Riot with my left hand

Danielle Gundry-Monji bunny dee

There I went and didn’t post for months..I am trying to break this habit.

I’m still not so sure about the direction of this blog.  I want it to be personal.  I want it to be more than a pinterest(which I have with pretty everything, because there is so much pretty on pinterest!) or a twitter, with little quips.  Want to know a weird fact?  I once wanted to study political science.  My first year I got to vote was 2000.  The big crazy year with dimpled chads and one person winning the presidency and then it got called away.  It was a big year.  I was one of two people that could vote that year in my catholic high school.  He was republican.  I was a dem.  Man did we rage on each other.  Verbal battles erupted before classes began.  Teachers would have to make us sit down.  Thankfully we only had two classes together.  All the other students seemed to watch us like a circus.  All of them couldn’t vote, but I would of been afraid had they all been able to.  I have a suspicious feeling I would of been painfully outnumbered in most of our verbal fencing.  I was 18, 2000 was my year to make a stand, to finally let my voice be heard.  Then I was crushed utterly by the outcome.  It didn’t mean I stopped voting..it meant I wanted to make a stand.  I wanted politics to matter.  This was all before I knew all the facts.  The lobbying….the rhetoric against women.  How could we come so far and be so behind?  But how far had we come?  Women hadn’t even had the right to vote for 100 years yet.  Women didn’t have rights against spousal abuse until much later…how long had women had the right to choose?  40 years? Too damn few years..how can a country state that all are created equal..perhaps the constitution should be changed.  Not all “men” are created equal.  Can we add a “Wo” to that?  Would that be so insane?

I moved to a liberal city.  One of the most liberal in the US.  San Francisco.  I thought here..of all places there would be equal rights. I was mistaken.  Prop 8?  WTF.  People are people is all I could think.  We are all of the same species.  We are humans.  Where is the logic?  Why is women’s health even a political debate topic?  Shouldn’t it be a right?  Do we have the same rights as our male counterparts?  I think not.

I felt for awhile that I had no voice.  That I wanted to be part of this movement.  I got motivated.  I read “Men Explain Things” by Solnit.  “Bad Feminist” by Gay and realized even more how far we had to go.  I wanted to empower myself.  I wanted to have women feel they could count on an artist to have their voices heard.  I love fashion, I’m not going to lie.  I wanted to make a way for women to speak their minds with visuals.  They don’t have to yelling in the face of the patriarchy.  But they could scream at them visually.  I am here.  I am thinking, I know what the hell is up.   I guess my journey is starting to lead me in this direction and I feel awake again.  My art has always deviated towards the feminine.  Only natural for it to flow this way.

Small Town Girl

Danielle Gundry-Monji bunny dee

Longer then I would like since the last blog post!  So much seems to have been going on since I last dropped in.  I’ve had my strange run of health issues.  A lack of taste for the last 3 months which at first I thought was due to a sinus infection..it seems like its allergies though due to our long dry winter here in california.  Which strangely brings me to the subject of my current home for nearly the last 10 years.  San Francisco.  My dream city.  The one that as a kid I always had a love of and perhaps a wish to live in.  When given the chance by my family to go to art school I was given the choice of choosing a place in california.  My choice was San Francisco.  Close enough to be near and dear to family and far enough to make a jump from bakersfield.  I recently however visited Portland Oregon.  I honestly never thought I could see myself anywhere but San Francisco.  That “the city” might always be my home.  I went to Oregon though..and though it was during one of the rainy months(it rained 5 of the 6 days I was there) I honestly felt like something shifted inside me.  I felt a strangeness..like there was some sort of bridge between the small town community that I grew up in(bakersfield) and the city life(san francisco).  I felt the kindness of strangers.  I felt nature in a way I had not ever felt before.  A beauty that seemed to knock me over.  I felt happy for the first time in I couldn’t remember when.  I was having conversations with strangers and since I left there I can honestly say I haven’t stopped thinking about it.  It felt almost like portland was the mistress and SF was my spouse.  I felt bad about having had such a wonderful glorious beautiful time that when I returned to SF my thoughts never left the bridge city.

I’ve had my experiences with making bad decisions about cities.  So I am cautious.  I moved to NYC on a lark.  Thinking OH THIS WILL BE THE DREAM I AM MARY TYLER MOORE.  No..I was not her..I was in NYC and I was just not built for it.  I’m going back to portland in october.  There is something about that place though that warms me, though it rains constantly, the people were so kind.  That is really what hit me.  The kindness..

This is Artemis.  She is how I have been feeling lately.  Change, growth, travel, goddesses, light and love.