Why did you make liberty black and justice Muslim ?
So here’s a distilled explanation of Why Liberty Is Black and Why Justice Is Muslim for those who are confused by the rampant inaccuracies. I’ll spell it out.
Artistic license
I live in the US and the political landscape is a dumpster fire. This is a protest piece.
Liberty and Justice are concepts based loosely on ancient gods from a multiracial civilization. They are also deeply American concepts, and one of the great American dreams is that we are a melting pot of equality* for all races and religions.
*Terms and conditions may apply.
With the political point I’m trying to make, those 3 things are more than enough to justify this depiction. (Not that it even needs justification; it’s my personal art.)
For all of the questions I’ve gotten on this piece, 90% relate to the race/religion of Liberty and Justice. People are bothered by the perceived inaccuracies there and totally skip over the gay part. I imagine that Liberty and Justice kissing should, maybe, also be considered inaccurate because that’s actually where I took the biggest leap. I literally had no reason to do it except it’s that cute and gay and political. I personified the judicial system coming to protect the liberties of people legislatively marginalized for their race or religion…as two queer women. Yet somehow that is not the most inaccurate part to people.
No, god forbid anyone depict two //personified concepts// as nonwhite to represent and recognize the vast marginalization of POC in this country, particularly black and Muslim communities.
p.s. the fact that Libertas and Iusticia are both conceived as female by Greeks and Romans is also arbitrary maybe one or both of them are actually transwomen or genderqueer or agender because everything cultural that you hold dear is a construct have a good day
Hi @ghostlune I can see from your blog that we just think of the world in two fundamentally different ways but I don’t think that’s reason to not have a little historical education
1. French is a nationality, not a race. You can, in fact, be black and French. What I suspect you meant is “the Statue of Liberty is a white woman”.
2. Please refer to the “Educational sidebar” section above where I discuss why a nonwhite Liberty is pretty in-line with both the French and American visions of her. It has citations and everything. It’s cool, I promise.
note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway.
Also, when it comes to creative things? There really is no “better”.
Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you – you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically – but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it – even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.
I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.
And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.
Art is about connection. And the more you create, the more chance you have of finding other people who experience the world the way you do.
“But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.“ via @neil-gaiman
The “two cakes” theory of content production.
It was only yesterday that I was lamenting thing I no longer felt allowed to do because someone had done similar.
I ought to read this post daily. Maybe twice daily.
Author: darn, someone already baked a cake
Reader: *slams fist on desk*. TWO CAKES!!!! Give me all the caaaaaake!
Ramen is already awesomely delicious, but Singapore-based artist Cynthia Delaney Suwito’s Knitting Noodles project elevates delicious noodles into edible art. She took an “instant” food and put it to use in a way that requires she be patient and careful, which in turn urges the viewer to slow down as they watch the methodical noodle knitting process:
Medication is often stigmatized and that really bothers me. I’ve taken meds on and off for years to supplement my focus and combat my anxiety. I’ve adapted because of prescriptions. None of us are weak for this, we’re simply helping our brains get the chemicals they need to function better.
Steel Phoenix Studios 