winged and finned

The Sexy Lie, Caroline Heldman at TEDxYouth@SanDiego

Every single word of this.

The body monitoring though.

Google like a boss!

This is relevant to librarian-ing.

This would make such an excellent hand out for students.

Wheee I use these! They make Google a much more effective search tool.

Nadya Vessey never actually dreamed of being a mermaid. But then one day, as the lifelong swimmer was taking off her prosthetic legs before an ocean dip near her home in Auckland, New Zealand, a little boy asked why she had no feet. Vessey didn’t explain that she was born with a congenital deformity, or that she lost one leg below the knee when she was 7 and the other at age 16. She told him simply, “I’m a mermaid,” and then slipped into the sea. Inspired by her own little white lie, Vessey decided to write an e-mail to Weta Workshop, the special-effects company that won four Oscars for its work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. She wanted to know if the artists might consider building her a tail to help her move more gracefully through the water. Cofounder Sir Richard Taylor’s resounding reply: “Yes!” Two years and nearly 800 pro bono hours later, Taylor’s team unveiled a six-foot-long neoprene-and-plastic appendage covered in a Lycra sock that sparkles with digitally printed “scales.” Now, three Kiwi summers later, Vessey says swimming with the tail is finally starting to seem natural—as if it is actually a part of her. Richard Taylor: “The tail looks so simple in photographs, but it was unbelievably complicated and expensive to make. We had to get its buoyancy exactly right for Nadya’s proportions. And we also wanted the tail to look beautiful and feel feminine. We’re pleased with how it came out. Nadya looks very elegant in it. I imagine that for a double amputee, walking might feel a little awkward. But when she gets in the water, she is free.” Nadya Vessey: “Throughout my life, whenever I needed inspiration, I’d go swimming in the ocean. With my tail, I’ve learned to swim in a completely new way. I swim faster, and I use my back muscles more. It takes time to adjust to a prosthetic, of course—it has to become part of your body. There’s a mental shift that occurs. A limb fitter once made me a pair of legs that fit so right they made me feel like a ballerina. Once I’ve fully integrated my tail, I expect I’ll really feel like a water creature! But the tail isn’t just for me; I believe it’s meant to bring others joy.”

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Amputee-Nadya-Vessey-Gets-a-Prosthetic-Mermaid-Tail#ixzz2gHvucNBE

I’m not crying! You’re crying!

Dorothy Day with the dress she wore during her last time in jail (by jimforest)

Dorothy Day with her prison dress. On November 1917 Day went to prison for being one of forty women in front of the White House protesting women’s exclusion from the electorate.

The Green Cushion Irving Ramsey Wiles ca. 1895 Watercolor, graphite, and gouache on paper

'The Water Fan' (1898/99). Watercolour over graphite by Winslow Homer (1836–1910).

Art Institute of Chicago via Wikimedia.

'A Dance Around the Moon' painted by Charles Altamont Doyle. Charles Doyle was an accomplished, though financially unsuccessful, Victorian artist who was also the father of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Charles Doyle believed in the existence of fairies and frequently included them in his art. He had a keen sense of humour as is shown in this piece where he has placed lawyers, businessmen, jockeys and policemen amongst traditional fairytale figures. Doyle suffered from depression and alcoholism and spent many years, including the last 12 of his life, in asylums. He continued to paint until his death in 1893.

Anti-Suffragette postcard, early 1900s (via Retronaut)

See Alice Paul.  From the linked post:

John Singer Sargent, Two Octopi 1885

Lady Florence Norman, a suffragette, on her motor-scooter in 1916, travelling to work at offices in London where she was a supervisor. The scooter was a birthday present from her husband, the journalist and Liberal politician Sir Henry Norman.

eFF YES SUFFRAGETTES

Since today is Women’s Equality Day, here is one of the black women who participated in the suffrage movement. Mary Eliza Mahoney (May 7, 1845 or April 16, 1845 - January 4, 1926) was the first African American professionally trained nurse in the United States. Mahoney was a pioneer who worked tirelessly to create opportunities for other black women to become nurses and to raise the status of all nurses, regardless of color. She was also an activist for women’s right to vote and is credited as one of the first women to register and vote in Boston, Massachusetts in 1920.

Photo source: Wikimedia

The Armory Show wasn’t the only big event in 1913 - it was also the year that suffragists marched on Washington to demand women’s right to vote. In light of that centennial anniversary, which is being celebrated this weekend, and the kickoff of Women’s History Month, it seemed like a good time to present you with this declaration from Nancy Spero.

Nancy Spero letter to Lucy R. Lippard, 1971 Oct. 29. Lucy R. Lippard papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Reminded me of the startling overlaps between early and late 20th century white feminism.  A stark image, too, which I like.

“The Masculine Woman She is mannish from shoes to her hat, Coat, collars, stiff shirt and cravat. She’d wear pants in the street To make her complete, But she knows the law won’t stand for that.”

Anti-Suffragette postcard, 1905 (via the Catherine H. Palczewski Suffragette Postcard Archive)

” Marching against the status quo was not easy for white women, but it was even more difficult for African American women because of the racist sentiment of the day, as well as white suffragists who did not favor suffrage for black women.

According to Catherine H. Palczewski, a professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Northern Iowa, after the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a “racist component“ of the suffrage campaign ensued. Suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony did not support black male suffrage unless women also had the right to vote.

As pointed out by Mary Walton, “Everyone was welcome to participate, including men, with one exception. In a city that was Southern in both location and outlook, where the Christmas Eve rape of a government clerk by a black man had fanned racist sentiments, [Alice] Paul, a white woman, was convinced that other white women would not march with black women. In response to several inquiries, she had quietly discouraged blacks from participating. She confided her fears to a sympathetic editor: ‘As far as I can see, we must have a white procession, or a Negro procession, or no procession at all.’ ”

Anti-Suffrage postcards

Tate Britain examines the history of those who have targeted art, from Henry VIII to the present:

The suffragettes’ campaign is examined in Tate Britain’s exhibition “Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm”, which explores various strategies behind the deliberate destruction of art in Britain from the 16th century to the present day.

Read more here. 

George Barker (1844-1894)

Prospect Point, Niagara Falls, Late 19th Century

One of the more beautiful photographs I've seen, I think.