Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

This (NSFW or the blood-averse) story about a man who waited in line at a gallery signing to injure himself illustrates how art has taken the place of religion for many in the present-day. In the Middle Ages, this man might have run into a church or sought out a holy person of some description before whom to act out his demons (demons being a now-dead metaphor that has its roots in real beliefs). Had he not sought such a figure on his own, those around him might have dragged him there. I don’t think we’re quite to that stage, however.

His actions, too, resemble the mortification of the flesh practiced by so many Christian Saints. In particular, I was reminded of St. Simeon Stylites who allowed maggots to feed on his self-inflicted open wounds When one fell off, he would replace it, saying “Eat what God has given you!” He lived in the late days of the Roman Empire but remained a model for asceticism for centuries thereafter.

Ariana Page Russell makes art with her skin; she uses her body’s tendency to overreact to touch, to rise up in welts at the faintest pressure, to adorn herself with designs and then take photographs of them. Sometimes these are displayed on their own, other times the photographs are used to create wallpaper patterns or other arrangements. ”I am investigating where one surface ends and another begins, the bloom of adornment, and how shifting exteriors reveal as they conceal.”

Terrain Too

Doctors often recommend steroids or antihistamines to treat dermatographia, the condition that allows Russell to make these designs. Instead, she has chosen to use her difference to make art, to explore the possibility and transferability of skin. This latter is especially apparent in the work that includes temporary tattoos via the process described here by the artist:

Scanning the cut photographs of my skin adapted from clothing and wallpaper, I turn them into temporary tattoos, affixing them to my body. These tattoos become an intimate fashion, as their own sort of clothing, and an additional translucent layer for the fashion of skin. Some of the tattoos also go on the wall or window after they’ve made contact with my body, leaving traces of cells and hair, and holding a record of skin’s map.

Have you ever laughed in an art museum?

Too often, the institutional fact of a museum leads to whispers and an assumed seriousness that doesn’t match the lightheartedness or bitter humor originally bestowed on the works therein. People are intimidated or are trying to demonstrate their deep appreciation for art in a socially sanctioned vein.

When I went to the Yoko Ono retrospective at the SFMOMA, I found the works in one gallery to be particularly amusing, so I asked aloud why no one was laughing. I wasn’t trying to cause trouble or to make social commentary: I was genuinely perplexed. The value of my asking aloud soon became apparent, however, when a much older woman thanked more for saying that because she had been too scared to laugh.

This sort of incident is not rare in my life. It is caused, in part by a combination of my being an aspie (which means there are a lot of social norms I simply do not grasp) and not particularly caring if people think I’m odd or uncouth. I mention the story of the Yoko Ono retrospective as a preface to expressing how saddened I was to learn that Yoko Ono has chosen to support Autism Speaks with her art.

Who I am as an artist and as a viewer of art has been shaped by the dis-order (note: I like to call myself disordering rather than disordered) that Autism Speaks seeks to “cure”. Yoko Ono’s art has also inspired my own artistic practices. It’s a pity that there should now be irony in both those statements being true.

Since the UN focus for International Women’s Day is ending violence against women and girls, I thought I would expand today on my reasons for wanting non-violent metaphors for creativity. It isn’t just my personal disgust with violence. The simple fact is that valuing and normalizing violence, as using it as a metaphor for artistic creation does, is not transgressive; it is neither daring or brave. We live in a society in which violence, especially violence against women, is the norm. 

War is all around us, whether you live in an invader nation as I do, in one that has been invaded, or in a land in which the story is far more complicated than that. Rape is a weapon of war, as well as something done in private bedrooms by the men women believed they could trust most or by on-duty policemen to vulnerable women. Crowds come forward to defend public figures accused of rape. Policemen attack teenage girls in custody. Children are allowed if not encouraged to beat up peers who express gender in an atypical way. When celebrities stand accused of domestic violence, people worry if their careers will survive and assume that the victim must have done something to cause the violence.

Violence is the accepted norm to which artists must create in opposition. This does not mean that you cannot portray violence in your work, for the portrayal of violence properly done can be a profoundly anti-violent act. The key is not to enact or give worth to violence as you do so. Understanding your process in non-violent terms is only the beginning.

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• Amnesty UK’s International Women’s Day campaign this weekend (boingboing.net)
• International Women’s Day 2009 (iamlove.blogspot.com)
• International Women’s Day (fightingmonsters.wordpress.com)
• Plan to warn women of violent men (guardian.co.uk)
• Sarah’s Social Action Snapshot: Stop Violence Against Women Day (takepart.com)
• Speak: Radical Women of Color Media (bilerico.com)
• Plan to warn women of violent men (guardian.co.uk)
• UN urges end to abuses of women (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Sarah Tofte: Violence Against Women: These Numbers Require Action (huffingtonpost.com)
• Maria Eitel: What Does International Women’s Day Mean If You’re a Girl? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Rape risk increasing in Cambodia (news.bbc.co.uk)