We Stand

Thank you, Marilyn Wann and all her photoshopping volunteers for putting together this project.  It means a lot to us to be able to take a stand.

If you haven't already donated to Ragen Chastain's fundraiser to put billboards up in Atlanta, GA protesting fat-shaming of children, they still need a few hundred donors to get a giant matching donation!  You can donate as little as a dollar, or as much as you'd like.  This is some real, tangible, and awesome public activism that you can be a part of. 

More information can be found at her blog Dances With Fat.

Fat Positive Images: Les Toil

 "Nikki" by Les Toil (from http://www.toilgirls.com/pinups/nikki.html)

Les Toil is a graphic artist who features bold, confident and whimsical pin-up images of large women. (Note: many pictures in his gallery are NSFW) Actual large women, as in portraits!  It's fascinating to go through his gallery and see a photo of the actual model alongside the piece.  He tries to capture her personality in the setting, not just her body.  You can get your own portrait created ($$$!) or just peruse his pin-ups for a mood boost. 

His work should be familiar to those in the FA community, as he's designed promotional posters for the dance company Big Moves and Logo/advertising art for a range of Fat-positive companies such as BBW Travel, Chicago BBW, and Torrid.  He's also the artist behind the graphic novel "Shmobots". 

Fat Positive Images: The Full Body Project

 (#59, Full Body Project, Leonard Nimoy Photography)

 http://www.leonardnimoyphotography.com/7body.htm

Leonard Nimoy's  The Full Body Project is a fantastic collection of fat women (mainly nudes, but I did find one relatively work-safe example to include!  Link is NSFW)  Whatever his motivation or reaction to the media criticism of this project, the photos of the women involved are every bit as strong, confident, joyful and gorgeous as their real selves. My favorite is of the women dancing in a circle (3rd row on first page of the website).  They're just having so much fun it makes me want to be there with them, in all their unapologetically naked, fat glory. 

Fat Positive Images: Fernando Botero Angulo

(Picnic 1998, by Fernando Botero)

Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian painter and sculpter born in 1932 in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia.  His art features large figures of both people and animals. 

Images from Google 

When asked why he chose to paint the "fat people"  his response was, “An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.”  (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Botero) 

I love his paintings of fat couples, in love, seductive, happy!  His nudes are bold and confident, sensual and beautiful.  He's very much worth discovering if you haven't encountered his work before.

Fat Positive Images: Sir Peter Paul Rubens

This series is an attempt to collect positive portrayals of fat men and women in art, media and life. 

I doubt there's many fat women in the world who haven't at one point or another heard the term "Rubenesque" applied to them.  Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish painter in the 17th century who frequently painted large men and women, frequently nudes, in sensuous detail. Every bulge and wrinkle is recorded and the whole is beautiful pieces of art with the bodies of real people.  Perusing his works is an excellent antidote to the airbrushed fantasy people often pictured today. 

Technically the term should be Rubensesque (Rubens-esque), but the first s is often dropped for easier pronnounciation (Ruben-esque).  The camp is split between those who think saying Rubensesque is grammatically correct, and those who think it's simply pretentious :-)

Fat Positive Images: The Adipositivity Project

This series of posts is my attempt to collect a lot of links where you (and I) can find positive portrayals of fat people in media and life. 

Today I want  to feature the Adipositivity Project  (warning; photos are generally not safe for work).  This is a project by artist and photographer Substantia Jones. who seeks to expand the cultural perceptions and definitions of beauty to include the fat body.  Most photos focus on just a glimpse; a breast, a back, an arm.  It took me a while to really appreciate this project, because it's more straightforward, in a way, than I was comfortable with at first.  Normally a photograph of a fat woman attempts to "hide" certain body parts and emphasize what is conventionally beautiful (eyes, hair, breasts).  It attempts to normalize her.  The adipositivity project takes the parts we're most interested in hiding and displays them as beautiful, right alongside the conventionally beautiful.  A single fat roll.  A thigh.  A belly. 

I highly recommend the site because it challenges our own body preconceptions. 

Body Positive: Men in Full

I know I've mentioned it before, but today in my series on positive fat imagery I'm re-introducing the LiveJournal blog Men in Full.  Owner Stef posts images of fat men ranging from classical art to current events.  She focuses on re-defining cultural associations with large men by showing them as strong, beautiful, powerful, kind, respected and/or sensual.  I love her interpretation of the images, pulling the piece together with the positive attributes of the men.  She also chooses interesting images to show in the first place.  There's naturally some nudity in the classical art, but she posts the rare picture that might be interpreted as "adult" under a NSFW cut. 

Many of us not currently visually impaired are greatly affected by what we see.  Advertisers count on their images making more impact than their words.  This series is to help stock up a collection of positive fat imagery to boost mood when the media barrage gets overwhelming. 

Body Positive: The Museum of Fat Love

I've decided to start incorporating some FA messages back into regular postings, as a way to tie it into the happiness project.  I'm going to focus on positive messages, and begin with positive images.

Today I'm focusing on The Museum of Fat Love.  It was started by Lesley, who put together submissions from real people in happy moments with their partners.  This amazing project proves that our bodies are not a barrier to finding happiness.  Click on each thumbnail to see the couple's story.  The photos are work-safe (i.e. no nudity or adult content). 

Beyond just the message, the very act of looking at and reading about happy people can sometimes give your mood a boost.  So give the site a try when you need an antidote for the barrage of fat negativity.