The Life and Death of The Bearded Woman
2024
The Life and Death of The Bearded Woman is a part of my ongoing body of work, I Was Here – The Bearded Woman, which is about my experience as a woman with polycystic ovarian syndrome and lipedema.
In the early 2023 creation of The Bearded Woman, I focused on accepting my newfound PCOS diagnosis through body positivity. Now, a year later, I have shifted to a darker, more frustrated mindset where I am actively pursuing ultimate body neutrality, which entails thinking about the way I will no longer be required to hold any aesthetic merit when I am deceased and imagining myself as a cortical homunculus.
This web of thoughts and resentment has built up to me feeling as though I’m screaming into the void, “Do you fear me? Do I turn you on? Just look at me, damnit, witness me in all my horrifying glory. Look at these parts that you’ve asked me to hide, look at how they’re burying me alive.”
This sub-series is the accumulation of my paradoxical chasing of stereotypical erotic, feminine beauty while being somebody who could be categorized as a freak circus attraction.
To read more about polycystic ovarian syndrome (a chronic hormone disorder) and the way it affects myself and 10% of other women, please refer to my I Was Here – The Bearded Woman artist statement.
Y-Shaped Incision, Untitled (Willow), White Flag, Vagina Dentata One, and Do You Fear Me? Do I Turn You On? are alternative process prints utilizing my menstrual blood gum bichromate print formula.
Autopsy:
my vessel is dying – and it’s out of my control
my vessel of pleasure, of divine feminine power, of agony, of flesh; molded from soil and sand, hand planted in nebraska
what will i look like when i’m dead, when i’m being propagated in preparation for replanting? on the autopsy table will my face sag, my skin pucker, my jaw collapse in on itself?
will they remove my tampon for me? i hope i remembered to trim my pubic and toe hair
who will i become on the autopsy table?
the true me that i’ve always tried to hide? a reborn me? a one-with-the-earth, fuck-what-society-thinks me?
i will no longer be able to stick out my jaw in effort to hide my double chin
i will no longer be able to make sure my breasts lay evenly
my stomach will droop, my inner thigh fat will protrude
i will germinate and compost
my skin will slough off, my fat will melt, and
my pearly bones and teeth will finally greet mother earth after being encased in flesh for so long
why do i hate them so much if they aren’t eternal anyways?
lay me gently alongside the others in the body farm, let me rest on a bed of moss, let me help science,
let me wilt the way it was intended
now i lay me down to sleep,
i pray the lord my soul to keep
his love be with me through the night
and wake me with the morning light
and if i die before i wake
i pray the lord my soul to take
in jesus’ name
amen