#woman code

Yoruba women wearing their secrets. Works from works from Ade Asikò Okelarin exhibition Conversations + The Woman Code at Gallery of African Art.

Ìjàpà, 2016

Erin, 2016

Stolen Identities, 2018

So I was reading this book ^^ and it had a brief section explaining how your energy levels thoughout the month reflect the seasons. Listen...y’all this has changed my LIFE! Track it, try it and thank me later.

Phase 1 - Spring - Blossoming and Blooming 

Week after your period 

You feel revitalized and full of energy.

You want to be social and think “What can I create, start, or do?”

Great time to start a new kickass workout class or take a risk.

Phase 2 - Summer - Connecting

Ovulation (about 4 days of your cycle)

Hello sexual tension!!!

You feel like if someone doesn’t pick up the phone you’re gonna scream

All about expression and giving. Like all the fruits and veggies of your life are in season.

Great time to have important conversations, date, and go beast mode with all that tension

Phase 3 - Fall/Autum - Harvest and Store 

About a week and a half out of your month

It’s a time to celebrate all the hard work you’ve put in and all you’ve achieved. 

Start becoming more inwardly focused, notice you’ll start nesting and cleaning/organizing your home and your life around this time. 

You feel less committed to seemingly everything.

CRAVINGS! Both for food and for closeness of loved ones

Fantastic time for lighter commitments and fitness, not feeling guilty for not returning calls, and heartier food. Your body can handle a little more calories of comfort food in preparation for your period.

Phase 4 - Winter - LADY TIME

The week of your period

Do nothing, and enjoy it!

Just like in actual winter, hibernation is an important part of the ebb and flow of your monthly energy. Relish in the rest. Do only what you need to do.

Awesome time to get in tune with your gut feelings and intuition. Lots of heavy thinking and planning for what you can do next month. 

 I’ve used this to help better plan out my life around my natural energy flows. I avoid the scale in phase 3 and 4. I shop in phase 1 and 2. I clean and sort in phase 3. I reach out to my network in phase 1 and 2. It all helps me have control in my life. I hope it helps you guys! 

My work can be very confessional to the point of being overshare. Over recent years, it has featured my journey with mental health. Also, the keeping of a video diary during the covid years - this is no longer available online.

As someone who wants to develop professionally (in a non Art related field), I realize that artwork posted online can be taken out of context. Also, not everyone is your friend, or has good intentions.

My work can be a little sensitive and divisive at times.

This week, I presented some new work to a group of my Artist friends. It is very much in the early/experimental stage - it also provoked a range of reactions.

The discussion was interesting. We spoke about 1960's/1970's Feminism, also the idea of controlling the context in which the work is viewed, and how to display the work within the gallery setting. The work is very organic in it's look, and the way it was produced.

My takeaway from the discussion is that I need to work out what I want the work to say. I did have a working title, but I now want to change it - I feel the title, along with how I display the work, can be used to guide a diologue. But what diologue do I want people to have?

For me, while I was creating the work, I was thinking about my femininity and how I can connect with myself and the natural cycles of things on a deeper level.

I have been reading 'Woman Code' recently. Although it is inspiring, there is actually so much work to do in order to live in a way that is more aligned to my body and hormone cycles. I was hoping this book would help me feel more connected. I was also watching some YouTube videos by Teal Swan about honoring my femininity. Some of the things I have learned are easy enough to maintain, however, others are too costly/time consuming and impractical for me at the moment.

I think I need to keep making the work and just see where it ends up. Usually, when I create, I hit a stage where the work tells me what it wants me to do.

In what the authors are claiming is the largest-scale study of gender bias to date, researchers in the US have found that code written by female programmers is rated more highly than code written by men.

But this higher rating – based on code acceptance from other coders – is lost when female programmers publicly identify their gender online, with acceptance of their contributions then falling below the acceptance level of code written by men.