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One Size DOES NOT Fit All (1992)
I did many things to avoid creating this book. In 1987, a year after moving to Southern California, I was inspired to draw and paint some self-portraits. This was not unusual in itself, but these particular self-portraits were unlike previous ones. Drawn from my head, these full-length nudes spoke reams about the struggle I was having with owning a body that did not look like the models in magazines. A year in the skin-exposed, southern California culture amplified all the exterior and interior voices that told me I was "less than perfect." I drew distorted bodies, with sad and angry faces. Limbs and torsos looked like they were pinned to a board like the objectifying charts we see in scientific books. In retrospect, it was clear that I was searching for myself in a consumer culture that loathed large women, and that was unable to accept diverse body styles. That summer the drawings that survived my shame and did not end up in the garbage were hidden in the bowels of my drawing files.
A year or so passed. I was obsessively exercising and eating healthy, in recovery from a relationship that had made me less than happy about my body. I was busy making art about serious political issues: nuclear annihilation, environmental disaster, consumerism, and apathy ñ hoping to wake up the many numb citizens of the land of freeways, golf course, and beaches. Making art about body issues was the furthest thing from my mind. At the time, I saw such concerns as totally self-indulgent and never suspected it had any connection to "serious political issues."
In 1991, I was invited as a visiting artist to the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont. While sitting in Chaia Heller's ecofeminism course, I discovered an astoundingthing. Body issues were connected to the constellation of injustices resulting from living in a patriarchal, consumerist society. In other words, fat oppression and looks-ism (being discriminated against because of the way you look) were really serious problems and some of the only forms of oppression still accepted as O.K. Just to reinforce what I had just learned, we did a body image workshop where every young woman was invited to list what she liked and disliked about her body. I was totally shocked. This mostly twenty-something group of women who were all highly intelligent, politically committed and very attractive really hated what they looked like. A few liked their wrists, their fingers, or their ear lobes. The list of what they had learned to self-police their eating habits was horrifying: mothers, sisters, or peers taught them to take diet pills, to throw up or go without a meal, and to just plain hate themselves. There was not one woman in the group who had grown up celebrating her body. I left that meeting in a fury. I went into the studio and began to draw and paint with a frenzy that was unprecedented. I had a lot to say on the subject, and the stories of these women gave me more fuel. By the end of the month I had the beginnings of a book: The Fat Book. I needed to get the word out, and a book would have more impact than an installation or an exhibition of my paintings.
In 1992 I took a leave without pay from my teaching position at California State University, Long Beach and went into the studio to finish The Fat Book. Within a month I had a manuscript of 80 ink drawings and photocollages. I made images that I thought would be accessible to a wide audience. I discovered some real pleasure cutting up mail order, fashion catalogs to make my collages.
My first edition of thirty books was selling before I left the local copy shop. Clearly there was an audience for the book. I tried to find a REAL publisher and sent off the laser copy version to all the feminist publishers I could find. I received very supportive rejection letters.
Fortunately, a colleague from the Institute for Social Ecology who had just started a publishing house, discovered the photocopy manuscript and decided to print 2000 copies of the book. It is still in print and can be purchased directly from Aigis Publications, Littleton, CO, or can be ordered through your favorite bookstore, or we can arrange for me to send you a signed copy if you email me. I am hoping to do a second edition that will include new revelations and stories. Please feel free to leave a story on our interactive story board that speaks about your struggle with body hate.
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