Bloodletting Menstruation Art by Jennifer Weigel
Let’s take a brief intermission from the creepy comic collages to talk about my show opening next weekend shall we… I have been involved in menstruation awareness and reproductive rights advocacy through my art for over a decade. Some of these pieces are very intentionally horrific, either to raise awareness of injustices that can and are occurring, or to poke fun at some perceptions associated with the supposed terrors of menstruation.
With the new show coming and considering my recent interviews with Broken Doll Head, I thought I’d share some highlights from the genre as a teaser, including this Lil Miss Spurtz video from Halloween 2017.
Lil Miss Spurtz
My persona Lil Miss Spurtz was my crass and inappropriate avatar of menstruation who appeared in a series of videos released on a schedule of… wait for it… every month. Here she is having a Psycho Carrie moment while trying to take a shower.
Relic
This sculpture incorporates a textured handmade paper moon goddess face in silver, a small jar of saffron signifying wealth, faux insects, candles, and a rubber fetus. Pro-life advocates were known to hand such rubber fetuses to women entering abortion clinics, but many have appeared in art in various forms. This is meant to remind one of the old religious collections of found objects and human bits and pieces supposedly belonging to saints, prophets, apostles and even Christ himself. I’ve always found this history both creepy and fascinating.
Death Sentence
This artwork, as seen in the recent Bodies anthology, is a more direct advocacy piece based upon the Pro-Life Nation article chronicling events that were happening in El Salvador more than two decades ago. My piece predates the overturn of Roe v Wade and focuses on some possibilities in the aftermath of such political action. It has appeared in various forms; this iteration includes a maternity shirt hung on the wall at human height with tangled fiber art accents that spill down the wall and onto the floor. Another, with the inclusion of my own menstrual blood, recently appeared in Roe 2.0 at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago IL USA.
Text reads: Gang-raped, beaten and left in a back alley to die. Pro-life nation has made it illegal to abort. The doctors say that the fetus is lodged in my fallopian tube. Carrying this child to term will most certainly kill me. This is my death sentence. My rapists, after serving only a brief time in jail, are allowed to go free.
Note: if you purchase Bodies through the link provided you will earn some money for Haunted MTL as well, and proceeds benefit charity. So Dark Lord Cthulhu says, “What are you waiting for? Shop away!”
Anyway, I wanted to share these pieces as I gear up for my next big function associated with this series of work, the release of my Ebb and Flow Journal which will be installed in Miami AZ for a year to garner donations of feminine care products for local shelters and food pantries there.
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
So here is our last installment of our AI journey exploring the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad wolf being one and the same. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva. Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this exploration if you missed them.
A non sequitur I know, but I couldn’t resist. If you picked up where we left off you’ll get it.
Seriously?! Again with the cropped off head cop out…
Finally! That was a journey. And not even worth the result, in my opinion.
Anyway, here is a bonus montage I made out of a bunch of additional Red Riding Hood prompts for an article that never happened…
Prompts for Montage:
1.) What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were one and the same being?
2.) Her wolf face peering out of her red cloak, fangs dripping with the blood of another victim, lost in the forest and never found.
3.) Little Red Riding Hood closes in for the kill, lunging from her red cloak, her wolf fangs dripping with blood.
4.) I am Little Red Riding Hood. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am coming for you.
5.) Howling within, the rage sears forth from the red cloak, discarded in the deep woods. Red Riding Hood succumbs to the lycanthropy.
6.) Heaving breaths. Dripping blood. Red Riding Hood is not what she appears. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
7.) Her red cloak masks the fangs hidden below the surface.
8.) It starts with a long sighing breath. Waiting. The wolf within stirs.
9.) Red Riding Hood trembles. She succumbs to the lycanthropy.
10.) The wolf bursts forth from within. It takes over Little Red Riding Hood’s mind, her body, her being.
11.) Red Riding Hood howls. She is ravenous with hunger for blood. The wolf within has taken over. Mind, spirit, body. She feasts on the blood of the moon.
12.) Big Bad Wolf Red Riding Hood ravenous blood moon feast
13.) Blood moon beckons. I. Little Red Big Bad Riding Hood Wolf. Freedom howling night curse.
14.) Beware. Bewolf. BeRedRidingHood. Betwixt. Beyond.
15.) I pad quietly as the forest dissolves around me. Red Riding Hood and Wolf, one and the same.
16.) Wolf within howling dark recesses of the mind, Red Riding Hood lost
17.) Red Riding Hood HOWL wolf bane true existence polymorph within-and-without.
18.) Red howl Riding Wolf dark existence brooding within
So thank you for joining us on another AI art journey. You can still catch the last AI art journey on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
