If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause
and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition) featured several
of the above artists in an article about this
museum and menstruation in 2003. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine Dishy (Turkey) showed some of
the artists in 2005 in articles about this museum.
 
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The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
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"The Goddess," while the blood is still wet.
She painted these pictures after a doctor diagnosed her with a double
uterus (her doctor's drawing is below) which frequently means infertility.
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"The Goddess," after the blood has dried.
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"The Goddess," sitting.
All images copyrighted 2003 Elvira
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Austrian high school student Elvira, who lives in Vienna, sent these
pictures on paper painted with her menstrual blood. [After she graduated
and started studying medicine, she sent a Libresse
ad. There she talks about how taboo menstruation and other subjects are
in Catholic Poland, where she was born.]
Here's what she says about herself, her pictures and this museum (I
translate excerpts from the German e-mails, which follow):
Dear Harry,
First I would like to mention that I find your [Web] pages very inventive
and full of information =). Especially great is the idea of finding old
ads and showing how they've changed through the years! I've really enjoyed
your virtual museum!
I'm an 18-year-old high school student [the top high schools in Germany
and Austria, and probably elsewhere in Europe, last a year longer than
in the U.S.A., corresponding roughly to the freshman college year in America],
live in Vienna, and stumbled on your site last night while looking for
toxic shock information on the 'Net. I'm neither a professional artist
nor have much time to devote to artistic activities, but I love to paint
and have already painted two pictures with menstrual blood and would like
to make my contribution to the Internet exhibit.
Please send me a short e-mail if you're interested in seeing my work.
[I love the German language adoption of the English word to use for sending
e-mail: mailen {read her e-mail, below}. German,
just as English once did from French and does from many other languages,
has taken in many English words recently, especially for pop culture and
technology. The English parliament - "parliament" comes from
French - spoke French early in its history, and French was once widespread
as the world's diplomatic language, which still retains many French expressions
(détente, for example). Oops, I mean Freedom
expressions.]
Greetings,
Elvira
Lieber Harry,
Zu allererst möchte ich erwähnen, dass ich Ihre Seite sehr
einfallsreich und informationsreich finde =) Vor allem die Idee, alte Werbearitkel
herauszusuchen und zu präsentieren wie sie sich im Laufe der Zeit
verändern ist wirklich bewundernswert! Ich habe Ihr "virtuelles"
Museum sehr genossen.
Ich bin eine 18jährige Schülerin, wohne in Wien, und bin gestern
Abend auf ihre Seite gestoßen während ich im Netz nach Formationen
über Tss gesucht habe. Ich bin weder eine "professionele"
Künstlerin, noch habe ich besonders viel Zeit meinen "künstlerischen
Tätigkeiten" nachzugehen, doch ich male sehr gerne und habe bereits
2 Bilder mit Menstruationsblut gemalt, und würde gerne zum Aufbau
dieser Internetausstellung meinen Teil beitragen.
Ich bitte Sie, mir kurz zu mailen falls
Sie Interesse hätten meine Werke zu sehen.
Liebe Grüße
Elvira
Dear Harry,
.... Two photos [the top two on this page] show the same picture
in wet and dry condition. I found it interesting to see how blood changed
color as it dried.
I take it that you want to know about my artistic education, but
I haven't any. I can only say that I've liked to paint to reduce stress
and relax.
Painting with menstrual blood is new for me. I started one and a
half weeks ago because I had negative feeling about my pelvis (after the
diagnosis of a double uterus; I've forgotten the medical name for it) that
I wanted to get rid of. [Double uterus is a condition in which, during
pregnancy, the non-pregnant uterus might still menstruate, which can be
mistaken for a miscarriage or abortion, which often occurs anyway. But
a double uterus - see the illustration, below - can by itself mean infertility.
Sometimes the woman has a double vagina, sometimes even a double vulva.
{This information is from Gynaecology Illustrated, by Govan, Hodge and
Callander, New York, 1985.}] The pictures represent for me very strong
and positive representations of the Goddess. [Elvira wanted to cut open
her abdomen and get rid of her abnormality, but settled for painting instead]
Because I got rid of at least some of my negative feelings in this
way I hope to have more opportunity in the future to paint similar pictures.
I hope you like them!
Greetings,
Elvira
The original German lies beneath the next drawing.
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Elvira has a double uterus, the red lines, which is due to
a failure of development while she herself was in the uterus. Her doctor
told her that 15-20 percent of women have a double uterus, but one of these
wombs is small in half of the women, unlike Elvira's. (I added the red words;
the rest is part of the doctor's note pad. "Eierstöcke" means
"ovaries" in German. Her doctor drew this.
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Lieber Harry,
.... Zwei [Bilder] davon zeigen ein und dasselbe Bild im ungetrockneten
und getrockneten Zustand. Ich fand es interessant zu sehen wie Blut die
Farbe ändert wenn es trocknet.
Ich nehme an Sie möchten etwas über meinen künstlerischen
Werdegang erfahren, doch da ich keine Ausbildung oder ähnliches in
dieser Richtung besitze, kann ich eigentlich nur sagen dass ich schon immer
gerne gemalt habe um mich zu entspannen und um Stress abzubauuen.
Allerdings ist mir das Malen mit Menstruationsblut relativ neu. Ich
habe es erst vor einenhalb Wochen versucht, weil ich negative Gefühle,
die ich meinem Unterbauch gegenüber aufgebaut habe ( nach der Diagnose
von einer Doppelten Gebärmutter , ich weiß leider den medizinischen
Ausdruck nicht mehr) abbauuen wollte. Die Bilder stellen für mich
sehr stark und positiv wirkende Göttinengestalten dar.
Da ich zumindest einen Teil von meinen negativen Einstellungen auf diesem
Wege losgeworden bin, hoffe ich auch in Zukunft noch mehr Gelegenheiten
zu haben diese Art von Bildern zu malen.
Ich hoffe sie gefallen Ihnen!
Liebe Grüße
Elvira
See menstrual blood pictures from another Viennese, Petra
Paul, and read an interview with her
in the Neue Welt (New World) newspaper. See the menstrual blood pictures
of the vulva of the American artist Tamara
Wyndham and her performance art.
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NEXT artist: Anne
Encephalon
See all the artists in the links in the left-hand
column.
If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and
are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
See
also Bea Nettles' art The Moonsisters
© 2003 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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