Artist is the art.

Satin organza shotgun lace

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Strive to be better and better is to love yourself. It is strange for a woman to be labelled weak when she is stronger than most. Thinking pattern of which people are not willing to let go because it empowers them and enslaves those who need to be seen as weak. That is a wall to climb and people to walk over because that is what they need to be made understand and feel in their bodies. Body remembers and gets if mind does not.

When those who should love you are your worst enemy situation is something you cannot escape, physically yes but not mentally. People are compelled and forced not to love because loving makes them vulnerable admitting to emotion that is delicate and caring, soft, profound, open, accepting and feminine almost childish and naive. Love becomes nonexistent and meaningless words when you are betrayed by those who you think should love you unconditionally. Love is used as an excuse to exploit, a misused emotion, misused way to fool and fake, get your way, manipulate, to act the a way which stands opposite to love. Love is misunderstood and loathed, put to dirt the same as people who are seen as not worthy of love. There are people who think love is something to bargain with and people who think they are not worthy to be loved. The opposite of love in everyday life is there to be endured, understood as normal, so common it hurts, love a word and world which is upside down looking like a monster, love untrustworthy statement, people filled with hate, distrust and ill talk, violence the best tool just as despair, illness to have. When one grows up in such a climate lovelessness is a rule and seeing through people’s intentions and people themselves on daily basis a normality which in its accuracy is scary.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

End of poetry is end of man. Use of power, power we have, force we do not have and how we claim it, tools in use.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
What kind of power do we have and how we use it is always the very basic issue to discuss and question. Those who have a lot of power may not like being questioned and even less if their power is taken or lessened away from them. Power corrupts has proven to be true, power does weird things to people. It is intoxicating to see how one can move and mold other people and their lives. It gives a self-assurance that one is above for a good reason, is able and capable, potent and noteworthy to have a say over, to rule, to lead, to dictate. How powerful do we feel and what kind of people do we see as weaker than or more than is due to what kind of values we have, what kind of acts are accepted as usage of power in a good way. What is this good kind of power as power has a negative echo? Power of love versus power of lovelessness, power of music vs. power of absolute noise could be interesting oppositions to study and effects of those in people and their behavior, moreover what is accomplished by having power over people since some are those who lead and they have to know how to. What do we want by power is probably the most important issue to look into and how we feel powerful. It depends on so many ’tiny’ details how the power of self builds up so that it is worth paying attention to individually and in a group. Domination, subjugation, segregation, division, bullying, how people are spoken to and how they respond, how we take our place within or are we left outside. Feeling of powerlessness is reason to be concerned because people should have feeling of having certain amount of power, understanding that one can do something to change oneself and situations in life and in society. When we lack this feeling and when a large amount of people have the same inadequacy and negative view to reality that nothing can be done to change things it is a serious matter of concern and deprivation of human value, human condition which should not be as such an oppressive nor oppressed state.
To feel powerful, empowered, is an essential existential human experience. It is like feeling good about yourself, listened to and appreciated. When we do not feel we have power over anything we become desperate, sad, angry, hateful, bitter, or better yet try and find a solution to change the situation. Best way to start is with yourself: what can you do and what do you want to learn to do. How do we come to understand power, find power within and calculate what kind of power we personally possess is valuable and is an interesting conduct of thought, a process and years long experience. Experience of having seen how power is used, what it does, how to get attention, make a reaction, make something wanted happen and repeat the desired act to get the same result or make a chain reaction. Power to heal, to help, to speak, to defend, power to manipulate, power to know and teach. When all action is in use of power of some kind how do we measure power of ours and decide weight of power used? We must have civil understanding of what is good and what is bad, wrong and right. What kind of results our use of personal power has had and what are the things to be corrected. If there are very little results or none at all despite our all constant efforts and push what can be said of power in use or forces one is up against? Are there more factors to be taken into consideration? We can be exhausted by having used our energy in doing something or having been pushed aside or violently handled by authorities or anybody. Power needs tools, force is created by multitude, decision and energy is something one person can have.

We use a lot of power even though we may think we do not. We also deliberately abuse power to become more powerful compared to others to have position, status of a powerful to become memorable and significant, meaningful, rich and noted members of society to live well. We often times don’t have to think about using power, having used power or having power in every day until we do not have it, until we are stepped over, silenced and exploited. When we are to be killed, vanished and doomed to non-existence. To have power begins organically out of making oneself, growing up bigger and learning what one can do, what one can think, think of doing and saying and then putting those ideas into action.

Power used over people especially women can go like this: She is stupid, she is crazy, she is arrogant, she is boring, she is weird, she is uninteresting, she is silent, she is distant, she is a jerk, she is religious, she is a believer, she is a nerd, she is an angel, she is kind, she is tacky, she a bad dresser, she is a bad artist, she is invisible, she is untalented, she is quite good, she is incompetent, she is ok, she is old, she is young, she is ugly, she looks wrong, she is a whore, she is unreliable, she is fun, she is tall, she is too short, she wears too much makeup, she dresses like a tart, she is unemployed, she is lazy, she is poor, she is greedy, she is jealous, she is bitter, she is a drunk, she is a drug addict, she is prude, she is rude, she is an exhibitionist, she is pervert

on and on the things given for her to be and she becomes a fabrication by people a person and a tragedy continued by people who hear this story about her and feel better than she is. When these adjectives and characteristics mold her within it is no wonder there is a rejection and an image that is almost impossible to alter because her word is not worthy and she has been seen drunk and badly dressed. It does not make any difference what she says or does when experts have spoken and witnessed her state. In expert society anybody can be an expert who is trained especially. Experts speak in a specific way and are well connected. They have power and they are believed in as they are legitimated by authorities, accomplishments, friends, places and institutions. Their word is trusted until it is proven wrong and expert loses face. Losing face is in expert circles the worst thing that can happen. 

You might also say that she is easy, she is uncomplicated, she is strange, she is vicious, she is bad mouthed, she is black-hearted, she is devious, she is malicious, she is cunning, she is dullSo you see it is not insignificant what you let out of your mouth and how you see other people. Yea there are experts you know.

Radical sexuality and why sexuality is to liberate us.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

I like both radical and sexuality as words, acts of necessary and something unavoidable we must face and try to understand as essential and natural. Testing how visible perversions are or are not, what is actually perverted and what is not, testing tolerance and sensitivities towards radical and sex via art is important and vital. They, radical and sex, do something when experienced, make us do something to wake up from apathy, liberating feeling of having done something unacceptable but feeling having done something absolutely correct. Sex which is as such pushing the limits of forbidden and bad, which experience is scary, shameful and joyful, enjoyable, to do something forbidden, testing limits of acceptable, what is good taste, what is disgusting, how much your inhibitions give room and what are we afraid of and why. Reactions towards radical are usually fearful and rejecting. To me radical is a word and act of beauty. Today I think radical is too scary to exist in normal every day speech. To declare oneself radical almost equals a terrorist. Excitement, horror and disgust going hand in hand, fears exploring and making sexual and violent imagery bring and what kind of humanity is found. How close animals do we go when we let go of our inhibitions and restrains. Acts that can bring strong emotional reactions: repulsion, rejection, rage, just testing how numb we have become, how do we notice numbness and indifference of ours. Images that try to shock also try to make us think. Shock effect is thereby a necessity and rejuvenating, breaking and tearing, destructive.

Tongue is an instrument. Tongue is pleasurable and it is an insult when shown, to lick something in public is almost a sexual act. So there is something about tongue the organ that is disgusting and dirty, a middle finger inside one’s mouth, what you lick is what you like and you have desire in you. Is it how tongue is used for licking which make us look and feel, used for tasting, for speaking, for showing, for kissing: what mouth stands for. An expressive hole in which we put food to eat, which we use to give affection, something which can be shut and opened to speak, sigh, whisper, yell, scream. Mouth which is the most personal tool of self-expression, love, contempt, communication, drinking and eating for us to live. Tongue out is a sign of something bad, abnormal behaviour and a rude gesture. It has ugliness as it is so bare and a piece of meat yet very sensitive and complex, tender and not easy to look at and accept as anything other than very personal and a message of ill. When tongue is pictured without beautifying it, it is very unapologetic, without need to please, maybe even without gender and age. Tongue between fingers is a sexual gesture, signifying oral sex. Why would anybody make such a gesture would be to humiliate. Humiliation is a way to use power when someone is ashamed of sexuality, loss of privacy and it is almost an act of rape. Humiliation and oppression via sex is the easiest way to torture and put down, take away pride, dignity and purity. Why I do such explicit pictures is to make visible something of how we use power and how someone who by her gender does not have much power can show her strength or weakness which often comes to show via sexuality. Also to study humiliation as a strategy which has no end but is built-in us through our shame. Humiliation which is senseless, insensitive, irrational and cruel.
How much we have negative emotions in our mouths and what we choose to give. And what mouth and tongue mean, stand for and has meant in search for symptoms of diseases and personality. What is ill, is this picture sick or am I? Art is a gesture and research but often viewers look for pathology of an artist which most part is wrong and partly of course artist puts herself in her work.

 

To fix me? I’m not the problem.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
What is the problem then? That is a dilemma to open up, psychological, intellectual, cultural and social. As long as there are people who are garbage in the eyes of others, those others who are considered the elite and superior there is a problem. When there are people who do not have the understanding of what a human can be and could be. When thought is what human should be and is supposed to be there is a problem. When there are those worthy of rescuing and those who are not, those who rescue when it is them who should be rescued. When there is complete lack of understanding what other human being is all about, when there is no desire to get to know that other person but stay interested in yourself only and what you can get. There is a problem.
When there are people who are air, who are nothing, not important, who in this thought climate can be treated as such, as nothing. They disappear, get killed, stigmatized, stalked, pushed away, discriminated against because they are not interesting, valuable, they are not given a chance, there is a fucking problem.
After having blamed myself that I have done something wrong, that there is something wrong with me and having developed a self-loathing which became unbearable I understood it is not me who hates in the end. It is I who is hated for being who I am. I am not supposed to hate myself, it is the worst thing I can do. I must not hate at all because I have to give something else. It is unbearable to be invisible and nothing when you clearly are not. To understand you are not the problem but a fix and solution is a new beginning and new way to see yourself, not via other people, not depended on other people’s acceptance and liking. You have to learn to find out what you can be yourself. It is a heavy task especially if you are left alone to do it. I am not completely alone but a very solitary soldier anyhow.

What is image?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

How to be

| Henna Timanttimetsä
I can think what is the most important thing for me to be, well there are many. Then there is society’s pressure to think for me which is pretty powerful  (well, people around tend to do the judging more than society as a structure actually) and which pressure is the main reason for all identity and self issues people are having. What society can ask people to be and how them to live must be to be decent, respectful, making and thinking individual, what else as there seems to be constant turbulence especially concerning how women are viewed, treated, how they treat each other and themselves. Problematic of pleasing, fitting in, doing the right thing, being the right kind of person sound like juggling and a very narrow spot to live in. It is interesting how we can now have and knowingly take position of creating a self-therapeutic nonstop flow in public and share all what we will and feel good about it as all people around tend to do similar kind of sharing of private life moments, problems, thoughts, worries etc and we get feedback for doing this sharing. Most important thing is to find the strength to be exactly who you want to be and not what other people push you to be. Confessional writing is important in this regard as we notice that there are so many people who struggle with the very same issues. To find this out is a surprise as is the fact of how long it can take to grow up, how much one can learn and change, in other words stand on your own meaning know what you want and go after that, not after what someone else wants you to be and do.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122840/confessional-writing-feminist?utm_content=bufferf982a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer”Our culture loves to gawk at the ugly side of women—to peer at stars without their makeup and publish their un-Photoshopped images, to put women’s looks under a microscope until every blemish surfaces. ”
http://www.eater.com/2015/9/15/9326775/the-kitchen-of-the-future-has-failed-us”There are a few easy answers to that question. The people who are in charge of designing the future right now are a homogenous group. Futurism, as a field, is dominated by men: two-thirds of the roster of the Association of Professional Futurists is male, as is 77 percent of the World Future Society’s. And it’s no secret that the technology industry, the other field generating many of these futures, is struggling with gender inclusivity as well.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/16/ecuador-vs-chevron-by-way-of-canada/

 

Is demand for equality absurd? I don’t think it has been. It is perfectly reasonable.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

We should demand equal rights, equal treatment, equal pay. It means human rights for all, dignity, which can’t be repeated enough. Does this mean when a woman hits a man with her fist, the man should answer with fists? To me equality is when I feel I am mistreated I can say what I think about it. I have a right to give back and find justice for myself. Answering violence with violence isn’t the kind of equality I seek, balancing the amount of hits and injuries really does not bring happiness in the end. When one is in an underdog position bullied by lots of people without much chance to defend oneself, options may seem scarce. How to find an ally for example in a work place where you are only female, should you really fit in, imitate men, become butch to look tough, agree with everything, say nothing and just do your job? I myself only thought it would be hugely ridiculous for me to try be something I am not just to please others so that nothing would change in the world of men and at the work place where workers usually are men. There is an enormous pressure to fit in at work, at school just as if we did not mature from infancy when we seemingly grow up and become adults. To mature and become wise demand brain work, guidance and will to know more.

Just to add teaming up against one person is probably the most pathetic way of getting back at someone, it is not getting even it is to completely break that one person. To me it has happened several times. It has made me think I truly have something that make people tick. I provoke merely by appearance, by wanting to do things out of the box, being interested in things women maybe are not supposed to or are not normally interested in and just trying out. Yes I also say provocative things which to me are not provocative at all but need to be said. For example I said once at work when I did welding that you should be afraid gays they will attack you with pink tanks. I thought it was funny but it was offensive. Just to say gay is a red cloth for some people and so is woman who welds intimidating. (I am mostly quiet about my views at work to avoid trouble.) Open-mindedness is not common, you know, nor is sense of humour.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11857210/Lawyer-who-shamed-barrister-over-sexist-LinkedIn-email-believes-men-make-workplaces-a-repugnant-world.html”“When women enter the male realm whether law, politics, or a construction site, they find themselves in a repugnant world in which their only means of survival is by undergoing a fundamental transformation leaving them with little opportunity to make any change.” If men and women were truly equal, she said, “men’s genitals would be sliced up” in the same way that some women are subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM).

She added: “Equality is harmful to women and most men, as they are required to replicate behaviours that are degrading and dehumanising.””

Appearance oriented world and can it be fixed.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
World is to be fixed in a manner that women and men whatever they may look like would be appreciated for their personas, their work, for themselves as whole individuals.

How does this happen this fixing, would of course be a matter of conscious learning and acknowledging priorities. What do we appreciate in people and what they do, what is important to pay attention to. If our priorities are looks, posing, clothes and accessories, possessions etc. we can complement people for those things and they can probably feel good about themselves for a while. This kind of situation is the one to pay attention to for the reason of what do we value in other people. If you are about to compliment an artist, talk about the work of that artist, art in general, or scientist who is a woman, it is absolutely vital to pay attention to the work of that person. I myself do not like to pose in front of my work which is usually asked for an artist to do. I like to talk about issues concerning my work and why I do what I do. It is a strange way to present art as a trophy and an artist on pedestal. Such is a relic of a culture which I wish to be changed. Yes people want to know what the artist looks like, maybe we could start change that culture of adoring an image of a person. It is difficult to explain why this is important otherwise than via personal experience where me as a woman artist am not acknowledged as an artist because of my work, which for me is the most important thing I do in my life. This is also difficult to understand as you do not know me and I am not going to tell you my history, but when I tell you that my work is my most precious thing should believe it. When you want to compliment my photographs do not compliment my camera. You do not compliment my pencil for my drawings, I hope you do not. It is a conscious decision that you make to what things you pay attention and think other should pay attention to too.

So when I say I do not wish to be photographed, don’t argue and say that all artists do this and we do this way as it is always done this way. I have my way, you respecting that I appreciate. All other artists do what fuck they like obviously.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/10/compliments-tinder-charlotte-proudman-offended?CMP=share_btn_tw