Self-Portrait

An androgyne in a female body, I often find that the best way to express myself is through my art. The paintbrush communicates when words fail me and my body, though it be the only tangible part of me, is merely an inadequate container. As represented in my self-portrait, my body and a few disjointed pieces are the only clear parts of me as I explore the dark, mysterious unknown. And even then, as both an androgyne and a female, my body is in question. This is a self-portrait of the parts of me that fade in and out of the unknown.

Halloween is 2 months away . . .

My past few amazing costumes have included Daria, Brick Tamland from 'Anchorman' and Sweeney Todd.

I want to go as a terminator this year: paint part of my face to look like a machine and wear one red contact. However, red contacts are expensive and each of my previous costumes have cost me less than $10.

If I don't have spare $40 by Halloween for red contacts or if they irritate my eyes . . . I'll go as RICK ASTLEY

EDIT: Yep, I'm going as Rick Astley

Online Gallery

http://sites.google.com/site/kkrieselart/home

I haven't worked out all the kinks yet

Alverno College

I'm owning up to it . . . I regret having gone to Alverno College. It doesn't deserve everything I earned at my wonderful high school, Loyola Academy, where I was in FIRST HONORS!! I took HONORS LATIN and HONORS STUDIO ART!!! It's LOYOLA and, as several faculty members would tell you, I was there during some of the absolute best years in the past few decades.

I did get two great things from Alverno that I could not have received anywhere else:

1) Gayness
2) my AMAZING friends

Alverno is the most sapphic school in the Midwest, it was there that I felt safe and welcome enough to come out and live flamingly. And my friends are AWESOME!! I would have gotten a much better education from my 2nd choice, Columbia College in Chicago, but I'd probably be miserable and possibly even engaged.

I deserve better than Alverno. At the time, Alverno, I thought, was the best school in the Midwest for art therapy. And it, being an "ability-based" institution, is almost impossible to transfer out of. Had I attempted to transfer out, I would have had to start over.

Alverno isn't nearly a good enough place for the School of the Art Institute, where I want to get my MFA, but I still have the tools from Loyola Academy. And the art instructor I trust most at Alverno, someone who belongs somewhere so much better, supports me 100%. Since Alverno turned out to be more of an obstacle than a guide, I have the experience and drive to overcome anything.

Tattoos

I have three small tattoos:

A female symbol on my right hip


The Beatles on my left deltoid


And a rabbit on my left calf.


I'd really like to get a blue male symbol on my left hip as my next tattoo. I would also like my family crest on my right deltoid.


I'm also considering my high school logo (yes, I love my high school that much. I would wait at least ten years before getting this, though)


And ISAAC ASIMOV AAHHHH!!!!! JUST LOOK AT THOSE CHOPS


Sometimes I think about getting a Pride tattoo . . . again, I'd wait a LONG time before that

Some of my art

I'm currently working on a self-portrait. I really enjoy acrylic paint because it's versatile, expressive, and sometimes takes you in a different direction. My online gallery is www.beatles4eva.deviantart.com but you have to have a membership to see my "mature" pieces.

"The Androgyne"
Mixed Media: I supposed this is unintentionally, partly a self-portrait. Mainly, I wanted to create an androgyne challenging the encounterer as if to say, "What am I?"


"Masculinity"
Mixed Media: an aspect of femininity vs. masculinity


"Reaching Out"
Mixed Media: a female-esque figure reaching out of a cage for something more


"Fatherhood as Mountain"
Acrylic Paint: Based on a polaroid of my father holding me when I was an infant. The green upholstery and blue jeans are like an abstract landscape while the cloth drapes flesh like snow on a mountain. Distant, cold, standing alone.

My Body

It took a lot of work to attain security with my body. I came so close to making a big mistake in order to fit social standards of feminine beauty. Now, the only thing I'd like to change about my body is to add some bulk to it, the source of that want is because I can't afford much food and not any social ideals. On a related note, I'm female and I'm fine keeping it that way. I have no interest in any kind of surgery because my body is fine the way it is and, also, because my comfort in my body image is still rather shaky after everything that happened...

The idea of, "This is my body, get used to it," is the root of that security and that is why I don't want to pack or to bind. I have packed a couple times and it just felt weird, like wearing a padded bra: adjusting my appearance to change how others perceive me. NEVER AGAIN!! I stopped wearing bras in '04/'05 and I see a binder as a bra with a different purpose.

Perhaps I may get a cheap binder sometime, just to wear whenever I feel like it. If I ever got the urge to pack (using a sock. . . ), I would. I'm grateful to have a body that allows me to appear androgynous.

SGO

Sex:

Female

Gender Identity:

Androgyne

Gender Presentation:

fluidly androgynous

Orientation:

Lesbian

Interested In:

Women Transmen Transwomen Transpeople Intersex Androgynes Genderqueers people who don't fit into categories

Out To:

Everyone Public

Pronoun:

K. Just K

Gender related to my dad . . .

Of course, when I came out as a lesbian, a lot of people were all, "Oh it's because she was never close to her father, blah blah blah." Which makes no sense because Lauren had the same situation and she's straight and feminine. And some of the butchest dykes I know have great relationships with both of their still-married parents.

Now that I'm starting to go by "K" in daily life, of course, I've noticed the connection to my father, Karl. The first time I signed something as "K. Kriesel," I hesitated because it looked like he had signed it. When I sent him a email this past fall, the first time we had conversed in eight years, I came out as a lesbian to him for my own closure. In one of his many rambling, disjointed and angry replies, he suggested that I'm confusing my sexual orientation with my gender. Hardly, they are unrelated.

But I have wondered what impact he has had on my gender exploration. My healing from everything he's done and my coming out as genderqueer/androgynous seem to be unrelated at their sources, but help each other along now. I have come to realize, though, that he contributed almost nothing to my hyperfeminine childhood. I visited him on most weekends and during a few weeks every summer when I was 4-14. The vast majority of the time, he acted like I wasn't there. But we did hike, swim, boat and fish, he taught me about woodworking and archery, he tried to teach me Latin and how a carburetor works when I was too little to understand. We built a model car and a model biplane. It was only in the places under my mom's influence that I was hyperfeminine, I was scolded whenever I deviated from that. It has become clear that he left his first wife and my mom, at least in part, because he wanted a son. Since he was elderly and my mom was unable to have another child after I was born, I guess he figured that I was the last chance he'd get so he treated me androgynously. Then I hit puberty, changing from his child to his daughter, and he kicked me out of his life.

He has been the most prominent masculine role model on my life, of course. And the times he spent actually teaching me to be self-sufficient, hard working and academic are great examples of positive masculinity. As difficult and painful as he has been in my life, how androgynously he raised me provided balance, relief, and even an anchor from the ridiculously Barbie-like standards of school, church, my mom and my baby-sitters. It has only been after I separated my actual self from that heterosexist role that I've been able to see all this and to actually be grateful.

Gendered bathrooms

I'm reading http://transmasculine.wordpress.com/ and, of course, there's an entry about public bathrooms. That's the ultimate reference in anything gender-related. I don't recall which book it was that described the difference between men's rooms and women's rooms as this:

- men's rooms are for bragging about macho conquests, whether it be giant turds or the busty waitress, and are cruising sites for gay men.

- women's rooms are social havens for primping, sharing menstrual products for the underprepared, and for entire hordes of women to stampede into.

I worked at Noodles & Company for two years and, whenever I closed, I cleaned the bathrooms. After a couple weeks, I actually learned to volunteer to do it . . . so I could just text in there under the guise of cleaning really well. Since each bathroom was a single-stall with a lock, the majority of people just went into whichever one was open and/or cleanest. Occasionally, customers would give us odd looks for checking to see if the women's bathroom was in use (which it always was) and then heading into the men's. One well-meaning lady pointed out the difference to me once but then understood when she saw that both were single-stall. Of course, the most macho employees would only use the men's room, I'd just laugh at them.

No matter how far I go with my gender in life, I will probably prefer the women's bathroom 75% of the time just because it's almost always CLEANER!!!! I don't know what the hell men do in the bathroom, but there is no reason to smear shit on the walls and leave a ring of pubes in the sink!!!! Most of the "unisex" bathrooms I see are also "family" bathrooms; I don't want to use those because someone with a handful of screaming kids needs it far more than I do and you never know when they'll appear. Although I get a double-take every once in a while in the women's bathroom, nobody's ever said anything and I do feel safe in there.

Androgel

For maybe six or seven months, the thought of taking T has played on my mind. I'm very happy with my body, I don't want any drastic changes, but I feel like a more androgynous appearance would fit more with my androgynous/genderqueer identity. I'm happy with being female and I feel at home in the company of most women (most Alverno women . . . . who are ENTIRELY different from the women of the world), but I am not a "lady." I'd like more changes in details than an overall alteration. I haven't allowed myself to research T more because I figured that it might become more tempting to try and I already have too much on my plate.

And then I learned about this stuff, Androgel. It's a lower, more plateau-ed dose of testosterone and some androgens. I did some Googling and I couldn't find much comprehensive, direct information - its website fails for anyone who isn't an older, disgruntled man. This is the clearest I could find: http://www.gendertherapist.com/f-to-m-hormones.html. Again, I didn't do much searching because I have bigger things to worry about. And I wouldn't want to try anything until I have medical insurance.

I wish I could have a trial-run for a month or so to see if it's really something I want to get into. I'm still unsure of my own motives: would this really be the way to go to avoid catcalls (even in cargo shorts, Converses and my gayest t-shirt), being addressed as "dear," and the invisibility of being a petite woman in a masculine man's world? A more androgynous appearance would fit my inside more and would be a challenge to the gender norms with which we live, but it wouldn't ward off idiots - it might even invite them. After I move, get a job, get INSURANCE, etc. I'll consider it more . . . even though the thought won't leave me alone while all that is happening.

Why??

I created this blog because I didn't want to use Notes on facebook as a blog anymore, facebook's blog applications fail, a lot of my friends don't have MySpace so they can't access my blog there, and I want to get more into the blog community. I'm attempting to unravel gender - which is, of course, tied to everything else - and this, I think, it a way for me to work on that while receiving feedback and checking out others' progress.