Finally

This whole week I have been brainstorming over the theme of the photo series, asking various creative individuals such as teachers and friends. Maybe it was a compilation of all their thoughts, but I was enlightened with an idea that entails numerous societal aspects, including nature, femininity, and personas. My photo series will be called Lady Earth, there will be four models each representing an element, water, earth, air, and fire. I will choose each model according to personalities. The elements represent different aspects of those people whom identify as a woman, it is also an analogy for women's crucial role in society. The woman creates life in the same manner of the elements. 

FIRE

SARA LINDE 

PERSONALITY: DARING, PASSIONATE, OUTSPOKEN, COURAGE, IMMODERATE

SETTING: PARKING LOT, ROOFTOP

AIR

SOL WEMAN

PERSONALITY: INDEPENDENCE, DILIGENCE, JOY, CLARITY

SETTING:BRIDGE/MOUNTAIN                             

EARTH 

BIANCA BUTLER 

PERSONALITY: PERSERVERANCE, RESISTANCE, AMBITIOUS,RELIABILITY

SETTING: EVERGLADES 

WATER

ANA CARDENAS 

PERSONALITY:UNDERSTANDING, PLACIDITY, MODEST, INDIFFERENCE 
SETTING: BEACH, LAKE, POND 

Www.poznanie.sk. "Fire, Water, Air, Earth." Fire, Water, Air, Earth. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

INDECISIVE AND CONFUSED

"Feminism has done a lot for women, right? And it’s changed a lot too. After three waves of bickering over what is and isn’t appropriate patriarchy-dismantling conduct, the movement has now adopted a more laissez-faire attitude towards women’s behaviour: Fuck the Madonna/whore complex, the fourth wave declares, and put it in a NutriBullet. Fuck the housewife/CEO binary and the girly girl/tomboy dichotomy. Women can be sexual or puritanical or maternal or spawn-phobic or heavily made-up or #nomakeup or waxed or shaved or any number and mixture of things once categorised as either patriarchy-sanctioned or patriarchy-condemned. It’s all OK! You can be cheer captain and on the bleachers! Radical softness! Woo!"


This excerpt from a magazine article on Dazed magazine has inspired one of my photo series ideas which is depicting different stereotypes of women viewed in society, specifically media. It would explore female archetypes  such as housewife, CEO, etc.


I also have another idea of depicting working class women in Miami, mainly Latinx and Black women that transcend struggle. The photos will comment on society's treatment of working class women and their hardships. 


?????????????????? help

NEW IDEAS!

So I've been researching feminist photography!!!! 

I have found much of inspiration in photograhers such as Bettye Lane, she is responsible for documenting much of the 1960s-70s protests such as the Stonewall protests which is where the gay liberation movement began! 

Lane also, however, was strongly interested in the women's movement, and would document everything from marches and placards to the first female bus driver in New York and portraits of Gloria Steinem. If there was one documenter of the history of first and second-wave feminism in America, it was Lane.





Another great inspiration is Abigail Heyman, she was known best for her 1974 book, 'Growing Up Female: A Personal Photo-Journal,' a sort of illustrated encyclopedia of women performing self-limiting roles. The collection was filled with images of suffocating domesticity, from women in curlers to suffering mothers to Heyman herself having an abortion. The series gave Heyman her lifelong reputation as a feminist talent, and Growing Up Female remains a classic that every American woman should see at least once.





My research has inspired me to make a decision... I will no longer be doing an opinion piece, instead I will be producing a photo series that will transcend a message of feminism and female empowerment!!!


Thorpe, JR. "9 Powerful Feminist Photo Series You Need To Know About." Bustle. Bustle, 12 July 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Bunch of bAD nEWS

I am feeling unmotivated and uninspired. 

My teacher told me I can not publish my friend's work on my magazine :( 

Therefore, no more poetry or art. Curse these guidelines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYWHO, I will be doing an opinion piece instead, it will be titled "Feminism in Trump's America"

that will explore how to stay empowered under Trump's administration. I wish to explore current issues in feminism such as equal pay and planned parenthood.  

Here are some things to take into account: 

• One of Trump’s first executive orders prohibits the granting of federal US funds to organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion-related counseling abroad. This measure was widely condemned in the United States and worldwide.
• Trump’s administration has already ordered the defunding of organizations that support women’s right to choose, his Vice President led the anti-abortion march and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives voted against funding Planned Parenthood 

I am also planning on aiding the piece with a photo shoot that will ooze female empowerment, I will be taking the pictures of my friends the photoshoot will be inclusive of all body shapes, races, and ethnicities!!!!! 

:/ 



Murillo, Celeste. "The Failure of Liberal Feminism in the Trump Era." Left Voice. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

sup...

Hi I played around with joomag which is the magazine creator platform i'll be using, and jesus it is not as easy as it seems.

I wanted to take the time to develop an outline.


COVER

• illustration 
• will have no coverlines nor selling lines 
• will only have a masthead 
• 
• most of the magazines that have inspired mine do not have coverlines, i believe it follows my aesthetic better 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• two page spread, there will be an about page that will contain information on the magazine sort of explaining its philosophy and aims 
• the about page will be on the left side of the table of contents 
• about page will include how the magazine came to be 
• table of contents will be a simple page outlining the features of the magazine
• poetry by sol weman 
• art by sara linde 
• art by maria morales 
• essay by karla zurita 
• photograph series 
• women in Trump's America
• outlines several political issues and how it affects women 
• 

EDITOR'S NOTE

• I want to include an editor's note that will be my personal thoughts about the magazine and why I decided to do it.

TWO-PAGE SPREAD?

• After the editor's note i'd want the next thing to be the poem by sol accompanied by a drawing on the left hand side that will represent the poem 
• 

i MAY be adding too many things however I'd like it to end with a double pagespread sheet of a photoshoot of my girl friends

YAY!!!

Hi guys, I have talked to my friend Veronica Bello who is an artist and she gave me permission use her illustrations in my magazine.

THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!

I will be using one of her illustrations for my cover page :)

The illustrations embrace femininity, which is why the complement my magazine so well.


I am going to play around with joomag and will see which illustration fits the cover the best.
 

Talkin Business

Ok its time to get serious.

Thus far I've been brainstorming and getting my thoughts together, so now I want to sort of try to organize my thoughts?


If possible...

I just subscribed to Dissent magazine so I can see more of their work! Hopefully that will inspire me into developing a plan for my layout.

Basically, so far I have two ideas for the cover of my magazine it could be an illustration or an aesthetically pleasing picture of a girl(s).

I have also talked to my friend who writes poetry and she sent me a poem that perfectly goes with my magazine, and it will be featured in the magazine.
 

The poem reflects burdens women inherit, speaking out against gender roles and what it means to be a woman. The layout design for the poem will look something like this 




ILLUSTRATION INSPIRATIONS
. 


PHOTOGRAPHS INSPIRATIONS

Fisher, Lauren Alexis. "The Rising Feminist Magazines You Need to Start Reading." Harper's BAZAAR. Harper's BAZAAR, 22 Nov. 2016. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Feeling Sad But Happy

Hi humans!!!!!!!


I was supposed to go to the ACLU Women's Resist training to take some pictures and maybe even interview some inspiring people, however I was unable to get a ride.

I do have some friends that could be of some help considering they have attended protests, I also spoke to the officer of feminism club and she agreed to help me with whatever deemed necessary!!!!


My magazine title will be Frida. 

Frida Kahlo is a personal feminist hero of mine due to her admirable perseverance through the overcoming of hardships such as polio, a terrible bus accident, and miscarriages. Kahlo used the pain and suffering to produce beautiful portraits. One of the many examples of this in her art is "My Birth," (1932). In this small tin painting the head of Kahlo, with closed eyes, is emerging from between a woman's outstretched legs. An image above the bed shows the "Mater Dolorosa," the Virgin of Sorrows, pierced by swords and weeping, thus also suggesting the child could be the one the artist had recently miscarried. This is a startling image for Western audiences since childbirth has not been addressed, if at all, so frankly in Christian iconography. Through a woman's consciousness Kahlo brings to center stage the process of birth in which women, not men, play a dominant role.


"My painting carries with it the message of pain." - Frida Kahlo


FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954) is the most famous Mexican woman artist on the contemporary art scene. In our society, where the media focus is on sex and violence, certain autobiographical elements of Kahlo's life -- her physical handicaps (as a result of an accident when she was eighteen), her marriage with the world famous muralist Diego Rivera, her husband's infidelities, Kahlo's affairs (both with men and women), and her unhappiness at not being able to bear a child -- provoke psychological discussions of her work.

Kahlo's communist politics and their impact on her art are either ignored or trivialized. Janice Helland, a Canadian professor of art history, one of the more perceptive writers on the artist, observes that establishing Kahlo only as a tragic and exotic figure results in whitewashing the "bloody, brutal, and overtly political content" of her art production.

 Kahlo taught a group of young artists mural painting, as well as encouraging her students to hold firm political and social views. Eleven days before Frida died she participated in a public protest against U.S. intervention in Guatemala. Even her death was political. On July 14, l954, her body lay in state in the foyer of the Belles Artes in Mexico City. Her coffin was draped with a large flag bearing the Soviet hammer and sickle superimposed upon a star.

Kahlo painted a feminine reality which makes visible so much that has remained hidden in women's lives.

Kahlo's painting reflect an interrelationship with political commentary and feminist values. 

Kahlo's art and life often reveals the ongoing struggle for self-determination in the lives of women. Kahlo forged an identity in her paintings outside the strictures of her society. Her art deals with conception, pregnancy, abortion and gender roles in an unusually frank and open manner, thus making them political statements because women have not generally felt free to address such personal subjects so publicly. The artist's life and art, then, appeals not only to feminist scholars but a wide general audience of women as well as men.

THE ARTS, POLITICS, AND FEMINISM ENCAPSULATES FRIDA KAHLO AND MY MAGAZINE.






Motian-Meadows, Mary. "Kahlo As Artist, Woman, Rebel." Kahlo As Artist, Woman, Rebel | Solidarity. Solidarity, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.

"Frida Kahlo Biography." Frida Kahlo Biography. N.p., 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.

karla made a decision..........bam

So I decided to do a feminist magazine!!!!!!!!! I am a very indecisive person, however I feel like I could add more elements to a feminist magazine and it narrows my themes a bit.

Currently...


Title Ideas

• HER
• RESIST
• FRIDA
• ELIZABETH
• Good Queen Bess is something of a feminist icon, thanks to her intelligence, her strength, and her refusal to be trapped by a political marriage. Plus remember those iconic words? “I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too…”
• CLEO
• As in, yes, the immensely powerful Egyptian queen. Forget all that romance stuff with Julius Caeser and Marc Anthony; we’re more interested in the fact that she found time to pen a book – or, more accurately, medical treatise -  while queening over a vast kingdom.

IDEAS 

• My friend sol writes poetry, a poetry feature + interview 
• Bunch of pictures from protests that I will attend to or ask my friend for 
• My friend Maria is an artist + art work 
• An opinion piece about International Women's Day or feminism in Trump's America 

Brainstorming 101

Hello everyone, Karla here, this blog will be a documentation of the magazine I will be creating from scratch. Sounds scary, but I am very excited!

I decided to steer away from conventional topics such as fashion and lifestyle, into something more on Liberal Arts such as literature, art, and culture with an emphasis on social issues. I am deeply interested in leftist politics and feminism and decided to work with that in order to produce an eccentric piece i'll proud of. 

My affinity with such issues came from the most interesting decades, the 60s and 70s, when the civil rights movement and leftist politics truly peaked. 

Currently I have two ideas for the topic of my magazine, one is a solely feminist magazine that focuses on issue as they affect women, also I would include women artists featuring their work such as poems and art. 

My other idea was to broaden it to more a leftist perspective on current social issues, such as classicism and racial injustice. The Democratic Socialist magazine is a great example 

Good Inspirations of Feminist Magazines: 

Dissent Magazine is a quarterly magazine of politics and ideas. Establishing itself as one of America’s leading intellectual journals in 1954, it has since published articles by Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Ellen Willis, Richard Wright, George Packer, and many others.


















Bitch Media is a nonprofit, independent, feminist media organization dedicated to providing and encouraging an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture.
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, which started as a zine distributed out of the back of a station wagon in 1996.

"From a piece of a baby’s onesie, one woman imagines a banner. From the ragged scrap of a dress, another imagines a downtown protest. Using bits and pieces of fabric, these embroiderers construct elaborate scenes from their everyday lives and their country’s history. This is Colectivo Memorarte, a group of Chilean embroiderers dedicated to recording memory through art."