We have a winner!

And the winner of the Inspirations piece, Stuff Your Eyes with Wonder, is . . . Cheryl!

Thanks to all who visited and commented.  It was very inspiring to read your comments!  I'll post another Inspirations set at the end of the month, so be sure to check back for another chance to win. 

Inspiration Series: Stuff Your Eyes with Wonder

I'm beginning a new series of small textile pieces that will incorporate quotations and images that reflect some aspect of the quotation -- I'm calling it my Inspirations series.  I'm inspired by this new series, and I hope that the pieces inspire others as well.  My plan is to make multiple versions of each piece, to explore different design variations.  I think this will work well for me, as it allows me to combine the thoughtful exploration of ideas as well as experiment with design and embellishment.  Plus, I'll build up a body of small works, which I am currently lacking.

Oh, and did I mention the giveaway part?  I'll choose one version of each piece to give away to my blog readers (that's you!).  I hope to complete a new set of pieces every month.  So come back regularly to catch the giveaways!  (Remember that you can sign up through a blog reader or get new posts by email -- see the links on the sidebar.)

A home for imagination and creativity

When I was a child, I was given a dollhouse.  I played with it throughout my childhood and kept it set up even after I stopped playing with it (my younger sisters continued to play with it while I was in college).  When Q and I moved in together, I set up the dollhouse in our apartment.  Eventually, though, I stored the dollhouse and all its furnishings in a closet, waiting for a time I could bequeath it to another child.

Looking spiffy with the fresh paint --
and the open door invites us to peer inside.

Making a Difference (whether you know it or not)

Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island (8/2012)

With the advent of the new year, it's a good time to review the experiences, events, and achievements of the previous year.  Last year, I blogged about my cosmic footprint and tried to sum up all I had done in 2011.  But recently I've been recognizing that we often don't really know what effect we have on the world.  Sure, I can list my activities, but it's harder to capture the impact I may or may not have had on the world around me.  The carefully crafted lecture that I spent weeks refining may have breezed by my students, while an off-hand remark I made might have been a turning point for a student's academic career.

I'm reminded of an email I got over the summer from a former student.  I hadn't heard from this student in years, but I was deeply moved by the story he told.  I share it with you now (with the student's permission), not to toot my own horn, but to let you know that we can all make a difference, even if we don't know it at the time. 

I'm a UMD psych major right now who's pulled nothing but As and academic honors since becoming a full time student again, I'm going to be eligible to graduate in the fall and right now I'm going through the process of finalizing some grad school applications and taking my GRE.  I'm finishing up PSYC300 with a student I found out yesterday also came from MC and we got to talking about how hugely formative having you and Dr. Palmer as teachers was in really shaping our interests.  [. . .]

I bombed out of my freshman year at a 4 year institution, never because I couldn't do well in my classes but because frankly I just didn't care about them.  I hated my job, I hated being in school, my family situation was atrocious, I didn't like myself very much and I was really depressed about that for a very long time.  Even my time at MC was approached very half-heartedly, just stumbling through random classes hoping to find something that would really interest me.  Plenty I would just not show up to after a few weeks because even the idea of coming to class just made me feel deathly bored.

I took PSYC100 over the summer with you what feels like a life time ago and I know it sounds really cheesy to say, but that was without a doubt the best experience I'd ever had with either a professor, or an academic subject ever.  I found I really loved the material which helped, but more than that I was really struck by how much you obviously loved what you do and that really resonated with me for a very long time.  That was exactly the kind of engagement I was looking for in my life.  I felt challenged and engaged in your class and even though it was hugely inconvenient for me to make the trek to Rockville then, I always looked forward to coming to school for that.  I don't think I can really explain how enormously important that was to me.

I ended up taking Human Sexuality simply because you were teaching it, and Abnormal Psyc with Dr. Palmer, even though neither class fulfilled any kind of a requirement for me at the time.  I started reading psych books for fun.  For a few years, I didn't do more than that, because I really didn't think that I could go to school for that, let alone get a career in it.  Going to school for several more years seemed daunting but much more than that, I didn't think I'd be good enough so I didn't try to do more.  My life was a mess, I struggled enormously with depression.  Things really started to run around for me eventually. I found myself a really great therapist with many of the same qualities I saw in the teachers I had at MC.  I got a lot of the encouragement I need from her to really pursue that interest and I was lucky to have really great teachers for my other psych classes.  Long story short now I'm looking at entering a grad program for the 2013 school year.  How that's going to play out exactly is still very uncertain, and even if I feel like I don't always feel like I know what I'm doing making that leap, I can't imagine working towards anything else.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.  Even though I probably didn't show it very much when I was in your class (I was a really average student at best), you've had a huge impact in shaping who I am today.  Please don't underestimate the impact you can have on students, even those that you aren't really sure if you're reaching or not.

I am truly fortunate to be able to work with such amazing students, and to have the opportunity to help them find their way in life.  But we all have the potential to make the world a better place.  To paraphrase my student's sentiment, please don't underestimate the impact you can have on others, even if you aren't really sure you are reaching them.  Your passion, your enthusiasm, your caring, your encouragement, your commitment touch those around you, even though you may not see it at the time.  Don't give up.  You, too, can make a difference . . . whether you know it or not.

Some of my Social Psychology students
at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (3/2012)

Continuity

Results of the baking frenzy of 2011

I don't know how it all started.  Maybe it was the holiday visit to my high school boyfriend's family.  I baked cookies to bring as a gift.  But they'd like a variety of cookies, surely, so I'd need to make different kinds.  Somehow I ended up surrounded by tins of cookies -- far too many, really.  Was it then that I thought to give the extras to my friends?

It really snowballed in college and graduate school.  I became well-known for my cookie baking:  More and more of my friends asked to be on my holiday cookie list.  I spent days baking to make enough for everyone.  I hunted for new recipes, bored by the old standbys.  After final exams were over, I'd immure myself in the kitchen, surrounded by flour and butter and sugar, in marathon baking sessions that left my feet aching from the hours of standing, my hands wearied from mixing and rolling. An enjoyable pastime had become an exhausting mandate. 

Decorated by Q (2012)

Linguistic Lacunae: What Our Sexual Language is (not) Saying

“Language and culture cannot be separated. Language is vital to understanding our unique cultural perspectives. Language is a tool that is used to explore and experience our cultures and the perspectives that are embedded in our cultures.”  -- Buffy Sainte-Marie

Language reflects and recreates culture.  Cultural attitudes become crystallized in language, which then serves to reinforce those cultural attitudes.  It behooves us to carefully examine our language, to interrogate the meanings lurking within our everyday speech. 

Take our sexual language, for example.¹ The way we talk about sex speaks volumes about our cultural attitudes towards sex.  I don't just mean the pervasive sexism of our sexual slang that reveals itself through the construction of women's bodies as dirty and the continued presence of the sexual double standard (Braun & Kitzinger, 2001; Schultz, 1975).  I don't even mean the negative view of sex that becomes obvious whenever sexual terms are used as crude insults.  Of course these themes are revealing and deeply troubling.  But our cultural attitudes are also evinced through what is missing from our sexual lexicon.

Take a moment to think about the sexual words and phrases you know -- terms for parts of the body, sexual acts, all of it.  (Go ahead; I'll wait.)  Then think about what is *not* present in this sexual language.  There are several important aspects of sexuality that get short shrift in our sexual lexicon.

[Note:  Sexual terminology will be mentioned after the jump, so if you are offended by crude or explicit language, you may not wish to read further.]

Death and the Salesman: The Use of Morbid Sexism in Advertising

As I was reviewing magazine and newspaper ads in preparation for class this week, I was struck by this ad:

Ad in Elle for Louis Vuitton;
from the Ms. Magazine No Comment archive (Summer 2010)

Why on earth would any company want to advertise its product by displaying it with a dead woman?  I couldn't understand the motivation here -- what were the advertisers thinking?  On the face of it, associating your product with death just seems like a bad idea.  I can just imagine the conversation in the marketing department --  I know, Bob, we'll show our bag with a dead woman, so everyone will think that our accessories can kill you!  Ok, maybe this ad is just a fluke, one of those advertisements that miss the mark.  But then I found more.

Appreciating the Commonplace

I've been thinking about birds recently.  In particular, I've been pondering the thrill that runs through me every time I see this woodpecker visit our yard.  Sightings cause me to rush to the window, crying out "Look -- the woodpecker is at the feeder!"  Q has been very tolerant of these outbursts (even when they interrupt our conversations), but I suspect he doesn't understand my fascination with this red-headed avian.  Why does this bird make me so happy?  Obviously, it's a beautiful creature, with an elegantly long beak and rich coloration.  The brightly colored birds do tend to catch my eye (as I've noted before, I'm a sucker for color).   

The Great Material Continuum

Among the Ferengi people of the Star Trek universe, there is a belief in the Great Material Continuum.  This represents the trade that they see as the force binding all life in the universe, the river that flows from those who have to those who need.  The Ferengi see the Continuum as an opportunity for profit, but I attempt to traverse the river on a nonprofit basis. 

She *really* likes it: Eroticizing women's labor

I definitely do not look this happy when I am scrubbing the tub.
Image from Deviantly Domesticated (with funny commentary on lots of vintage ads)

Image from wonderfriend

Have you ever noticed how happy the women are in ads for cleaning products?  These advertisements  often glamorize domestic labor and imply that women are positively euphoric while cleaning (at least with the right product in hand).  You too can love cleaning and be floor-happy . . . with our product!  But some of the ads go further, implying that cleaning is an erotic experience for women.  In the Hoover ad below, for example, the woman is in a prone position, touching the vacuum lightly -- there is something intimate, almost romantic about the way they are situated (as well as putting her in a submissive position).   

I bet she'd be happier if
you promised to do the cleaning.
Image from SA_Steve on Flickr

This Pine-Sol ad, on the other hand, presents the woman in an orgiastic glow, presumably due to the stimulating qualities of the cleaning solution.  Who needs foreplay when you have Pine-Sol?

Pine-Sol -- with new aphrodisiac action!
Image from ThoughtCatalogue, who provides an
interesting retrospective of the Pine-Sol lady.