Perfect and Poisonous

INSIDE ISSUE 53 // What’s the most misunderstood part of being a professional artist? "How many hats we wear. It’s lovely to imagine an art career as tapping into a flow state every day in a beautiful studio, The End. And true, getting to do what we love as a job is the best part. But to make it a living means running a business. We’re our own social media managers, agents, marketing strategists, publicists. We design our websites and manage sales. So much of what we do, we do ourselves, and that’s without counting making the actual art. The toughest part of the job can be reminding ourselves that not only do we deserve breaks, we need them; when your brain and body are the factory, self care is mandatory work."

Read about @dorywhynot [2024 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, Honourable Mention] and her work in the June issue of Beautiful Bizarre art magazine.

OP: "Do you know how test papers used to be printed?"

This is a mimeograph, a method of printing brought to China around 1900 and widely used thoughout during the 20th century due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Due to technological advancements, it fell out of use near the end of the century. Characters are carved onto a sheet of wax lithographing paper with a stylus. Where the pen presses down on the paper, the wax is scratched off, so when printing, the oil-based ink will seep through onto the white paper.

The Black Sun, Bill Mayer, 2017

I thought about just tagging this 'nuff said, but it's not.

I want to say something to all of the women under 50 on this site. Ready? You do not have to be over 50 to start taking up space.

@post-brahminism check it

I always love the og zoot suits made by black americans in Harlem, I really like looking at the changes from these clothes from the 30s to some of the more exaggerated renditions from the 40s. It's also so interesting to look at how fast the subculture spread, and especially in the american west integrated with mexican diaspora and pachuco culture to the point that that's what a lot of usamericans associate them with.

⬆️ long wallet chains and pork pie hats were classic accessories for mexican diaspora zoot suiters. Zoot suits/their components were also really popular with women and were a way to symbolize independence and a choice to move away from strict gender roles on top of the existing countercultural message ⬇️

Anyways it's kind of impossible to talk about zoot suits without mentioning the racism and violence that followed them. On top of a zoot suit making someone a target for individual racial violence, the national reaction of white america to zoot suit culture was part of the beginning of clothing and presentation being read explicitly as signals by police and justice systems, and the broad association of youth of color with gang violence through this specific excuse. Gang culture and how it's percieved in the western US and especially California is very influenced by this era. The most famous events from the zoot suit era are the collective zoot suit riots and the media characterization of all mexican american, filipino american, and black american youth as violent anti-american baby gangsters. Which, even if that was broadly true I mean. I'll take the opportunity to be flippant hell yeah??

As a side note, while making more new zoot suits during war rationing was pretty sick, most people weren't buying from the black market tailor shops and just wore what they already owned because the style had been popular for years already. People bought clothes less often to begin with back then. I think that misconception comes from the reasoning white americans gave to go beat up people of color with baseball bats in the street; i.e. it was racial and xenophobic violence to begin with and the nature of the suits themselves has been mushed around a lot to serve different narratives.

More zoot suits! ⬇️

Do not doubt that I am a goddess, a force of nature, a reckoning.