Knowledge runs down.

Why do all mixed media art pieces look homemade and poor quality?

I love DIY. I love innovation and quirkiness and messiness and not being perfect.

But so much mixed media art looks like something you did while watching Love Island and not really paying attention to what was going on. Even when there is intention visible in a piece, the layering effect looks like something Aunt Gloria smashed together from thrift store art supplies. And even with portraits, which I enjoy most of all the mixed media I've seen.

Or like an over-done scrapbook page.

I don't know what it is about the mish-mashed, mis-matched pieces that gives me the ick so hard! Especially because in found art, I love that eclectic and homemade, spontaneous feeling.

As a single piece presented for consumption, it's kitsch. Not art.

I love zines, for example. Which you'd think would be on this edge, but not quite!

I don't want to be a bitch but mixed media doesn't look thought out or artfully designed.

I'm trying to create an art journal and it's a real problem for me that the idea of making things with lace, stamps, little bits of trash stuck together... ew.

I want to use my art journal to explore different media and learn the patterns and attributes of supplies I'm not familiar with. I want to be loose and impulsive and just try a lot of different things. And art journals that have that kitschy, over-patterned and involved look are intriguing! But my eyes don't have anywhere to rest and I end up just overwhelmed and distracted from the piece.

Maybe that's the key for my own work – making sure there is an actual composition and somewhere for your eyes to go. Rather than just wandering a chaotic pile of shapes.

It may be the case that I am stuffy and perfectionist and that I'll update my preferences, but I think the mixed media pieces lack a sophistication and clarity of message/feeling.

That said, I am immensely pleased with the watercolor base layer I developed last night for the first page of my art journal.

I do also want to incorporate writing, but not copy-paste stamps from elsewhere. Things from my head or that mean something to me.

Maybe that's the challenge? The quotes I see other artists choosing are over-used and boring to me?

Love and probably uneducated opinions, Jordie

P.S. Even as I add the images into this piece, I am disagreeing with myself about the pieces lacking intentionality.

My friends and I are going to track our hormone cycles together. (See: Witchy friends piece.)

Two of us don’t get periods anymore because of our IUDs. And we’re all curious about our individual patterns of progesterin and estrogen levels.

My best friend and I researched the basics the other week and realized we were taught the absolute bare minimum in health classes. We know there’s a cycle but we never learned the material ways it could influence our moods, reactions, abilities, etc.

Apparently there is a very close link with serotonin levels in the brain and estrogen levels. About midway through your cycle, your estrogen drops drastically and can create low mood due to lowered serotonin levels.

Considering I take medication to fix my fucked up serotonin levels… this seems like pertinent information.

In the post-Roe era, it feels somewhat risky to track your period. If you know it, someone else could, too. Reproductive privacy is IMPORTANT.

It does seem like a crucial part of my own biology that I have a poor understanding of, though. So I’d like to deepen my self-knowledge.

And having my little coven to discuss and compare with will be special.

As a side note, when I tried to start a group of connected women in the beginning of the fall, it fizzled because there were too many people with too much going on. We only met once.

But I’ve joined a crafts night with some women my age and it’s exactly that. Coven vibes! Sharing life stories! Strength in safety and an open and receptive arena!

Love and sisterhood, Jordie

Je voudrais ecrire un journal en espanol. Il peux apprendre la langue nouvelle a moi.

Mais c’est trop lentement, my brain whines.

Mais oui… voulez-vous faire un podcast a place d’un journal?

Peut-etre….

Je peux le faire avec un journal des artes? Ou je peux rester avec mon bullet journal et pas faire des choses plus dificils just because it sounds cool.

Espanol me donne plus que francais, plus que Hindi, parce que je pouvais l’utiliser chaque jour avec mes etudiants. Alors… pourquoi j’hesite?

It’s work. It’s a longterm commitment and project and I am doubtful of my follow-through ability. Especially when I’m currently pursuing art.

(It’s like every other day I can draw… but only every other day. Le practique c’est nulle.)

I think I’m whinier in French.

Quand I finish my online teacher certification, je peux spend quelque des monies ($1500!) that I’ve been spending every three months on the teacher training on other classes instead.

But only ones that meet in person! I could take creative writing, art classes, Spanish!

But I’m over my head already in terms of projects. And I just mindlessly agreed to crochet my friend plant leaf coasters. Because I love her. Le sigh. As always, too much to do and too little time it feels.

Love and impatience, Jordie

Perhaps it was inevitable I would start studying art. After all, my obsession with manifestos began with feminist claims, but many of the most famous are art treaties.

And I am OBSESSED. Or hyperfixated or whatever.

I was looking up artists from different movements on arthistoryproject.com and really impressed with myself at how I could see connections and one artist was already reminding me of another. Even with my limited knowledge!

Artists I liked: – Ferdinand Hodler (Symbolist movement) (late 1800s) – Zinaida Serebriakova (Symbolist movement) (Ukraine) (early 1900s) – Nicholas Roerich (Symbolist movement) (Russia) (early 1900s) – Modigliani (Expressionist movement) (Italy/France) (early 1900s)

Hodler pros: – humorous and expressive face in Night (1890) – color and kind of pointillism on the face in portraits of Giulia Leonardi (1920)

Serebriakova pros: – Self-portrait at the dressing table (1909) the facial expression, activity, the whole thing. AND THE TEXTURE – Ballerinas in the dressing room (1923) – it’s impossible to paint ballerinas without referencing Degas so good job to Degas for that immortality move. But I like how unidealized the movements are and how busty/pin-up-y they look compared to the less detailed more gestural Degas dancers. Look like women and they look strong rather than delicate. The way the dancer is walking away looks totally true to life and not idealized. – Women showing intimacy in women-centric places in ways men cannot – hell yeah

Roerich: – absolutely bonkers colors and scenery – very stealing from other cultures tho…

Love and incomplete admiration, Jordie

Biz Barclay’s video essay on the snapewives is possibly the greatest all-time fandom analysis.

There is an important distinction between consuming and being penetrated.

When I’m on top, I consume. I slide myself onto their cock and envelop it. And then I glide up and down it, swallowing and regurgitating; bending it toward me when I lean back to rest my hands on their knees. Or roughing up the base when I grind my clit against their mons.

When I am pinned beneath them, their weight holds me in place as they penetrate me. My labia are pushed open to make way. It’s not always so heavy; sometimes, their head nudges open my folds and slips inside sweetly.

It is possible to consume from beneath, but it takes a lot of ab work.

Sometimes I am too lazy to consume and prefer my prey to walk into my open maw of its own volition.

I don’t think the pleasure of consuming is far from the fantasy of biting a man’s cock off. (Not any cock – a man’s specifically.)

I would spit, to be clear. I wouldn’t chew up a fleshy, quickly desiccating chopped-off cock.

Do I consume or penetrate with my mouth? As with my cunt, I may desire to tease and control and eat my partner but ultimately I want my face fucked. I want the eroticism of being penetrated in such an intimate and forceful way. You can fuck it kindly and tenderly; just please fuck my mouth and don’t let me do all the work.

(When I was in high school, I was more vulnerable to modern sexual culture and its infiltration and formation by white male agendas. I did NOT want my head touched while giving head. I controlled the pace, depth, and god forbid you push your hips at me because I’m out.)

I’m a brat, after all. I play at consumption but in the end want to be filled instead. Too much work and too much distraction – I want to experience your desire acted on my body and to enjoy it freely without effort. (I mean, I’ll writhe around and stuff – I’m not a pillow princess by any means.)

It interests me that my alien blob erotic horror short story is focused on being consumed, rather than consuming or being penetrated. Do the cock-bearers dream of wholesale consumption and envelopment, too?

Oh dear. The sex robot story involves satisfaction via the ability to penetrate, too. Freud would have a flippin’ field day with that.

Love and let’s finally buy strap-ons, Jordie