She Wore What?!?!?

This weekend I went to the deYoung Museum to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit.  In some ways it's funny that I even know who he is considering I'm not very fashionable.  But on the other hand I have always been into fashion.  Fashion as art.  And no one does it like Gaultier.  His stuff is known to be totally outrageous, creative, and never predictable.  He is best known for Madonna's cone shaped bras and also introducing the man-skirt as an option.  This is one of the things I love most about him.  You may say I fall into the category of "gender queer."  (Working at a women's social justice organization I learned more lingo in regards to gender, sex and sexuality than you could ever imagine.)  Gender queer has less to do with sexuality and more to do with my perspective on gender roles.  Everything from how one dresses to what activities are socially acceptable for someone to engage in.  Ffor example, that girls can have short hair, boys can have long hair, girls can work construction and boys can knit.  I think it is so important to continue moving in a direction that allows people to exist on the natural spectrum.  And really it's not a linear spectrum of masculine - feminine but more…circular? Layered?  Let's just say complex and worthy of love.

For him? For her?

After seeing the exhibit at the deYoung, prompted by a poster we saw, mom and I decided to pop over to the Man Ray/Lee Miller Surrealist exhibit at the Legion of Honor.   It was a wonderful surprise.   The image at right is probably the only image I had ever seen by Man Ray but I got a good peep into the Surrealist movement and the friendship/romance/collaboration and work of both Man Ray and his one time muse and contemporary, Lee Miller.  They both did super cool things with photography using different light and development techniques.  Much of his art from a certain time period reflected his heartbreak when Lee left him.  He became a bit obsessed with her eyes and her lips.  It happens.  One thing he liked to do was cutout pictures of her eyes and glue them to things and then break them!  His most famous was her eye on a metronome.  He recommended this technique as helpful for getting over a lover.  She became an artist in her own right.  She was also one of the first female war correspondents of WWII.

I recommend both exhibits!