
Name: Birgitte Age: 40 State: New York My paintings are my diaries on canvas. I started painting in 1992, after a nine-year struggle with the eating disorder, Bulimia. Because both my mother and grandmother are painters, I grew up in a very artistic home environment. It was my mother, actually, who I give credit to for starting me to paint. That summer, I had just moved back to my parent's house from New York City. My mother asked me one day, while her easel was out,.....'Why don't you try to paint me?' I said to her, 'Mom,I can't paint like you!' But she told me just to try anyway. This was the start of a whole new life for me. I had lived for so long covering up how I truly felt about the world, myself, my family, my body, men etc. that it was the beginning of an enormous release for me. I seemed to have no problem in expressing how I felt. Painting was, in essence, allowing me to 'feel' life. After participating in a group show at the end of the summer at The Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, I had gotten a little tired of the struggle and of exposing myself so I quit painting and moved back to New York. In the fall of '92 I began a career as a make-up artist, which offered excitement and financial freedom - it also wasn't as painful as my artwork. Ten years ago, I returned to painting and now I incorporate new materials into my work including fur, shattered glass, barbed-wire, brillo-pads, bath towels and door stops, among other things. I like to work with the cheapest and most mundane objects as possible. I enjoy putting something that normally never gets any attention for its beauty or excitement into a painting. I like to work with cheap paints as well, because I want to show the ugly side of life or the truth in life and to do this with beautiful paints and objects seems contradictory. I have multiple relationships and loves in my life and they all know about each other. I used to be the typical "Sex And The City Girl" and wondered why I never had the relationship of my dreams. For me, the key to fulfillment was realizing that a single relationship wasn't what I was cut out for. I discovered polyamory five years ago and it all made sense to me. It can get a little overwhelming - trying to make sure that everyone is happy, but I have the personal life of a billionaire. I am the leader of one of the largest polyamory organizations in the world called POLYAMOROUS NYC and an activist in the polyamory movement because, I believe in responsible non-monogamy as an ethical love style choice. Monogamy is currently the only valid model of love in our society and it doesn't seem to be working very well for everyone. I am passionate about polyamory because, I am passionate about choice. I can fully support monogamy as long as it is out of choice, not out of fear. My friends and family know about this. I would say that everyone has been very supportive and surprisingly not shocked. A long-time lover of mine said that he always knew that this (polyamory) was me. I thought that he would dump me but, he didn't. My mother can't stand polyamory even though she loves the people that I am involved with. She really wants me to settle down and find a husband. I might just do that, but I don't want to give up my other relationships. They are a huge part of who I am and my life. If someone fell in love with me but said I had to be monogamous, then they wouldn't really be in love with me because that is not who I am. I have chosen to live my life as an activist because "Life begins to end the day that we are silent about things that matter." [Martin Luther King] My life is about making a difference in this world. At age 40, I have successfully healed myself from a life-time of obsession with food, weight and body image. I wish to help heal others that are still struggling with those issues through my art and my story. I had a boyfriend who was a fabulous photographer. He started taking pictures of me. Luckily, they were really good pictures, and people started approaching me and asking me to do nudes for them. I was tired of constantly being barraged by the media message that I'm not supposed to feel good about myself because I'm larger. I decided to have my own little birthday party and celebrate myself. So one of the ways I did that was posing nude. I continue to do that, and celebrate myself. When I was 212 pounds I felt really beautiful. Was I happy all the time? No, and I'm happier now that I weigh less. I'd like to come down a little more but I still feel great now. If you're losing weight in order to feel good about yourself losing the weight, you're still going to feel lousy even if you're 70 pounds lighter. It's about marching to your own drumbeat instead of trying to be what everyone else tells you to be. Then you truly are beautiful. I'm fascinated by beauty and at the same time repulsed at society's emphasis on it, and the pressure to be beautiful. It's very sad that the majority of women are not happy with the way they look - it's such a tragedy. I spent the first half of my life beating myself up, torturing myself, hating myself, damaging my body and damaging myself. When I stopped, I said from now on it's all about celebrating myself, my life, my beauty. Concentrating on what I have instead of what I don't have and being positive for the rest of my life.

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Birgitte

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