Art and Design

"The greatest thing is that I can never anticipate how people are going to react to my projects. Without fail, it's a hugely delightful experience and that's why I do any of the pieces I've done. I want to see the exchange with the people." ~ Keetra Dean Dixon

The recent Uganda death penalty bill for homosexuality has raised awareness of the inhumane treatment of LGBT people globally. The repercussions of rape, jail, and murder for expressing your sexuality are horrendous, but they sometimes make it easy to cast a blind eye to the way so-called first-world countries continue to foster homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. Gay women seeking asylum in the UK know all too well that homophobia does not stop at the border.

Through a new art project with Artangel, an organization that sponsors interactive art projects, some of these woman are able to express the dehumanizing and difficult process of gaining asylum.

"I like things that are handmade and I like to see people's hand in the world, anywhere in the world; it doesn't matter to me where it is. And in my own work, I do everything by hand. I don't project or use anything mechanical, because even though I do spend a lot of time trying to perfect my line work and my hand, my hand will always be imperfect because it's human. And I think it's the part that's off that's interesting, that even if I'm doing really big letters and I spend a lot of time going over the line and over the line and trying tomake it straight, I'll never be able to make it straight. From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is." ~Margaret Kilgallen, Art:21 (2005)

I saw Ginger Rogers Takahashi's work in the art auction for the Lesbian Herstory Archive. Although her work spans illustration, multimedia, wall hangings, and music, the themes of sexuality, gender, and community run throughout. (Rabbits also seem to be a motif).

Whether it's her involvement with the Mobilivre Bookmobile, where a super cute a 1959 Airstream Overlander trailer, interior-redecorated as a mini-zine and book arts store toured the country, or Butch in the Bog, a collaboration with Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, it's clear that aesthetic is as important as community building to her. As she told the New York City News Service, “As an artist, I like to create situations for people to come together and to have an encounter."

Ka-ching! Aw, did you hear that? It was the last of 80 raffle tickets sold off from the Lesbian Herstory Archives Benefit Art Auction! That means if you didn't pick up your ticket in time, you don't get to take home one of 80 works of art by 80 lesbian artists. The good news is that if you're in New York City this weekend, you can still view the works on display and support the archive at the door. (That way, it's like you won ALL of the art!)

The rest of us can view a few of the works online at Own This City, where I found the above photo, "Battaglia al Castello di Civitella Ranieri" by Patricia Cronin, and mark down a trip to the archives the next time we find ourselves in Park Slope.

More about the archive after the jump!

As the American calendar rolls around to another historically-dubious holiday, it's comforting to know you can celebrate the righteous kind of history year-round with People's History posters from Just Seeds. At four bucks a pop, you can afford to load up on your favorite activists, or give them as presents to remind folks of the heroes that History-with-a-capital-H (not to mention present-day media) tends to conveniently forget. Click through for more posters...

Malika at Muslimah Media Watch has a great write-up and interview on Hana Hajar, who is currently the most prominent female cartoonist in Saudi Arabia.

Lovers of art and design—you'll be pleased to make the acquaintance of the blog: Birdwatching. Writes the site itself: This blog is set up to collect, share and recognize the work of female graphic design creators everywhere. Relatively new on the scene, the blog has still already managed to showcase work from South America, Continenetal Europe, The UK , Japan and North America.
More after the Jump

Miranda July starts her recent Vice photo spread with the following note:

Dear Julie,
Do you ever feel like an extra in your own life? It seems like I'm forever stuck in the background, watching other people say and do all the things I feel inside. One day I'm gonna surprise everyone with my talents. They will be laughing and crying and texting me so often that I will be annoyed.
Until then,
Sandy

More after the jump!

Urban contemporary art magazine Juxtapoz's November issue is the Robert Williams issue, a big-hitter in the underground comics scene and the magazine's founder. Oh, and he drives feminists up the wall with the way his artwork objectifies women. *NSFW and possibly triggering images after the break.*