Disability

I was drawn to Beverly McIver's portrait of her sister, Renee. She demonstrates how much she cares for her sister in the attention to detail and expression she conveys. McIver seems to have used oil paint in this portrait, which has allowed her to layer color on top of color -- the main appeal of the portrait.

World War I was one of the most horrifying wars the world has ever seen--trench warfare has been described as hellish muck, among other things. Unfortunately, one of the surprisingly common outcomes of trench warfare was injury to the face.  A soldier would stick their head out of the trench, and lo--a shell explodes, and your face is gone, if you're lucky enough to survive. Those men that did survive were horribly disfigured. To help the healing process, many armies sponsored artists to create "portrait masks" for the afflicted veterans, a form of facial prosthetic, so they could regain some sense of a normal life. 

In my search for a portrait featuring a visibly disabled subject, I came across this painting, by the artist Paul Fiore. I was particularly interested in this piece because it appears on Fiore’s blog with little information, other than the title “Amputee” and an explanation that he has not yet completed it. I hoped that a close reading of an unfinished product (particularly one painted by a man who, as far as I can tell from my research, does not have a visible disability) might give me some clues as to how Fiore intends to continue work on his painting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-cohenrottenberg/doing-social-justice-thou_b_5476271.html

This is a great article on ableist language!

My privilege as an able-bodied person was demonstrated for me through the "Re-Presenting Disability" reading and Riva's commentary on how to get into the right mindset for making portraits of our future friends at Camp Hill. I had not realized that I might, without realizing it, portray my subject with an air of pity rather than as a person. As Garland-Thomson says, "bringing representations of people with disabilities into the public realm via traditional portraiture is an act of sociopolitical integration...as an appropriate member of the public sphere who is worthy of contemplation and commemoration" (24). I wish there were more representations of people who are disabled in popular culture like Rush's.

During Riva's powerpoint she mentioned artists who portrayed issues with race, class, age, disability, as well as a size. This really struck me because I rarely hear fatphobia being talked about. I can not distinctly remember the image that she showed but, the concept of including size along with societies categories that other people really resonates with me. I think that within the classroom size discrimination is rarely talked about. The demonized word fat is compared to the words queer and crip. In recent years campaigns like  Let's Move led by Michelle Obama have systamically ostracized children of various size. While Fat Acceptence movements (mostly done through social media) are constantly critiqued or ignored.