Signs of Life: Party Girl Collection

Taking time to dissect my mind on the collection of artwork following my most recent grouping of party still-life paintings, specifically recollecting on the period of 2015 through 2020. This period of my life embarks on the raw reality of young adulthood through a lense of a 20-something midwestern girl using familiar objects, unique perspectives, and bold color choices. 

 

 

Impressionable Minds-

From a young age, I knew I wanted to be fabulous. I’m a child of the 2000s, and much like the other children of my generation: the TV raised me. With influences like Fran Drescher from The Nanny, Raven Symoné from That’s So Raven, and Melissa Joan Hart from Sabrina The Teenage Witch, I was enamored by fashion from a young age. Women with big personalities and even bigger wardrobes became an inspiration for an entire generation of young girls—myself included. Glitter, rhinestones, feathers, and sequins have always brought me a dopamine hit. The things others may label as “tacky” or “gaudy” captured my heart entirely. 

As the 2000s progressed, icons like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan took the center stage combining girlish whimsy with party culture. An effortless combination of glitter and grime had my impressionable tween-self captivated. I was too young to participate, but you had best bet I was paying attention.

I recall comments adults in my rural small town surrounding the controversy of these women. “That Britney Spears has done lost her mind,” they’d whisper in the grocery checkout. “Women these days have no class!” They’d mutter as I absorbed it all.

“Not you though,” they’d say to me, the wide-eyed, braceface. “You’re going to go to college, study hard, get a good job, and be a respectable young woman,” they’d insist with a slight nod as if to bless the statement and bring it into existence. I’d heard this mantra most of my life. I know they meant well, but the understanding that I had to do all of the above before being worthy of respect was an internalization I could’ve done without. Sure, you could argue that this wasn’t anyone’s direct intention—but the undertones were there.

I’d later learn in adulthood that the bar will always be raised when it comes to earning respect from society as a woman. I’m not mad, nor do I see myself as victim—though I think it goes without saying that I’d be doing myself and the women of my generation a disservice by not pointing this out. 

Party girl chic-

I was 21 years old 2016, and all things considered— a proper menace:

Work hard, play hard? No problem.

Sleep when I’m dead? Sounds reasonable.

Moderation? Never met her.

Slap the bag? Don’t mind if I do.

I was young, bottle-blonde, and had a newfound sense of freedom from being away from home. Yes, I did end up going the college route, and I was making people back home proud. Despite this party girl mentality, I was also making the Deans List and working just enough to never have call home and ask for money, which only heightened my perceived invincibility. 

I saw the world through rose-tinted glasses. Every weekend was a new party, a new adventure, and  a new story to tell… the ones I could remember, anyway.

Getting ready for a party felt like a ritual: a sacred process of overdrawn brows, an eyeliner wing “sharp enough to kill a man”, contour and highlight “beat to the high heavens”, and topped off with a matte liquid lipstick. Perfection. You couldn’t tell me any different. 

I looked cool, and finally felt cool. I had become the girl my 12 year old self wanted to be.

 

Fall from grace?

Just like Newton’s Law, what goes up must come down.

After a few years of partying, those rose-tinted glasses came off. The frequent use of recreational drugs and alcohol consumed my moods, cognitive function, and stress levels. At the end of the day, I’m a social drinker—the issue was that I was very social.

I watched friends fall into addiction. I watched boyfriends go on multi-day benders. I’d party like a rockstar with them on the weekends and dust myself off and go to work on Monday morning, unable to understand why they couldn’t just flip that switch too. I came to learn just how lucky I was to be wired differently. Though the tradeoff of that luck was an anxiety disorder, a series of tumultuous relationships and friendships alike, bruises, harassment, and a lot of tears.

A Respectable Young Woman-

I’m what the boomers call “unlucky in love”. And it’s such a shame too!—because you’re so pretty (they looooove to throw that one in there). While I could spend a lifetime deconstructing that mouthful of a statement alone, I’ll just stick to taking that one up in therapy.  

A common trend in my dating life tends to be men feeling insecure in some capacity— my past, my goals, my bullheadedness. In full transparency, I do get it—I am “a lot”. And while most men initially feel up to the challenge to handle my “a lot”-ness, the underlying issue lies in the fact that I will always strive to be “more”. I’m well aware of the fact that I have an insatiable hunger to expand my horizons: to do more, to see more, to experience more. For a while this sounds intriguing, but eventually that curiosity is soon replaced with resentment.

Despite this frustration, I can’t really blame any of these men— for their entire life most of them have been told to show up and do what’s expected of them and they’ll be rewarded; then some doe-eyed harlot comes along and tells them they’re wrong? I’m not saying it’s right or wrong- but I am simply saying I get it.

After reflecting on a recent failed relationship, I began to realize how much of my history had been censored to avoid upsetting him. I quickly learned that mentioning my college years made him emotionally volatile. I don’t regret my college experience or the dumb choices I made along the way because I learned so much, and in my defense—was doing it at an acceptable age to be young and stupid. During our years together, I felt a push from him to feel shame for this chapter of my life. I now realize now that my choice to embrace this part of my identity was poisoning his idealized perception of me. 

Respectable wives don’t shake ass in frat basements. Respectable mothers don’t go to the after party. Respectable homemakers don’t know all the words to Girls in the Hood. Three titles that I never wanted that were being forced on me as the ultimate “end goal” that I should be striving for. My lack of interest in this type of future was not only scolded, but under constant critique. Not to mention a damn bar that was constantly ever-so out of reach on what qualified me of being worthy of respect. 

This wasn’t the first relationship to weather this way. The patterns were becoming hard to overlook. I would never live up to anyone’s idealized version of me, so I decided to quit playing into it. In the end, I’ve learned that my “a lot”-ness is one of my favorite qualities about myself, and putting myself into situations that force me to shrink myself for someone else’s comfort probably aren’t the best use of my free will. 

 

 

Trending- 

In the current rise of conservative values also comes a rise in conservative internet trends. Carefully marketed terms like “clean girl aesthetic”, “soft girl life”, “stepping into your divine feminine”, and “old money aesthetic” have infiltrated the algorithms. While inherently there’s nothing wrong with any of these terms, the root messages often are conservative-leaning; often abiding by traditional values, male-centered approval, the nuclear family, and financial dependence. I’m not saying anything new or profound here—there’s thousands of people like myself identifying this and screaming it into the echo chamber on the internet. Though if you’ve made it this far into my blog post, I’m sure you can already conclude that this type of femininity isn’t exactly my brand.

I do believe we’re all on this earth for different reasons. Who am I to knock another woman’s purpose or goals? For me though, the idea of a traditional lifestyle feels constricting.

I believe the arts are a sign of humanity: something we desperately need in today’s climate. In choosing to prioritize this, I get to share my life,  perspective, and own humanity within my community as a means of connection. As someone who grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, I think it’s important for children to see that there are other paths in life than becoming a spouse and a parent. 

Thots & Prayers-

In painting this series, I’m faced with the never-ending question of “why?”

Why is it relevant?

Why is it important?

Why are you compelled to create it?

In creating this series, I wanted to paint something that felt relatable to a generation of women like myself. I wanted to document “signs of life” in a way that was unique to this party era of my life to invoke nostalgia and a sense of wonder, while remaining true to the messiness of real-life routines and practices. I wanted it to feel colorful and playful, as it felt when viewing these Paris-and-Nicole types of women from a child’s lense. Selfishly, I also wanted to make this era of life harder to ignore, overlook, or condemn for any potential partner hellbent on trying to abide me to their preconceived notion. As a plus, I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane.

That’s a wrap. Thanks for peeking inside my brain.