that the feral version of his own partner’s character was to be draping his tool over his own anthro version’s face. That is, I think, the only requirement I really fulfilled.
The prone two-legger, sorta suspended like a Hanged Man, in contrast to the assertive quadruped: It vaguely, distantly, felt to me like a playful, almost philosophical power reversal, which is why at the time I even considered a reference to the topos of the Power of Women (see, for instance, Judith and Holofernes.) In these scenes, famous female characters use their sexual attractiveness to triumph over “great” men, albeit only to temporarily stimulate the medieval/renaissance viewership. While some female artists and audiences existed, I would not classify the vast majority of these depictions as feminist, rather as reinforcing patriarchy by means of laughter or arousal. What I find interesting in this discussion is that while the gender binary is fixed in the case of Weibermacht, the partners in my picture could just as easily take turns. More playful.
Diana-Artemis (often worshipped in triad with Selene and Hecate) is the goddess of the hunt (maiden of the silver bow > see the spread out arms, straight body, arch and arrowhead to the feet of anthro-Vinny, (plus, Saggitarius the Archer is a centaur) and the moon (unconscious/imagination), tamed and untamed wildernes. She’s accompanied by dogs (AWD and Yote are both undomesticated canine species lol.) In reading on this triad, we encounter themes of travel, groves, crossroads, the underworld or the department of spirits. I don't pretend to be in command of all that subtext, maybe I let myself be used by it. How's that sound? :)
My arrangement of the figures in the piece refers to Diana’s association with Y-junctions, forks in the road - which to me evoke splits, conjoinments. A common root (the crotch? ha) A path goes both ways at once. Submitting to this function, the dual nature of the anthropomorphic form echoes the duality of the moon's light and dark side, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, IDK. It's the anthro-feral tension, but unfolded. Further there’s the question of Others in a Patriarchy which may not control their bodies, subversion of the Solar-Rational, the rise of the moon - see the top left for that :) But my knowledge is limited, and I’m a pretentious little man. My art history profs used to say not to trust the artist to speak on their own work.
This picture here began a streak of more spiritual pieces, of which "Oh" and Fozu's commission have been a part. It’s important to act according to your intuition, not to repress or suppress. For instance, this has helped me understand Theo better - my own "unconscious," Other, Animal. I have been able to enjoy my work in a new light. Thanks for allowing me to explore and improve!
