Tired of sitting around in pajamas while you shelter in place? Bring out your sickest looks, and look absolutely killer while you fight the apocalypse from home.
Just because you are sheltering in place, there’s no reason not to break out the apocalyptic glamour! Don’t sit around in pajamas, while living through the most end-of-the-world excitement that most of us will ever experience. In fact, because you now exist in the world mainly as a digital presence, you have the freedom to be anyone you please. So, dig into your wardrobe, and get to work creating a new you (or, several!)
Wigs are a great way to change your appearance from day to day. They’re also practical, because they allow you to cut your natural hair very short, thus making it easy to cover when you venture outdoors, and easy to wash and dry quickly. The same wig can be used to create different moods, simply by changing the clothing and accessories one chooses.
Add sunglasses, hats, and shaggy fur to create a retro-glam feel. Or, perhaps add a softer touch, to create a romantic vibe.
Don’t forget to rock a mask… they are the hallmark of a well put together pandemic look. No need be boring about them, either– a mask can be the accessory that pulls your whole look together.
A mask can create a look all on its own, so don’t neglect the importance of them as a fashion staple of your 2020 look!
Remember, by staying home and avoiding contact with others, you are being a warrior, fighting a pandemic with your actions. Look the part, embrace your role …. get creative and have some fun!
No matter how you choose to portray yourself, these 2020 looks can be absolutely sick!
Although I didn’t get the page up quite as quickly as I’d planned, I have now configured and added Madam Spatchcock’s Beauty Blog.
This work-in-progress photo essay will explore identity in the age of COVID-19, through the lens of Madam Spatchcock, newly reincarnated for the 21st Century, as a beauty blogger.
Our presence in the world — by necessity — is becoming largely a digital one. Although this was increasingly becoming the case prior to the current pandemic, it is now nearly ubiquitous, affecting even those of us who previously retained a largely analog presence in our daily lives. Rather than in-person meetings, we are having Zoom calls and conferences. Classes are being held online, rather than in classrooms. Face-to-face meetings are rare, and even then, our physical bodies are often separated by masks, gloves, and goggles.
This project aims to look at beauty and fashion, as they relate to the zeitgeist of disease and death. Much like Madam Spatchcock’s original incarnation as the Steampunk Rag-and-Bone purveyor, this project centers around art, fashion, and subculture as harbingers and portraits of the current cultural moment, as reflected both unconsciously and in a more conscious, overt manner.
As with the Plague Doctor essay, I plan to share the evolution of this project. It may, at some point, take on a more finished form — but the beauty of blogging is that I can share my own experience as a new blogger and an artist working in an entirely new way.
As I wait for the arrival of filming backdrops, a webcam (for conferencing) and a number of other things I never imagined I would care to own, I’m reminded of a moment that seems almost like yesterday. My mother (who was ahead of her time) gifted me with my first computer, which was a Commodore Amiga. I was a 20-something undergraduate, majoring in art, with very little idea what I might want to do eventually. I remember telling her that I didn’t need a computer, and that I never wanted to own one. I preferred bound books, hand-painted art, and typewriters. Nonetheless, I made use of the Amiga for word-processing my English literature essays. I still have faded copies of those papers, printed on my daisy-wheel printer, with my professor’s treasured commentary written on them.
English literature would eventually become a second major for me, alongside psychology, when I eventually returned to school to finish the undergraduate studies that were started and stopped several times during the 1990s. I never finished the undergraduate major in art, largely because San Francisco State University, where I was studying, had begun to cap the number of undergrad units one could accrue without graduating. I eventually settled on psychology and English literature as my majors, and temporarily let fall to the background my other loves of art and human sexuality studies ( though I would resume studying art many years later as a post-bac and then a dual MFA/MA student at San Francisco Art Institute.) I may yet pursue graduate level studies in human sexuality, though that remains one of several possibilities for future educational endeavors.
As the future becomes more and more one of digital interface with others, and my Amiga is only one of a list of now-obsolete computers I have owned over the years, I still take solace in my bound books. To this day, I have the copies of my James Joyce books, and my Yeats and Eliot readers complete with the handwritten notes I kept in the margins while taking those undergrad literature classes so long ago. They are even more precious to me now than they were at the time. There are some things that digital technology cannot replicate, and the classroom experiences I had in a day when my professor lectured from his hand-written notes are very high on that list.
Dreaming of the outside world, but the window remains closed….
Today, in addition to necessary life tasks, I will attempt to create and format the second photo-essay page of this blog. Despite all the chaos and tragedy in the world, I am celebrating the return of my creative drive, which had largely been missing-in-action for many years. I’m noticing that a lot of my friends are engaging in creative endeavors . Some of them are consistently productive with art (which I so greatly admire!) but others, like myself, have had long dry spells. The current world situation seems to be bringing out the creative spirit in a lot of people, and it also (by necessity) makes the time available to make good on artistic ideas.
The photo essays are works-in-progress, but I want to share the entire journey here. At some point, they may become much more polished creations. For now, I want to journal the creating of these projects as they happen. I’ve always been very process-oriented in my art.
No promises as to a time frame, but I also feel the drive to paint again. I haven’t painted in earnest since art school (my poor fragile ego took a hard hit with that expensive adventure.) I’ve since done a lot of reflecting on self, other, the meaning of making art, etc. I think I’m ready to go back to the canvas. All things considered, I’m very glad that I went to SFAI when I did. I am still unpacking the things I learned there, and making sense of the experience. I recently learned that SFAI is very likely to close its doors after this semester, which is sad beyond belief. It is a place like no other, and I am fortunate to have been able to study there.
My goal for today is to have the second page created and formatted, and to have an introductory post up. I do have real-world things I need to do as well, but it still seems to be a reasonable goal. The tech aspect of all of this terrifies me, but it is also providing a much needed push to get me into the 21st century. I now own a camera for vlogging/video lectures/etc. I have yet to take it out of the box, as it just arrived yesterday. I think I have a hot date with a user manual in my future, and perhaps the need for a wall against which to bang my head.
It’s time to face the news for the day, while I caffeinate with some very strong, take-the-paint-off-your-car coffee. I am trying to limit my news intake to a couple of hours a day, as I had been reading news to the point of total obsession since this situation began. I learned of the outbreak in Wuhan on New Years Eve, and the entire first part of this year was largely swallowed up by reading as much international news as I could find. I have watched this whole thing unfold.
In addition to staying on top of the major events and updates, and staying home and wearing protective gear when I need to go out, there isn’t a lot I can do about it. I’m taking a lot of supplements and attending to my own immune health, and protecting myself as much as possible.
So, I want to make the best of this time at home. It isn’t every day that one finds oneself living out an apocalyptic scenario in slow-grind, real time, as it happens. In addition to being horrifying and tragic, it’s also rather freeing, in that it allows for a restructuring of the world as we have known it, both on a grand scale, and on a personal level.
I’ll be adding a separate page dedicated to the psychology of the liminal space, and the role of the Trickster in the upending of the world. I haven’t written it out yet, but I have much to say on the subject.
Spatchcocking the Future 