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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWasilla 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, its 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, its a hoohoo alright.
MORE
- If they had only put a tarp over Sarah Palin instead, we'd all be the better for it.......
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)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.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Iggo
(47,558 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)What has been seen cannot be unseen.
I am forever soiled!!!
Cleita
(75,480 posts)It's a good thing she worked in New Mexico.
Alenne
(1,931 posts)Vulvas are bad.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)undeterred
(34,658 posts)small.
izquierdista
(11,689 posts)The female that has feathers around her.....genitalia. Must be some chick! And it gives a new meaning to "eating crow".
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,053 posts)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)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)If you repress your own sexuality you see sexual symbols everywhere.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)chrisa
(4,524 posts)noamnety
(20,234 posts)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?
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)Between the eye and you're dancing banana, I can't stop laughing...
TYY
LiberalFighter
(50,942 posts)Maybe even photoshop the eyelashes out.
Whisp
(24,096 posts)let's not think about all the scrotum poles we see every day.
TheWraith
(24,331 posts)Put your hand to the sacred stone, and free the (insert cliched end of nonsensical quest here)!
renie408
(9,854 posts)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)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)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)I think people that think all long, tall objects are phallic symbols are ridiculous.
renie408
(9,854 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Could have fooled me.
renie408
(9,854 posts)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)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)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)
Obamanaut This message was self-deleted by its author.
flying rabbit
(4,634 posts)provis99
(13,062 posts)Meth capital of Alaska, home to Sarah Palin and porn star April Flowers. Whatta town...
JHB
(37,160 posts)...do they cover those up too?
krispos42
(49,445 posts)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!
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)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)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.
Concentric circles caused by a stone tossed into a pond on a calm day are obviously pornographic.
Unfuckingbelievable!
starroute
(12,977 posts)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.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)It rocks!
I'm partial to mine anyway.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)this went down. Member him?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Initech
(100,079 posts)"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)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)
<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)The Wasillan clumsy grope?
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)To keep dirty minded boys from getting all sweaty and running amok.