Milky Magic
Some ideas for milky art happenings:
* High Milk Tea. Invite selected friends and colleagues to a Tea Party, with most of the items on the menu made from breastmilk. Must start hunting recipes, and non-squeamish guests!
* Making a champagne glass fountain, overflowing with breastmilk. I do believe that the shape of the champagne glass itself was based upon that of the breast of the Mistress of some French king or another, so it seems somehow appropriate.
* Invisible Ink piece. Helene Cixous claimed to 'write in white ink'. You can use cow milk as 'invisible ink'- write with it on white paper, let it dry, then iron/heat the paper and up comes your text. Should work with human breastmilk?
* Obtain one of those baby-sling things in which to carry about my pump. And must think of a name for her (the pump) too- then hold a naming ceremony. Actaully, think she is twins- Lactentia and Sugentia!
* Photo series/performance piece as Hera, spurting out the Milky Way.
* Use the songs Cow Cow Boogie (Ella Mae Morse) and I Want to be a Cowboy (Boys Don't Cry) for a show. Some sort of dairy farm experience with pumps and a milkmaid or such I expect. Predictable, but hey, it'll be fun :)
* Set myself up in a bar offering cocktails made with my 'special ingredient'.
I tried to do a LactoGrrl spoken word piece the other night, but when it came to the crunch just couldn't make myself go through with it. The crowd just seemed so... NICE. And for some reason it felt just too intimidating to read what was essentially lacto-porn while dribbling vanilla milkshake all over my face and shirt in front of those people. It felt frivolous, or unworthy, or just plain distateful. Why? People were reading pieces about politics and family, and this clearly intersects with both of these but still it just felt wrong. Do nice people not fantasise about such things? Do they not speak about such things? Do they not indeed DO such things? What made me feel so vulnerable in that setting? All of a sudden I was incredibly conscious that what I am embarking on with this whole LactoGrrl project is so related to the future I imagined for myself when I was young (the 'Earth-Mother-ness' of lactation and nursing) yet so far away from how I imagined it. No baby and no husband and no mother's group. Lactation consultant and plastic pump and chemicals and... for a minute I half-wondered why I didn't just do it the 'normal' way. You know, so I could turn up to speak with cringeworthy yet amusing anecdotes about sore nipples and feeling like a cow mixed in with stories of baby vomit and c-sections- my milkiness situated in its 'right and proper' context. I don't want the baby and all its trimmings and trappings, but for that moment I felt like I SHOULD. Will look for another venue, something a little more Queer and Quirky perhaps this time- I know I need to speak these words in public.
* High Milk Tea. Invite selected friends and colleagues to a Tea Party, with most of the items on the menu made from breastmilk. Must start hunting recipes, and non-squeamish guests!
* Making a champagne glass fountain, overflowing with breastmilk. I do believe that the shape of the champagne glass itself was based upon that of the breast of the Mistress of some French king or another, so it seems somehow appropriate.
* Invisible Ink piece. Helene Cixous claimed to 'write in white ink'. You can use cow milk as 'invisible ink'- write with it on white paper, let it dry, then iron/heat the paper and up comes your text. Should work with human breastmilk?
* Obtain one of those baby-sling things in which to carry about my pump. And must think of a name for her (the pump) too- then hold a naming ceremony. Actaully, think she is twins- Lactentia and Sugentia!
* Photo series/performance piece as Hera, spurting out the Milky Way.
* Use the songs Cow Cow Boogie (Ella Mae Morse) and I Want to be a Cowboy (Boys Don't Cry) for a show. Some sort of dairy farm experience with pumps and a milkmaid or such I expect. Predictable, but hey, it'll be fun :)
* Set myself up in a bar offering cocktails made with my 'special ingredient'.
I tried to do a LactoGrrl spoken word piece the other night, but when it came to the crunch just couldn't make myself go through with it. The crowd just seemed so... NICE. And for some reason it felt just too intimidating to read what was essentially lacto-porn while dribbling vanilla milkshake all over my face and shirt in front of those people. It felt frivolous, or unworthy, or just plain distateful. Why? People were reading pieces about politics and family, and this clearly intersects with both of these but still it just felt wrong. Do nice people not fantasise about such things? Do they not speak about such things? Do they not indeed DO such things? What made me feel so vulnerable in that setting? All of a sudden I was incredibly conscious that what I am embarking on with this whole LactoGrrl project is so related to the future I imagined for myself when I was young (the 'Earth-Mother-ness' of lactation and nursing) yet so far away from how I imagined it. No baby and no husband and no mother's group. Lactation consultant and plastic pump and chemicals and... for a minute I half-wondered why I didn't just do it the 'normal' way. You know, so I could turn up to speak with cringeworthy yet amusing anecdotes about sore nipples and feeling like a cow mixed in with stories of baby vomit and c-sections- my milkiness situated in its 'right and proper' context. I don't want the baby and all its trimmings and trappings, but for that moment I felt like I SHOULD. Will look for another venue, something a little more Queer and Quirky perhaps this time- I know I need to speak these words in public.
posted by Zoo at 5/24/2006
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