@fayeorlove

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fayeorlove/junior-high

in grade school i didn’t learn about a single female artist. i remember a brief mention of georgia o’keeffe but even that was only in relation to alfred steiglitz. do you understand that intense conditioning that happens to a young girl when all her textbooks are full of names of only men? the first time i heard the name frida was in a college class on “female” artists. it’s terrifying, what you internalize. it wears you around like a heavy backpack. the weight of knowing no matter how hard you try, what you accomplish, the work you create, you’ll never make history. you’ll never be as good as a man. 

i never thought my work could stand in a gallery, that my drawings could be my life-line. that anyone would interview me for a magazine or i’d have my own art show and people would come. i’ve had to work harder than every man i know to get half the recognition.

your donation to junior high will not only teach girls the tools for creating their own masterpieces, but will offer a venue to showcase them. the first two art shows i’m facilitating right now feature work entirely by women and folks of color. people who have consistently internalized societal conditioning telling them “you’re not good enough,” “you’re not worthy.”

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fayeorlove/junior-high

i graduated college before i found my any semblance of self-confidence. before i taught myself the arduous processes of self-love. that means i spent 22 years wanting to be anybody but me. that’s a really long time to hate yourself.

when you’re a young girl society forces that hate. you’re taught that everything about you is just another thing to change. the way you look, the way you think, the work you produce. shave your hair, bleach your skin, stop interrupting.

there are so many amazing and powerful women that exist today DESPITE society. but imagine how powerful we could be if our community wasn’t a burden, but a support system. if the world we lived in didn’t constantly tear us down.

friends: i have 1 week left. i’m going to post every day this week about why this space is important and what exactly your donation will contribute to.

3 years ago at at my favorite venue in boston, i got sexually assaulted while working. i was listening to my friends play music and taking money at the front door. 2 men grabbed me and told me “i needed to smile. maybe they’d teach me how.” i won’t post the worst part of it, but even writing this is triggering. i wasn’t strong enough to kick the 2 men out, and they got lost in the crowd. i spent the entire rest of the night terrified they’d touch me again. i had to have a male friend walk me home. down my own street. in my own city. i didn’t sleep.

the next morning at my second job i broke down and cried because i felt so violated. i had to tell my male boss was happened, and he let me go home, but not before telling me “i should quit that other job.” his response was not ways in which to battle sexism in night clubs, where to seek counseling, or how men like that should be vanquished, but that i should remove MYSELF from my favorite place in the city just so things like that wouldn’t happen. boys will be boys i guess.