Another quick and dirty post.
I bought my own pillow like a lamo.
Then I stuck sequins on it.
I’m quite pleased with it it.
Ok I’m immensely pleased with it.
Isn’t that terrible?
But thats mostly down to the colour.
I love that particular shade of chrome yellow.
I really need to find customers other than myself.
Here: http://society6.com/JanineShroff/Rape-Rick_Pillow
Rape Rick Pillow
Rape Rick Pillow Closer
Deepanjana put me up on a blog called Genderlog – talking about my Rape Rick drawing.
Do wander over and check it out if you have a minute.
Previous Rape Rick Posts Here
So nice at Christmas to have a horrible gang rape in Delhi.
I read all morning till I felt sick.
Had an impassioned debate with the ex about it because one of the ex’s friends posted a Facebook message that had the right sentiment but said stuff like “She’ll never have a normal married life now”, which wound me up immediately.
1. So much importance on marriage post-rape. Not: she’s been subjected to awful violence, why is this now so common? What about justice?,
But: What about her marriage? It’s part of the problem because there is a huge percentage of women who probably won’t step forward because people might whisper and say
“Who will marry her now?”
So then fewer women step forward, more rapists can get away with it and we have a neat addition to this cyclical problem (In my opinion anyway). I’m sure I’m expressing myself terribly badly.
2. Even though in this case the violence was so extreme it may possibly be true in a medical sense, this is still a massive assumption and deeply patronising.
3. The word ‘normal’ annoys me. Some Delhi shee-shee type with her Gucci armpit bag on one arm, her rich husband on the other, her lipstick just so, talking about a ‘normal’ married life.
I really wanted the ex to contest these points on this lady’s message but the ex doesn’t get sucked into online debates as easily as I do.
Which is probably very sensible.
Now I’m also angry about every time I’ve said I feel anxious, and I’ve had Bombay people tell me,
“Dude stop being paranoid. Just get over it.”
“Don’t listen to her, she doesn’t even live there anymore. Bombay is really safe.”
It’s true. I don’t live there anymore. The contrast now is far clearer. When I lived there the day-to-day occasional molestation was blocked out. It has to be. Besides you just get immune to it. I’ve had only about 4-5 such incidents. Pretty small number I think. Only one or 2 really unnerved me, but you brush them off.
“Bombay isn’t like Delhi. Delhi has rapemobiles.”
“You should go to Delhi if you think Bombay is bad.”
Like that comparison somehow makes it better. You won’t get AS molested in Bombay as in Delhi.
“Bombay is sooooo safe man. You’re being SUCH a foreigner.”
The little bubble Bombay people live in. Each time there is a terrible rape or some ganging up and stripping of a girl in public (NYE, twice), there is a brief, fleeting hoo-hah then it’s all forgotten.
Even though one of these hoo-hahs was about a teenager being raped by a policeman at a Bandra chowki.
But far more first hand experiences exist (Not that you need first-hand experiences, because there are plenty of dismal stats, but because “first hand experiences” seems to be part of the debate for pro-Bombay safety put forward by many of my friends, Leo included.):
One of my friends was held at gun point outside her house and car jacked, another girl told me how she leapt from a cab after he leaned back while driving, groped her breasts then started veering wildly down the road as she fought him, another leaped out of a moving rick and legged it after the driver took her and a teenage friend speeding down some random alley, a friend’s friend was raped while coming home at night.
But hey, Bombay is so safe man. I should SERIOUSLY get over it.
“Dude, I take a rick late at night everyday and I haven’t got raped…”
I always want to respond with the correct ending to that sentence.
“Yet.”
I’m also acknowledging that I’m angry about having to feeling anxious in the first place. I don’t know how that gets fixed. I don’t think it can be.
I can only hope this hoo-hah, this time, isn’t brief and fleeting.
I’m cannibalising my post from my actual website somewhat.
But I’m very excited about Society6′s Throw pillows.
Free shipping until midnight Monday 26th 2012 on Society6.
(Excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with inserts.)
They look really good. You can select 3 sizes with or without inserts.
Pool Throw Pillow – Click to view
High Tea Throw Pillow
Indian Knight Throw Pillow
Indian Woman Throw Pillow
Rape Rick Throw pillow! – Come on who wouldn’t have this on their couch?
Rape Rick Final (I scanned it before I stuck the sequins on, as they won’t scan)
So I’ve finished the Rape Rick at last.
By the by, in case you were curious as to why I drew this, please read this post here.
The reason it took so long is that I sort of lost interest half way through making it and it stalled for ages.
Partly because of that app project which started eating into my evening hours as it wound up to a close. (Which I ought to post about at some point but I’m scared that people might find my blog via it. Is that paranoid? Can people do that? I don’t know but I’m nervous.)
Then I started setting up my shops and put up the Enthu Cutlet & Indian woman prints.
I was discussing this with the Fourth A, who is simultaneously doing a PhD, a jewelry class, house-hold DIY and also plans to open a chaddie (underwear) business.
I said she needs to focus more.
So do I. I also need better time management. I spend too much time faffing around instead of knuckling down and just finishing a project. I have 4/5 other projects and drawings that are half-finished. I need to make a list and tackle them one by one, and not start anything new until they are done and dusted. (Mighty last words!)
I had a wretched time painting the Rape rick. The first coat of yellow came out too wishy-washy.
Then I coloured in the black lines and promptly smudged it accidentally. So I had to paint the white again and add another coat of yellow.
So I did a second coat. Then I thought it might be too flat so I added some orange.
Too much orange I think
Then I wanted a gradient so I added more orange on the 4th coat. (I know, madness)
Then I started painting all the leaves and flowers, until on review I decided it was now far too orange so I spent the better part of 2 evenings fixing the orange back to the yellow.
Then I needed to re-paint all the flowers and leaves. Argh!
However I think the chrome yellow is a marked improvement. It had to be done.
Then I scanned it all in, and then finally stuck on the sequins. I love these sequins. The glitter didn’t work on the heavily painted yellow acrylic but I had bought the rhinestones you get to stick to bling up mobile phones and those worked really well. I’m dying to glitter something else up.
You can’t tell from the scan, but the flowers also have gold glitter on them. The text is also coloured in with a red glitter pen, and the thick black lines with a black glitter pen. The glitter pens are quite subtle. When you move you see it glinting.
Penis Close up
Text & Sequins Close up
Girl Close up
Rape Rick Photo
Rape Rick Sequins
I also bought a Gouache set recently, in a fit of New Years stationary madness, that I’m now beginning to slightly regret.
I keep putting my hand on the paper before the paint has dried. Or dropping water on it.
Or even ash if I’m smoking and painting.
Even my ear phones are now covered in yellow and orange since I’ve been watching TV on my laptop while I paint and the wires tend to drag over my palette.
So I don’t know why I bought the Gouache set. (Gouache will move if you add water. Acrylics once dry, set solid.) All that will happen is that I’ll make an unholy mess all over the place. At least acrylics don’t shift once they’re dry.
God painting is so hard. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Rape Rick Sketch 1
Rape Rick Sketch 2
Rape Rick Sketch 3
Inspired by my sketch book drawing of a rape taxi; I followed it up with a larger version that I’m working on above.
The ex saw the sketch for it and said blankly
“Thats not going up on my wall”
“Ever.”
I like to hold it up now and then, so the ex can see it, and say gleefully,
“Look look look baby look. Do you like my drawing??”
Then the ex looks up from the world domination plans, that I’m constantly interrupting, only to have me waving about my drawing with various penises on the 4 corners.
The ex has very expressive eyebrowns (eggcorn alert). I like to see them move about when I show them things.
The ex does NOT approve of rape taxis. Or rape ricks. Or drawings of penises.
So there.
The judicial system (UK) is so fucking useless
They plan to reduce the jail sentences for rapists on the basis that “prison is tough”
Rapists might as well get a small smack on the bum and be told “naughty naughty”
While at the same time, the glorious legislators are banning cigarettes in pubs all over the country (not the mention raising the prices of fags and cribbing about smokers health non fucking stop)
So what’s the lesson here?
You can enjoy a good rape if your a lad (or mini-cab driver) in Britain, but just don’t have a fag after.
Free Smoke
Single panel
