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Bear Witness to Your Body: a 31-day Writing and Art-Making Journey to Body Positivity

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Bear Witness to Your Body:
A 31-day Writing and Art-Making Journey towards Body Positivity

Body positivity is ultimately a personal journey, but it doesn’t have to be done alone.

Join us for Daily Art-Making and Journaling Prompts, 2 ZOOM Workshops, readings, affirmation, and motivation, with a Discord Channel to meet others on this journey, all designed towards discovering and loving your (and every) body.

Daily prompts, October 1-31
ZOOMS: Saturdays, Oct 5 and 26 — 2-5 pm EST

$120 –or $30 a week

We are given myths and distortions about our bodies, our sexuality, our desires from many places: our society, our religion, our parents, our significant relationships, our experiences.  These are messages and myths we then “embody” and take with us. Our bodies “don’t belong, don’t fit in, take up too much space.” Chairs are not big enough, clothes are not affordably made to fit us, airplane seats, theatre seats cannot contain us. We are continuously asked to control and contort our bodies. Or perhaps our face is not what others want to see, or our hairstyle, our fashion—not acceptable. We are too short, too thin, to ungainly, too much– and while we try to fit in, we “fail” to hide ourselves enough. What is an acceptable body in public?  In private? What’s acceptable sexual behavior?  How has an unspoken need for acceptance shaped our ideas of our body? How do we begin to own, respect, and love our bodies again?

We are already given plenty of ways to think about our body–but we need to see those body image messages, confront them, and replace them with true, accurate concepts of body image through our own study.

***

Often, it takes a lot of work to reshape, re-craft our physical expectations and embrace our unique bodies, genders, sexual expressions. We must change our eyes, our perceptions, our beliefs. One way to re-vision our bodies again is through art-making– painting, sculpting, music, dance, writing, photography, etc. I wrote about this in my essay, “A Fat Lot of Good That Did: How an Art Studio Transformed My Eyes,” originally published in Fat & Queer: an anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives (eds. Morales, Grimm, Ferentini. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2021). I learned a lot about my body and myself through art-making, through photography, and later through daily watercolor art. That daily practice also improved my art making skills, and my body acceptance, tremendously.

This class will take inspiration from Classical Art to contemporary art, from Bouguereau to Boudoir.  Daily, you will be invited to create art with a pen, a brush, a camera, with writing, or song, or dance, to understand the body you have better, to understand others better, and possibly to understand ourselves better. 

We can bring JOY back to our bodies and our minds.

Based on the concept of thirty day art challenges to improve skills, you will receive email prompts, from October 1-31, with links that lead to our Discord channel—with a piece of classic or contemporary art and a short reading and prompt, asking you to think about the art, or the story surrounding the art, and inviting you to choose a way to creatively express your response to the prompt—through making art, photography, or writing (or dance, song, etc.).  When you are finished with this month, you will have 31 expressions that you created that are in direct response to your personal exploration of bodies.  You do not have to use yourself as a model.  You do not have to share anything private that you are not ready to share. 

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A Fat Lot of Good That Did: How an Art Studio Opened My Eyes

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Jerome Stueart

(TW: this essay contains frank discussions about sex, sexuality, body image, religion and being queer.)

(a previous version of this essay originally appeared in Fat & Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives, ed. Morales, Grimm, Ferentini. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2021.)

I had a little art studio for one year. A place for all my paints, my canvases, my artistic dreams. A place to be alone, to create masterpieces, to rock out to music, to be myself, to grow and learn.

Then, a year later, the art studio was completely erased, as if it had never been there.

All the walls were taken down; the room became a much larger gallery. You couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it had been. If you didn’t know my window, you couldn’t see any fingerprint of where I had been.

While the studio was there, that brief year, it changed my life. It gave me a better understanding of my body — something I had never really seen before. It gave me back my sexuality — something taken from me by evangelical churches. It let me see myself as a work of Art — something I never would have believed.


While I struggled to create art, the studio worked on creating me.

For decades, Front Street Studios in Dayton, OH, had used an old Singer Sewing Machine factory as living space for artists. A set of imposing red brick buildings, some two story, some three, with giant fifteen foot windows, sat next to a very active set of railroad tracks, with a river not far away. Over a few decades, the old factory had gone to seed, become unlivable, a place for drug deals and fire hazards. A few years before I got there, it was taken over by new management. The new owners cleaned it up, bought out whoever was still there, and turned it into studio spaces for artists, with open studios twice a month where people from Dayton could come through, wine in hand, and visit your studio and buy your Art. The new owners brought in live bands outside, sold burgers and hot dogs on those open studio days. You’d never have known the place was abandoned and trashed just a few years before.

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Code Red

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Sometimes a work lands in the middle. In between interpretations. In between certainty of which way it might lean.

I shared my painting, “Code Red,” to a friend to look at it. She teaches Feminist Literature. “These Red Riding Hoods aren’t afraid anymore!” she said. But then the wolf looked petrified and worried. Surprised even. Sixteen red riding hoods surround him. Film him. Report him.

She could feel for the wolf too. The “red hoods” seem aggressive. Or are they just empowered? We felt like this picture might be a Rorschach test for gender studies. I can see how the woods aren’t safe for a wolf any more. I can also see that any girl can walk her path without fear. She said, “or are they ignoring a danger? Are they underestimating? Are they too cozy?”

Is the wolf performing for the camera? Why are two of the Red Hoods looking unhappy? Has the wolf done anything?

We didn’t know. I didn’t know.

“The artist is supposed to know,” she said.

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The Bliss Before the Ruckus is Worth it

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“The Bliss before the Ruckus,” Jerome Stueart, artist, 11 x 15, watercolor, pen and ink on cold press watercolor paper. 300


STAY IN THE BLISS as long as you can.

Some things you just have to do— even if you know the next moment is going to be chaos. Even if the thing you want to do is going to CAUSE that chaos. That could be a little fun….

What happens next in this picture may not be as important as what is being experienced RIGHT NOW that makes the chaos worth it.

In “The Bliss Before the Ruckus”, we see a dog mid-jump to a big comfy bed where a cat is asleep—and here’s that one beautiful moment when they are flying, the sun hitting their face, the wind in their fur, and they know a soft landing, some bounce, and a pleasurable sleep on the bed is theirs!

Take a chance today. Try something you haven’t tried before. Be risky, but smart.

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MY PATREON

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Hairy Fairies in the gardens! The Gardens of the Mythbegotten, my current name for this little bit of joy and peace in the midst of 2020 chaos, is the Patreon place where I create small watercolor paintings of fairies playing and misbehaving and having a great time. Occasionally satyrs, Minotaurs, centaurs join them…. and it’s light hearted. I sell the paintings, and I also have really cool incentives to stay in the gardens for awhile.

Leaf-Surfing!

Here are some of the things you can get:

  • All the photos of my paintings as they are completed. You’ll see them first before I post them on Facebook or Squarespace or Redbubble so that if you want to buy one, you can. You get first choice.
  • Process photos—how I make them and what my thoughts were going into the painting.
  • Little meditations on art (famous art, but also my friends’ art because they deserve some cool essays AND you get to find out about art you might not know about that is deserving a look!
  • Weekly Tarot for Creators—a spread of cards for your week as a creator, with enough to inspire your work, OR to give you a head’s up about the week AS a creator. What energies are there for you as a creator?
  • At some levels you get a card mailed to you every month, a print, of one of the paintings.
  • Time-lapse videos of a painting
  • Stickers!
  • Stories about the Gardens with new illustrations
  • T-shirts, mugs, buttons!
  • Commissioned pieces!

These gardens are queer friendly, racially diverse, age diverse, and body diverse, and sex positive. While there are no depictions of sex happening—the often nude bodies and playfulness of characters suggest it happens. 

For $1 a month, you can have my pictures emailed to you, and the other tiers are affordable for so much garden goodies! Check out the Patreon and see what’s happening in the Garden!

Patreon.com/jeromestueart

Original Art Available on Squarespace

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I have put my available original artwork on Squarespace. All my watercolors of fairies in the garden, Gardens of the Mythbegotten, and all the Yukon Cornelius paintings as well as my more controversial paintings of police action in Columbus.

You can follow the link to Squarespace here.

Remember too, that if you want any of these images on magnets, buttons, aprons, pillows, journals, that you can follow my link to Redbubble here.

Why Pilgrimages Can Be Good For Us: My Pilgrimage to the Brandywine Museum of Art

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Me geeking out at the NC Wyeth Exhibit at Brandywine Museum in Chadd’s Ford, PA.

I have been a big admirer of the works of NC Wyeth for a long time. You might remember his illustrations from your favorite classic YA adventure novels (now assigned texts in college 19th Century and turn of the century literature classes), books like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans, A Boy’s King Arthur, Kidnapped, The Yearling, Robin Hood, The Deerslayer, etc. Very popular books in the early 20th Century with themes and storylines still made into movies today.

I loved his style! BIG color, lots of drama, action, adventure, stunning landscapes. I wished I could paint like that ever since I saw my first Wyeth up close at Texas Tech University. But I was a cartoonist at the time, and an occasional portrait artist, and I was working towards a PhD in Creative Writing. I wasn’t thinking of myself as an Artist, nor was I think of myself as an Artist who was going to study Wyeth.

As a gay man, growing up so Other from other boys, I had a peculiar relationship with the World of Boys and Men (which I will write about more in a later post) and that was a world that belonged to Wyeth as well. I had felt excluded for a long time from that world, and made up for it by being in other worlds. But I lingered outside the borders often and looked in at Things Which Were Not For Me.

So I pursued writing and teaching as a career, making art wait.

But in the last few years, my teaching situation changed, and it was difficult to find work as an adjunct teacher. I also continued to almost make it in the job market for tenure track positions. So i decided to make a change in my life–to build my art career–because I needed the money, a new source of income, and my art had waited long enough.

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To Take Their Breath Away

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To Take Their Breath Away (Spiritus Eorum Auferte), 36 x 48 acrylic.

It is difficult to know how to address the current situation, how to speak out against the police violence and purposeful escalation of violent action against peaceful protesters, angry protesters, and protesters in the street speaking out against police brutality. They are often met with police brutality.

I’ve watched too many videos where police drag a protester into the middle or catch one on the side and physically assault them while they are “arresting” them. All the other officers crowd around the officer beating someone to make sure no one else interferes. They all cover each other.

It’s protected assault.

Officers have “qualified immunity” from work related violence that they do as part of their job. If they can say they needed to do it, then they can do it. They never have to be held criminally liable. Oh they MAY get fired, but then transferred to a new precinct, a new city, ready to start the abuse over again.

The Blue Code, the Blue Shield, Blue wall of silence, or other names, is an unwritten code of conduct that police officers buy into—protecting each other’s abusive or illegal activity. Even if they go in with the best of intentions, they will end up following the code and not turning in other officers, not speaking out, for fear of what might happen to them.

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The Further Adventures of Yukon Cornelius

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Today I want to share with you work that I completed while at the Columbus College of Art and Design, and which would have been part of the Columbus Arts Festival 2020 in June (but WILL be part of the festival in 2021!)

I fell in love late in life with a character from a Christmas special: Yukon Cornelius, created by Romeo Muller as part of the 1964 Rankin/Bass production of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”–a stop motion special that is shown every Christmas. You might recognize the character:

Burly, positive, full of helpful asides “Bumbles Bounce!” and “the fog is as thick as peanut butter!”–Yukon helps our heroes realize their dreams by a) saving them from the Abominable Snowmonster, b) taking them to the Island of Misfit Toys to carry a message to Santa to come get these toys and pair them up with kids and c) reforming said Abominable Snowmonster and making him tame, and cool for Christmas Parties.

***

I don’t know why Yukon stayed with me. It might be that I went to live in the Yukon for nearly 10 years. I mushed some dogs (tbh, only as a one-day fun thing in Inuvik, NWT–though I attended and watched the Yukon Quest as much as I could), and spent time out in the wilderness. But I also lived in the great city of Whitehorse being a friend and misfit to a lot of other friends and misfits, who are also great musicians, artists, talented amazing people.

undefined Maybe it was that Yukon was very burly, and I was attracted to him, or even attracted to the kind of man he represented–a big “bear”. He seemed like a better version of a male hero than I had previously encountered. Though he had a gun, I don’t think he ever shot it. He was practical, helpful, encouraging. He had a lot of knowledge about Abominable Snowmonsters! And he was much more interested in saving people than in killing monsters. In the end, because Bumbles bounce!–Yukon and Bumble somehow come to an understanding. Bumble is just another misfit that needs to find his right place… and he does, next to the Christmas tree.

In another post, I will tell you more about that Queering the Hero journey I made–and continue to make. But here are my paintings, extrapolating three things:

  1. Yukon Cornelius could be gay. People have commented before on the queer undertones of the show–read the articles here from Vulture, and KQED and in 2019 The New York Times opinion page—- about themes of bullying, about being different, about being rejected, about finding acceptance for your unique qualities. Romeo Muller was himself gay. It’s not a stretch to see the queercoding in the show. Making Yukon Cornelius gay is not a stretch either, since he doesn’t make mention of a wife, and reads as what we would call a “bear” today–a burly, bearded, slightly overweight, slightly hyper-masculine man.
  2. Yukon has a way of charming beasts. His expert past knowledge of the Abominable Snowmonster speaks to prior run-ins with “Bumble”—and then he is able to tame and speak to the Bumble (who miraculously grows back his teeth in the final few minutes of the special!)
  3. Yukon deserved more of an adventurous life.

So, I created that life for him–and for me. The copyright on characters from this movie had a misprint in it, making all characters in public domain (outside of Rudolph who had prior copyright). So I adopted Yukon as my hero and gave him a life of meeting cryptids (Bigfoot, Mothman, sea monsters, etc.) Using acrylic and myself as a reluctant model–or at times a stand-in, I painted these paintings. (side note: I’d planned to have several cooler guys than me become Yukon for these paintings–but planning photo shoots was not easy.)

So if you’ve always wanted a rollicking adventuresome gay hero, I offer you Yukon Cornelius–rescuing, negotiating, protecting, singing, reading, allowing himself to be loved.

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All the Perks from my Patreon Page

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As many of you know, I was an adjunct teacher (former lecturer, visiting professor, etc) for many (20+) years, and I’ve decided to go back to grad school to pick up more skills for commercial illustration. It’s a practical application of something I love anyway, but it allows me to illustrate my own works and the works of others.

While I’m in grad school, I have taken out some more loans to live on (and pay tuition and fees)—which add to my debt. It’s a gamble I’m taking on myself. I’m excited about winning this bet on me! I believe this is the right choice for me right now.

But I have no false ideas about how the next two years will go financially–they may be bumpy, but probably no worse than they’ve been. I have secured at least one teaching gig for the fall, and hopefully more will come if they like what I do. But money will probably still be tight, and after the two years is over, I lose all that funding.

I’ve decided to start up a Patreon page for those who want to get special perks and help out an artist/writer while they retrain/ expand their skills and as they make a transition into their industry.

On that page, I will be offering not only news and excerpts from writing and art, but at different levels you will be able to:

  • see all my art I produce at CCAD
  • read a serialized, illustrated space opera created just for Patrons.
  • watch writing videos that answer questions you have about writing
  • purchase critiques of your writing, up to 20 pages a month from me
  • get reading lists and recommendations of people to read and follow
  • signed copies of my books
  • have portraits painted of people you love (up to 4 a year)
  • I give 10% of what I earn back into the Patreon pages of other queer artists/writers. As I rise, they rise. And I will post blog posts here about those I support on Patreon.

If you are interested in joining my adventure, please click on the picture below and it will take you to my Patreon page where you can sign up!

You do NOT have to support my Patreon to be my friend. Following me on Facebook you’ll still be able to follow my life and work, but Patreon offers many specific, special perks for those who do want to help out. I will not be upset at all if you can’t afford to help, or don’t want to participate in a Patreon. No worries. I’m so happy to have supportive friends who give me cheer, love, companionship, and a good ear when I need them! That’s what’s most important to me.

If you would like the perks from this Patreon account, consider clicking on the image above and becoming part of this journey in Columbus with me!