sashas little computer wont let her blog

One day in third grade, my teacher was instructing the class how to fill up the questionnaire for the NY state standardized test. She went through all the questions going “Male or Female? Obviously if you are a boy you pick…”etc. Then she came to the race question. Without looking up she said “Check White/CaucASIAN.” Confused I looked up. However it didn’t faze anyone else. As a little girl I always thought what it would be like if I was white, as if it was the answer to all my problems.
Looking through our art history book to find inspiration for our mid-term project, I became really interested in pieces where the artist placed themselves in the paintings. I loved how clever and narcissistic it seemed. I started looking at artist’s self portraits throughout art history. Then I realized, there are practically no “great” Asian and/or women artists. This reminded me of how I felt when I was younger and got me thinking a lot about my place in art and society.
Right now I am trying to brainstorm ideas that I can use to explore this relationship. I have been looking a lot at things that have been attributed to a “women’s role” in western society, like domestic items and fashion magazines. I am also thinking about re- doing / re-enacting several “great” artists’ self portraits by replacing their image with mine in order to combat the idea of the male “genius”.
It seems I am in a very “quotations” mood. So here are some “pictures”.