This Drawing is the Tits

Musings about breasts, stick-on earrings, and female adolescence.

My latest drawing, Little Apple of Paradise (After Isabeau).

Hello, my stars.

Today we are going to talk about tits. There is oh so much to say about these body parts for which the homo sapiens class of mammalia is named. They are loved and loathed, fetishized and shamed, celebrated and censored. They come in a magnificent variety of shapes and sizes. They are sources of nourishment and health. They are sources of lumps and back pain. They are, for many people assigned female at birth (AFAB), the first bud (or burden) of puberty.

If you venture to a museum or take a look through any historical catalogue of art, you will see lots of tits. Nude odalisques recline on velvet sofas. Nips slip out from billowing drapery as women flee from their would-be rapists. There is an entire genre of painting dedicated to images of Mary breastfeeding baby Jesus called Madonna del Latte. This spring, at one of the largest art shows in the world, a gallery curated an exhibit succinctly titled “Breasts” that spanned works from 1395 to the present day. Of course, breasts were represented in art long before the Renaissance. The famed Venus of Willendorf is estimated to be between 22,000 and 30,000 years old! Artists have always represented breasts, and society has always politicized them.

Crops of Mary's breast from a few Madonna del Latte paintings.

Little Apple of Paradise (After Isabeau) was inspired by Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, who allegedly adorned her breasts with jewels and displayed them in daringly low-cut gowns. A queen indeed.

Let’s take a minute and appreciate how incredible this woman sounds, as described in The Guardian:

In the 14th century, for instance, Queen Isabella of Bavaria inspired a fashion in which necklines plunged lower and lower, until eventually the breasts were exposed. The "little apples of paradise", as she liked to call her nipples, were rouged, pierced with jewels and linked with strands of pearls or gold chains.

When I tried to verify this claim, however, the facts fell apart. Perusing the “Ask Historians” subreddit (very official, I know, but there is SO little out there about this stuff), leads me to believe that the rumors of Isabeau/Isabella’s nipples were a part of a smear campaign after her death. She was a shrewd diplomat and commanding political leader, acting as regent when her husband’s mental faculties declined. Of course historians had to ruin her reputation, otherwise, women might get "ideas”.

Still, Isabeau’s legendary boldness inspired me and my model-collaborator. Her nipples aren’t pierced, so we started to think outside of the box. How could we bejewel a tit without a piercing to hold them in place?

Enter, the stick-on earring.

Remember these? Did you ever put them somewhere other than your ears?

Ye olde stick on earrings (courtesy of Reddit) and their modern counterparts.

I am not sure about the rest of the world, but if you were a girl (or socialized as a girl) growing up in America during the 80s-90s, you know exactly what these are. Small, flat plastic gems that dug under your nails as you pried them off of the card. It was damn near impossible to put them on your ear correctly, they were always off-center or a bit askew. And you really only got one try, because the adhesive was not great at sticking to skin (it was, however, excellent at getting caught in your hair while you slept).

My favorite comment thread from the stick-on earrings Reddit post. Which shape is your favorite???

Like so many of my peers, I pressed these onto my ears while I dreamed of getting them pierced for real. I watched longingly as older girls climbed into that pastel purple chair at Claire’s, flinching only the slightest bit as the piercing gun clicked into their lobes. In the end, my parents used my conspicuous longing to their advantage, telling me I could only get my ears pierced when I was a “big girl” and stopped sucking my thumb. Needless to say, I quickly kicked the habit and chose white gold studs for my first pair.

My collaborator and I decided these would be our “jewels",” evolving the motif of plastic beaded bracelets against flesh in my Gesture Drawing series into something new. We debated over which shapes to choose, eventually landing on a diamond of sorts and a gold star. Giggling, we arranged them on her breast and the piece was born.

In lieu of a NASA photo this week, please enjoy this “dense” breast galaxy from my dear friend’s mammogram.

I didn’t realize until after I finished the drawing, exactly how similar her pose is to the Madonna del Latte genre. Except, in this case, her breast is simply here for pleasure and adornment, not to nourish an infant. Like my fruit series of paintings, this drawing brings me cheeky joy. What if womanhood doesn’t mean only motherhood or pleasing the male gaze? What if we can delight in our own bodies, side by side with other women? What if we believed we were just as important and worthy of reverence as Mary - without needing to have a baby or man present to contextualize our bodies and sexuality?

Coming up in future weeks: more musings about female adolescence, a new fruit painting, and monsters galore.

XOXO,

Sam ✨