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DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:12 PM Feb 2012

Wasilla High Covers Art Because it Looks Like Girl Parts



[font size=4]Wasilla High Covers Art Because it Looks Like Girl Parts[/font]

By - AKMuckraker
February 18th, 2012



~Photo by artist Jim Dault


Wasilla, in its seemingly never-ending quest to earn the derision and eye-rolling of the nation, has a new offering in the headlines this week. It has to do with a piece of artwork that currently sits outside Wasilla High School, the alma mater of our former ex-half governor, Sarah Palin and her ex-half-First Dude, Todd. In an homage to the school team, the Wasilla Warriors, the piece by artists Jim Dault and Shala Dobson was commissioned by the Percent for Art program to the tune of $100,000. It is titled “The Warrior Within” and features a pair of shields – one bronze with a hand, and one aluminum with a flame, which glow from within the large stone form.

The problem is that the students and parents of Wasilla find the statue offensive. Why? Well, it’s because the shields, surrounded by feathers reminds them of…um… it kind of looks like … (whispers)… female genitalia. Yes, this is what the population of Wasilla sees, and has therefore in horror, covered it up with a tarp before it could do any damage to young impressionable minds, and the parents thereof.

Despite the fact that everyone in Wasilla was born to someone with the above mentioned anatomy, and most entered the world through that self same portal, we can clearly not have anything to do with anything that remotely resembles it.

According to the artists’ description:

“Emerging from the powerful stone form are two warrior shields encircled by glowing feathers,” the description says, adding the art is a monument to the warrior spirit. “The bronze shield has a hand impression showing ‘good deeds.’ The aluminum shield has a flame symbol representing the ‘spark of inspiration.’ The stone form represents the strong material from which a warrior is made.”


Yup, it’s a hoohoo alright.

MORE




- If they had only put a tarp over Sarah Palin instead, we'd all be the better for it.......
53 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Wasilla High Covers Art Because it Looks Like Girl Parts (Original Post) DeSwiss Feb 2012 OP
This cannot be argued both ways cthulu2016 Feb 2012 #1
I see no vulva and I am looking real hard Angry Dragon Feb 2012 #4
Yeah, you are! Iggo Feb 2012 #8
Clearly you've never read The Mudflats before. DeSwiss Feb 2012 #11
not all. just the busy bodies roguevalley Feb 2012 #41
Perhaps they are test tube babies Angry Dragon Feb 2012 #2
My eyes! My eyes! Please include a "graphic image" warning!!!11!!! NYC_SKP Feb 2012 #3
I guess they wouldn't care for Georgia O'Keeffe either. Cleita Feb 2012 #5
If it looked like a penis no one would care. Alenne Feb 2012 #6
You're right. DeSwiss Feb 2012 #16
The problem is it makes all the penises feel undeterred Feb 2012 #25
That I would like to see.... izquierdista Feb 2012 #7
.... DeSwiss Feb 2012 #17
OMG that's like that episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" BumRushDaShow Feb 2012 #9
Oh no, vaginas are everywhere! Save us! WTF? Who looks at that and thinks 'vagina'? stevenleser Feb 2012 #10
A perfect example of projecting what you repress in yourself. Odin2005 Feb 2012 #12
Tell me what sexual symbols you see in this photo from Alaska..... DeSwiss Feb 2012 #20
Wow - that's a lot of crack! chrisa Feb 2012 #29
I'm surprised they didn't find the more obvious solution noamnety Feb 2012 #13
HA! DeSwiss Feb 2012 #18
lolz! ! ! ... TeeYiYi Feb 2012 #32
Crop it a bit more and see how many objections. LiberalFighter Feb 2012 #24
it's the evil Vag of Sauron. Whisp Feb 2012 #48
Looks more like a prop for a bad fantasy/scifi movie. TheWraith Feb 2012 #14
My son just made a rather brilliant point. We have what amounts to a giant penis... renie408 Feb 2012 #15
The Egyptian obelisks were definitely symbollic BumRushDaShow Feb 2012 #21
I understand the same is true many places quakerboy Feb 2012 #35
Sometime a cigar is just a cigar. Odin2005 Feb 2012 #28
You know what I think is ridiculous? People who take jokes on message boards seriously. n/t renie408 Feb 2012 #43
That was a joke? Odin2005 Feb 2012 #44
Hmmm... renie408 Feb 2012 #53
Well...... cliffordu Feb 2012 #42
um... what? Terra Alta Feb 2012 #19
This message was self-deleted by its author Obamanaut Feb 2012 #22
Sad. nt flying rabbit Feb 2012 #23
Wasilla. provis99 Feb 2012 #26
Looks like a "Jesus Fish" to me... JHB Feb 2012 #27
I need a visual aid. krispos42 Feb 2012 #39
omg, kick and rec for this. Too funny, thank you. uppityperson Feb 2012 #52
Ummm.. What? Aerows Feb 2012 #30
It makes me see football in a whole new light saras Feb 2012 #31
Yup! Bozita Feb 2012 #34
Consider what else displays that same symbolic shape starroute Feb 2012 #33
I think people should 'High 5' the vulva. Solly Mack Feb 2012 #36
Ahem. krispos42 Feb 2012 #37
Careful, last time someone touched on of those Rex Feb 2012 #38
No more totem poles, no more dried apricots. Alaska will be a barren wasteland. Scuba Feb 2012 #40
"Vagina. Men don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say. " Initech Feb 2012 #45
And most men don't even know exactly what it refers to. MineralMan Feb 2012 #47
Anchorage Daily News columnist Julia O'Malley responds to the furor Blue_In_AK Feb 2012 #46
Well if it looks like a vagina with measles and feathers but what does the hand symbolize? lunatica Feb 2012 #49
I'm not seeing it. Quantess Feb 2012 #50
I guess they'll have to tarp all trees with knotholes and keyholes in doors. Tierra_y_Libertad Feb 2012 #51

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
1. This cannot be argued both ways
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:15 PM
Feb 2012

The article seems to see Wassillians as dirty-minded rubes for seeing a vulva in what is clearly (and not accidentally) a symbolic vulva, then the article says there's nothing wrong with a vulva.

I believe that there is nothing wrong with a vulva, and this work is clearly intended to be vulval.

So the Wassillans are not seeing something that isn't there, but are having an anti-vulval reaction.

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
11. Clearly you've never read The Mudflats before.
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:33 PM
Feb 2012
- And for the record, Wassillians are dirty-minded rubes.......
 

NYC_SKP

(68,644 posts)
3. My eyes! My eyes! Please include a "graphic image" warning!!!11!!!
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:16 PM
Feb 2012

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

I am forever soiled!!!

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
5. I guess they wouldn't care for Georgia O'Keeffe either.
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:18 PM
Feb 2012

It's a good thing she worked in New Mexico.

 

izquierdista

(11,689 posts)
7. That I would like to see....
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:21 PM
Feb 2012

The female that has feathers around her.....genitalia. Must be some chick! And it gives a new meaning to "eating crow".

BumRushDaShow

(129,053 posts)
9. OMG that's like that episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond"
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:26 PM
Feb 2012

where Marie creates a sculpture for Raymond that unbeknownst to her sensibility, resembles a... (see below):



Ray ends up covering it with a sheet while it's in the house and eventually it is donated to their church... where the Nuns also saw what Marie seemed to have missed and they let her know.

 

stevenleser

(32,886 posts)
10. Oh no, vaginas are everywhere! Save us! WTF? Who looks at that and thinks 'vagina'?
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:30 PM
Feb 2012

Certainly no one who has ever seen a vagina would look at that and say "Oh no! Our kids are being exposed to something that looks like a vagina!"

Odin2005

(53,521 posts)
12. A perfect example of projecting what you repress in yourself.
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:33 PM
Feb 2012

If you repress your own sexuality you see sexual symbols everywhere.

 

noamnety

(20,234 posts)
13. I'm surprised they didn't find the more obvious solution
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:35 PM
Feb 2012

They could leave the statue alone if they instead all covered their eyes, which they should to protect their innocent children. After all, which is worse - the artwork, or human eyes?



TheWraith

(24,331 posts)
14. Looks more like a prop for a bad fantasy/scifi movie.
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:37 PM
Feb 2012

Put your hand to the sacred stone, and free the (insert cliched end of nonsensical quest here)!

renie408

(9,854 posts)
15. My son just made a rather brilliant point. We have what amounts to a giant penis...
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:37 PM
Feb 2012

on the mall in Washington, DC in honor of our first President, but Wasilla couldn't tolerate a little vagina out in front of the high school. It's because of our male-centric society that giant phallic symbols in the form obelisks are all over the place. But no pseudo-ginas allowed.

BumRushDaShow

(129,053 posts)
21. The Egyptian obelisks were definitely symbollic
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:49 PM
Feb 2012

But the Greek phallus statues were anatomically correct, very popular, and dutifully stationed in front of most houses in ancient Greece.

I had a Greek Civ professor in college, who as an archaeologist was an expert on them, and he would show the class literally dozens of photos that he had taken over the years as part of his research of the surviving penis sculptures.

You can imagine how that class went that semester.

quakerboy

(13,920 posts)
35. I understand the same is true many places
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 03:35 AM
Feb 2012

According to a prof I had, the roman empire(the soldiers) decided that the vagina looked like the evil eye, and that therefore the way to ward off the evil eye was to prominently display Penii all over.

Odin2005

(53,521 posts)
28. Sometime a cigar is just a cigar.
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 11:14 PM
Feb 2012

I think people that think all long, tall objects are phallic symbols are ridiculous.

renie408

(9,854 posts)
53. Hmmm...
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 07:25 PM
Feb 2012

Not precisely a Joke, but more an off the cuff comment not necessarily intended to be dissected as a serious commentary on the use of phallic symbols in modern memorials. It surprises me sometimes the things people take seriously.

cliffordu

(30,994 posts)
42. Well......
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 02:01 PM
Feb 2012

I love vaginas and wouldn't mind if they were portrayed in all their glory everywhere......

I cannot believe that the word "vagina" or the image of one could be distressing.

It's 2012, goddammit, not 1912.

Terra Alta

(5,158 posts)
19. um... what?
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 10:45 PM
Feb 2012

People in Wasilla have dirty minds and no life.

The typical Wasillian probably wants nothing to do with art, anyway. Unless it happens to be a ten-foot tall statue of Sarah Palin.

Response to DeSwiss (Original post)

krispos42

(49,445 posts)
39. I need a visual aid.
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 04:21 AM
Feb 2012

Not seeing it...







Getting there...





OMG! OMG!






[div class=excerpt style=background:#AFEEEE]French waxing leaves a vertical strip in front (sometimes called a landing strip), two to three finger-widths long just above the vulva, and 4 cm (1½ inches) wide. It is also known as a partial Brazilian wax.[2](p139)[7][9] Hair of the peri-anal area and labia may be removed. Removal of hair from these areas is also known as the Playboy wax[8] or G-waxing. The landing strip wax has become popular with models who must wear garments of an extreme narrowness in the crotch region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_wax#Styles

Warning: link is NSFW!


 

Aerows

(39,961 posts)
30. Ummm.. What?
Sat Feb 18, 2012, 11:31 PM
Feb 2012

Is this all it takes for people to get up in arms these days?

Have mercy. Find something else to do if you can find something sexual in this, because obviously, whatever brand of sex you are having is NOT working for you and your level of frustration is plain sad.

 

saras

(6,670 posts)
31. It makes me see football in a whole new light
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 01:24 AM
Feb 2012

As Melanie said in Psychotherapy, "a thing's a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide."

OK?

All long things are penises.
All rounded things are breasts.
All holes are vaginas.

What could be simpler?

Am I mistaken in thinking that this 'vulva' has eleven clits in a ring around it? I imagine they're jealous.

Bozita

(26,955 posts)
34. Yup!
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 02:26 AM
Feb 2012

Concentric circles caused by a stone tossed into a pond on a calm day are obviously pornographic.

Unfuckingbelievable!

starroute

(12,977 posts)
33. Consider what else displays that same symbolic shape
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 02:25 AM
Feb 2012


http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/fish_symbol.htm

Well before Christianity, the fish symbol was known as "the Great Mother," a pointed oval sign, the "vesica piscis" or Vessel of the Fish. "Fish" and "womb" were synonymous terms in ancient Greek,"delphos." Its link to fertility, birth, feminine sexuality and the natural force of women was acknowledged also by the Celts, as well as pagan cultures throughout northern Europe. Eleanor Gaddon traces a "Cult of the Fish Mother" as far back as the hunting and fishing people of the Danube River Basin in the sixth millennium B.C.E. Over fifty shrines have been found throughout the region which depict a fishlike deity, a female creature who "incorporates aspects of an egg, a fish and a woman which could have been a primeval creator or a mythical ancestress..." The "Great Goddess" was portrayed elsewhere with pendulous breasts, accentuated buttocks and a conspicuous vaginal orifice, the upright "vesica piscis" which Christians later adopted and rotated 90-degrees to serve as their symbol.

Initech

(100,079 posts)
45. "Vagina. Men don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say. "
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 03:36 PM
Feb 2012

"Where as without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his...johnson." - Maude Lebowski.

MineralMan

(146,317 posts)
47. And most men don't even know exactly what it refers to.
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 04:04 PM
Feb 2012

There are a lot of terms related to the genitals of women that men don't like to say. They don't know what they mean, either. Ask a man for the definition of the word, "vulva," and see what you get. Ignorance is a negative thing.

Somewhere in everyone's education, there needs to be a class in "naming of parts," that teaches kids the names, locations, and functions of every part of the genitalia of both sexes. Then, there would be no excuse for not knowing the proper names of things and their location. That should be the beginning of proper sex education in every public school.

Just one guy's opinion. This guy got handed a book on sexual anatomy and reproduction by his mom when he was 10 years old, in 1955. She said, more or less, "Here's something that you'll be curious about, and that you'll be interested in learning. If you have any question, just ask." I was, and I did. Mom was a very smart woman.

Blue_In_AK

(46,436 posts)
46. Anchorage Daily News columnist Julia O'Malley responds to the furor
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 03:48 PM
Feb 2012
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/159836



<snip>

It's easy to joke, but my heart really does go out to the principal, Amy Spargo. The media picked up on this thing after the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reported it last week. The story hasn't really gone national yet. But the Internet is made of stuff like this. Let's hope it stays off Leno.

It's not the teenagers who surprise me, really. It's their parents. Seriously, guys? With everything you've got to worry about as the parents of teenagers, you're getting worked up about a sculpture that looks like a lot of things, including -- I'm just going to say it so cover your eyes if you need to -- a vagina.

What do people think? High school students should be protected from a piece of art that is the same shape as a lady's private parts? Right, because then they might start thinking about private parts. Or, worse, they might start making crude sexual jokes. They'd totally never do that otherwise.

If we tarped everything a 14-year-old boy thought reminded him of a woman's body, it would get pretty tarpy around here. Don't get me started on things kids think look like penises.

<snip>



Read more here: http://community.adn.com/adn/node/159836#storylink=cpy

lunatica

(53,410 posts)
49. Well if it looks like a vagina with measles and feathers but what does the hand symbolize?
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 04:13 PM
Feb 2012

The Wasillan clumsy grope?

 

Tierra_y_Libertad

(50,414 posts)
51. I guess they'll have to tarp all trees with knotholes and keyholes in doors.
Sun Feb 19, 2012, 04:21 PM
Feb 2012

To keep dirty minded boys from getting all sweaty and running amok.

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