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Description

"Poor Little Princess" is a Monstrous Mouth Mask I designed, transfered to fabric and then stitched together as part of an original mask pattern that included an protective seamed satin inner and outer layrs and a pocket you could put an extra filter into.

During the pandemic it seemed more than appropriate the time to embody the grotesque in the form of face masks; to poke fun at the grotesquerie that was surrounding us.

Almost inevitably it turned out way depper than I exptected, turning into a whole series of masks, poems and writings called "Vile Little Dead Children"; it was this set of works that really helped me realize that no matter how artistic ideas may seem to be ephemeral and abstract, they almost always turned out to be an expression of extremely traumatic things tha happened in my life. My art is a way to deal with these genuinely awful things that happened.

Here is the analysis I wrote about the poem and the face mask, and beneath that the poem itself which was a figurative realization of the grotesque image of little Eunice who once died so tragically.

Although the poem is wicked, bawdy and hilarious, the message behind it is way darker.

You can read the poem via this link:

www.facebook.com/zachar.laskew…

_____________________

. POOR LITTLE PRINCESS – the gross indecency of sexism
…because the ridiculous double standards explicit in sexism still nauseate me…
from "Vile Little Dead Children: deeply personal metaphors"

"The welts upon her legs
could mean she got it from below…
…but she went in all directions,
so we’ll never really know..."
- 12 August 2020

POOR LITTLE PRINCESS started as a face mask that I initially thought was some sort of Gorey-like evocation of the grotesque during the time of the pandemic. Face-masks, little children; transfression and death. It all makes sense, right?

Oh, how wrong I was.

I designed the mask and then started writing the poem and then analysing the process that had resulted in the masks and the poems.

It turned out to be a slyly comic evocation of everything I hate about sexism. It seems clear to me now that it is very much about the ridiculous double standards by which women are judged. I presented little Eunice with all the logic and morality of bawdy verse and folk songs about sluts and whores.

Initially, however, I thought I was writing a wicked funereal soliloquy about a sweet little dead girl. It was going to be the companion piece to “Dear Little Desmond’s Demise”, but this time about a little dead girl.

The reference in both cases was to be the vile morality plays used to scare children into behaving. Examples include “Der Struwelpeter” (1845) by Heinrich Hoffman or “Max und Moritz” (1865) by Wilhelm Busch. Each of these works has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequence of misbehaviour. And they were written in rhyming couplets.

More recent examples that I specifically reference are characters in Edward Gorey’s children’s books… about little dead children. These include Little Henry in “The Pious Infant” (1966) who actually goes out into the cold to help the poor but then catches cold and dies, Little Tancred in “Green Beads” (1978) who is sent to buy tapioca but is accosted by a stranger, or in particular all 26 of “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” (1963), an abecedarium written in rhyming couplets about little dead children: “Y is for Yorish whose head was knocked-in… Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin”.

When I started writing the second poem, I still hadn’t realised that first child, Little Desmond could be metaphoric of the trauma of bullying. Both poems were just a metaphor for the grotesque times we are living in. What is more off-putting and grotesque than a little dead child…

But the poem quickly started going down a path I’d never actually at first intended… and then it became ALL about that subject: sexual morality.

I immediately began to worry that people would get the wrong idea. They might get offended and not necessarily be able to read in the deliberate satire that was judging the double standards of the narrator... So I wrote a lengthy forewarning into the actual poem, warning the reader of what was coming... Then no one could tell me they weren't forewarned about the contents of the poem.

In retrospect, it is clear that this is a personal indictment of the double standards men apply to themselves and to women who are both on the one hand objectified as objects of beauty to be gazed at... and on the other judged as sluts and whores to be blamed for all that ails men: they are to be blamed for the effect that they have on men. The mind-numbing idiocy of this particularly awful double standard has always been hard for me to fathom.

I now see that by sending up these tropes about sexuality and moral judgement on the behaviour of others, I’ve helped reduce them of meaning and to point out the absurdity of the logic behind the concept that men who lust after women are sowing their wild oats, whereas women who like men are considered no better than dirty whores. They're just sluts who are deserving of the violence they all too often receive.

Should a man spend his days painting naked women? No problem! We still go and see male masturbatory fantasies all across the world in every museum. The same logic, however, is not applied in reverse. Men feel deeply uncomfortable looking at the male naked body.

You may well think what would I know about women being belittled and demeaned? Believe me when I tell you that I had to endure such gross objectification in the language my own father regularly used to condemn women. I lived it all through my childhood in the language of my father and his contradictory behaviour. It disgusted me.

What ridiculous double standard is it by which men like my father could possibly apply to women when his philandering and infidelity was so clearly at least a hundred times worse? Even a child could see that; it certainly never made any sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong: I find infidelity as absolutely no good reason to judge someone. If you’re looking for sex from someone else and you’re willing to lie about it to maintain the artifice of your relationship, that says as much about the problems of socially defined norms and the dissatisfaction you have with your entrapment as it does about your own morality. But it gets ridiculous when you appear to apply these standards to someone else while not considering you own behaviour in this equation.

So let it be clear: I evidently despise the fact that women who like sex are seen as sluts and whores whereas the men who are sex-crazed fiends are just sowing their wild oats. This gross injustice always disgusted me.

It evidently still does.

Perhaps by sacrificing little Eunice to make very clear how I feel about ludicrous stereotypes, I’ll be able to deal better with this issue.

VILE LITTLE DEAD CHILDREN: deeply personal metaphors
Child 2 – Eunice [sexism]
_________________________

THE FUNNY THING is that these little dead children are clearly none of these things. Firstly they’re not dead. And they’re certainly no longer little. Clearly viler than ever, they’re menacing me still today with the grossly unpleasant shadows of the ugliness they have grown into.

...But maybe in confronting them now they’ll be rendered less threatening?

After all, understanding the things that you fear, dread or are disgusted by could potentially help you cope with them better...

...And in failing that, at least it has helped explain why I still think about them ... incessantly!

DO YOU WANT TO RECEIVE FOR FREE AND FOR MY PLEASURE EXAMPLES OF MY WORK?

...All you have to do is to agree to participate in my "Getting Got" interactive art project...

You can receive a "GOT-O-GRAM" in the mail with little examples of my art in it.

But be warned! You can't actually GET a GOT-O-GRAM!

...because it gets you...

...to get me!

Just leave a message here or via my email (zachar@telenet.be).

GETTING GOT - Interactive Art by Zachar Laskewicz

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/zachar.laskew…

INSTAGRAM (Zizbilit ): https/www.instagram.com/zizbil…

LINKED IN: www.linkedin.com/in/zacharlask…

WEBSITE: www.nachtschimmen.eu

YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/nachtschimmen

EMAIL: zachar@telenet.be

ETSY STORE:: www.etsy.com/shop/ZizbilitIMPR…

FACEBOOK PAGES:

Evidently Evil Eye-Patches – Make it Yourself Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Making an Impression – Impressed Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Glorious Illusions – Film and Music-Theatre by Zachar Laskewicz

Interminable Contraptions – GIFs & Ztickers by Zachar Laskewicz

Mostly Monstrous Mouth Masks – Iron-on Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Outrageous Travesties – Graphic Art & Design by Zachar Laskewicz

GIFS & ZTICKERS -

tenor.com/users/Zizbilit

giphy.com/channel/nachtschimme…

facebook.com/interminablecontr…

TAGS:

zachar, laskewicz, zlaskewicz, zizbilit, zacharlaskewicz, digitalart, gorey, edwardgorey, sexism, horror, horrorart, gorey, grotesque, macabre, facemasks, outrageoustravesties, dreadfullittlenightmares, ghastlyabomination

Description

"Poor Little Princess" is a Monstrous Mouth Mask I designed, transfered to fabric and then stitched together as part of an original mask pattern that included an protective seamed satin inner and outer layrs and a pocket you could put an extra filter into.

During the pandemic it seemed more than appropriate the time to embody the grotesque in the form of face masks; to poke fun at the grotesquerie that was surrounding us.

Almost inevitably it turned out way depper than I exptected, turning into a whole series of masks, poems and writings called "Vile Little Dead Children"; it was this set of works that really helped me realize that no matter how artistic ideas may seem to be ephemeral and abstract, they almost always turned out to be an expression of extremely traumatic things tha happened in my life. My art is a way to deal with these genuinely awful things that happened.

Here is the analysis I wrote about the poem and the face mask, and beneath that the poem itself which was a figurative realization of the grotesque image of little Eunice who once died so tragically.

Although the poem is wicked, bawdy and hilarious, the message behind it is way darker.

You can read the poem via this link:

www.facebook.com/zachar.laskew…

_____________________

. POOR LITTLE PRINCESS – the gross indecency of sexism
…because the ridiculous double standards explicit in sexism still nauseate me…
from "Vile Little Dead Children: deeply personal metaphors"

"The welts upon her legs
could mean she got it from below…
…but she went in all directions,
so we’ll never really know..."
- 12 August 2020

POOR LITTLE PRINCESS started as a face mask that I initially thought was some sort of Gorey-like evocation of the grotesque during the time of the pandemic. Face-masks, little children; transfression and death. It all makes sense, right?

Oh, how wrong I was.

I designed the mask and then started writing the poem and then analysing the process that had resulted in the masks and the poems.

It turned out to be a slyly comic evocation of everything I hate about sexism. It seems clear to me now that it is very much about the ridiculous double standards by which women are judged. I presented little Eunice with all the logic and morality of bawdy verse and folk songs about sluts and whores.

Initially, however, I thought I was writing a wicked funereal soliloquy about a sweet little dead girl. It was going to be the companion piece to “Dear Little Desmond’s Demise”, but this time about a little dead girl.

The reference in both cases was to be the vile morality plays used to scare children into behaving. Examples include “Der Struwelpeter” (1845) by Heinrich Hoffman or “Max und Moritz” (1865) by Wilhelm Busch. Each of these works has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequence of misbehaviour. And they were written in rhyming couplets.

More recent examples that I specifically reference are characters in Edward Gorey’s children’s books… about little dead children. These include Little Henry in “The Pious Infant” (1966) who actually goes out into the cold to help the poor but then catches cold and dies, Little Tancred in “Green Beads” (1978) who is sent to buy tapioca but is accosted by a stranger, or in particular all 26 of “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” (1963), an abecedarium written in rhyming couplets about little dead children: “Y is for Yorish whose head was knocked-in… Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin”.

When I started writing the second poem, I still hadn’t realised that first child, Little Desmond could be metaphoric of the trauma of bullying. Both poems were just a metaphor for the grotesque times we are living in. What is more off-putting and grotesque than a little dead child…

But the poem quickly started going down a path I’d never actually at first intended… and then it became ALL about that subject: sexual morality.

I immediately began to worry that people would get the wrong idea. They might get offended and not necessarily be able to read in the deliberate satire that was judging the double standards of the narrator... So I wrote a lengthy forewarning into the actual poem, warning the reader of what was coming... Then no one could tell me they weren't forewarned about the contents of the poem.

In retrospect, it is clear that this is a personal indictment of the double standards men apply to themselves and to women who are both on the one hand objectified as objects of beauty to be gazed at... and on the other judged as sluts and whores to be blamed for all that ails men: they are to be blamed for the effect that they have on men. The mind-numbing idiocy of this particularly awful double standard has always been hard for me to fathom.

I now see that by sending up these tropes about sexuality and moral judgement on the behaviour of others, I’ve helped reduce them of meaning and to point out the absurdity of the logic behind the concept that men who lust after women are sowing their wild oats, whereas women who like men are considered no better than dirty whores. They're just sluts who are deserving of the violence they all too often receive.

Should a man spend his days painting naked women? No problem! We still go and see male masturbatory fantasies all across the world in every museum. The same logic, however, is not applied in reverse. Men feel deeply uncomfortable looking at the male naked body.

You may well think what would I know about women being belittled and demeaned? Believe me when I tell you that I had to endure such gross objectification in the language my own father regularly used to condemn women. I lived it all through my childhood in the language of my father and his contradictory behaviour. It disgusted me.

What ridiculous double standard is it by which men like my father could possibly apply to women when his philandering and infidelity was so clearly at least a hundred times worse? Even a child could see that; it certainly never made any sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong: I find infidelity as absolutely no good reason to judge someone. If you’re looking for sex from someone else and you’re willing to lie about it to maintain the artifice of your relationship, that says as much about the problems of socially defined norms and the dissatisfaction you have with your entrapment as it does about your own morality. But it gets ridiculous when you appear to apply these standards to someone else while not considering you own behaviour in this equation.

So let it be clear: I evidently despise the fact that women who like sex are seen as sluts and whores whereas the men who are sex-crazed fiends are just sowing their wild oats. This gross injustice always disgusted me.

It evidently still does.

Perhaps by sacrificing little Eunice to make very clear how I feel about ludicrous stereotypes, I’ll be able to deal better with this issue.

VILE LITTLE DEAD CHILDREN: deeply personal metaphors
Child 2 – Eunice [sexism]
_________________________

THE FUNNY THING is that these little dead children are clearly none of these things. Firstly they’re not dead. And they’re certainly no longer little. Clearly viler than ever, they’re menacing me still today with the grossly unpleasant shadows of the ugliness they have grown into.

...But maybe in confronting them now they’ll be rendered less threatening?

After all, understanding the things that you fear, dread or are disgusted by could potentially help you cope with them better...

...And in failing that, at least it has helped explain why I still think about them ... incessantly!

DO YOU WANT TO RECEIVE FOR FREE AND FOR MY PLEASURE EXAMPLES OF MY WORK?

...All you have to do is to agree to participate in my "Getting Got" interactive art project...

You can receive a "GOT-O-GRAM" in the mail with little examples of my art in it.

But be warned! You can't actually GET a GOT-O-GRAM!

...because it gets you...

...to get me!

Just leave a message here or via my email (zachar@telenet.be).

GETTING GOT - Interactive Art by Zachar Laskewicz

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/zachar.laskew…

INSTAGRAM (Zizbilit ): https/www.instagram.com/zizbil…

LINKED IN: www.linkedin.com/in/zacharlask…

WEBSITE: www.nachtschimmen.eu

YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/nachtschimmen

EMAIL: zachar@telenet.be

ETSY STORE:: www.etsy.com/shop/ZizbilitIMPR…

FACEBOOK PAGES:

Evidently Evil Eye-Patches – Make it Yourself Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Making an Impression – Impressed Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Glorious Illusions – Film and Music-Theatre by Zachar Laskewicz

Interminable Contraptions – GIFs & Ztickers by Zachar Laskewicz

Mostly Monstrous Mouth Masks – Iron-on Art by Zachar Laskewicz

Outrageous Travesties – Graphic Art & Design by Zachar Laskewicz

GIFS & ZTICKERS -

tenor.com/users/Zizbilit

giphy.com/channel/nachtschimme…

facebook.com/interminablecontr…

TAGS:

zachar, laskewicz, zlaskewicz, zizbilit, zacharlaskewicz, digitalart, gorey, edwardgorey, sexism, horror, horrorart, gorey, grotesque, macabre, facemasks, outrageoustravesties, dreadfullittlenightmares, ghastlyabomination