Women are Magic

i.

years from now, you in a dress of duck egg blue, your ankles showing, hair a yellow frizz. laughing at my flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows. always trying to butch it for you. nails bitten to their core. voice fake-rough and spewing profanities, talking ‘bout how I want to eat you whole.

always trying to be the man you never wanted.

trying to toughen up and prove these barely-there muscles, these twiglet wrists, these birthing hips could protect you if you ever needed it.

ii.

i save your wedding photos to my desktop and consider making one my background picture. your husband is in the photo with you, but I wouldn’t notice if it weren’t for the context.

I see

only you.

glory in a white dress.

you are the most devastating thing my heart has ever known.

iii.

I’m going to beef up so much I can fight all your demons. and scare off strange men with just a grimace. and you’re going to take me home and kiss me girlish. let my hair loose from its baseball cap. remind my breasts they exist at all. oh, the things you can do with your mouth. the things you can do with your soft understanding.

how you release me like a fist that didn’t know it had been clenched so long. how you give me the freedom to give up the act.

and I do.

I melt in your hands.

I pool like rain in a pothole.

iv.

you are an awful far way away from me. you are an awful hunger. a yearning that does not take time outs. a need that takes the midnight watch every night.

this is one of many times I’ve let the ocean make a fool of me.

less of a fool, more of an animal.

more of a howl that its vastness swallows.

v.

still more years from now,

I rise like a fever when you enter a room.

I keep your wedding photo framed on our bedside table,

a reminder that you were not always mine.

Women on Walls - AKA  Sit El 7eta (in Arabic), which is about women in Egypt who are street artists 

Malina Suliman, Afghanistan — Kabul Art Project

Shamsia Hassani, Afghanistan — Kabul Art Project

Jean-Michel Basquiat — Black American Artist 

Women Street artists painting in Lima, Peru for International Women’s Day

Lee Quinones - forefather of American Street Art and Puero Rican/Latino American

LADY PINK - Latina/Ecuadoran American, you’ll know her by the “abuse of power comes as no surprise” shirt. 

Mata Ruda - also latino

El Dercetor - Peruvian Muralist/Street Artist

Tati Suarez - Latina Woman

Bastardilla - a woman from Colombia 

Fatcap is a street art website resource — I linked to Cape Town, but you can search geographically 

Global Street Art

Ralph Ziman just made the world’s largest wheat paste art in South Africa

10 women artists better than banksy check out Lady Aiko!

HAVE YOU HEARD OF SWOON?

African-American and Iranian artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh  of “STOP TELLING WOMEN TO SMILE” fame 

 Nardstar* from south africa

Zhang Dali - China

literally ANYONE BUT BANKSY

A list of female Nobel Prize laureates

A list of women CEOS of the Fortune 500

Frrida Kahlo’s style and clothing were influenced by Tehuana women (pic 1). In turn her style and her paintings has been reimagined and repurposed by everyone from individuals to fashion magazines.  In this set the style seen on Indian (2), Nigerian-Finnish* (3), Indonesian (4), Brazilian (5), Japanese (6), Korean (7) and West African (Senegal/Ivory Coast, 8) models.

My favourite interpretation is No. 8 but no doubt everyone will have their own view.

May 30th 1431: Joan of Arc burned at the stake

Designer of Ghana’s national flag dies at 92

The designer of Ghana’s national flag, Theodosia Salome Okoh, has died at age 92.

A family source pleading anonymity, confirmed the story of her passing on Sunday evening.

It said the family will meet on Wednesday, April 22, to formally announce the death.

Madam Theodosia Salome Okoh is a revered patriot and a national hero having designed the beautiful flag of the Republic of Ghana.

She is best known for designing the national flag of Ghana at Independence in 1957.This design patterned the flags of many African countries as they also gained independence from colonial rule.

She is also famous in the world of Sports for her role as the Chairman of the Ghana Hockey Association in its hectic formation years. It was during this period that the national hockey pitch, now a modern Field Hockey Stadium, was acquired and built up. She has been a patron of the Ghana Sports Writers’ Association of Ghana (SWAG) for several years.

Mrs. Theodosia Okoh comes from a Presbyterian background. Her father, the Very Reverend Emmanuel Victor Asihene, was the first African Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. She has largely successful and famous siblings and has also been a teacher, a horticulturist, and a housewife. She has three children and as many grandchildren.

Source

Though she was primarily known as the creator of Ghana’s national flag, she lived a full life and spent it inspiring many with philanthropic work and several incredible pieces of fine art. She is gone but we are still discovering just how great her effect was on Ghanaian culture.

Thank you Nana.

RIP 1922 - 2015