Picturing the Modern Amazon - Panel Discussion

The Women, it hit me emotionally. In my practice, whether I'm painting or drawing, I feel as if I'm crawling over the bodies. Contact with physicality is extremely important to me.

Stein: I've enjoyed observing people at the exhibition. Their responses have run the gamut: a man who could barely abide being in the room because the visuality of it was so upsetting to his understanding, his preferences, his taste in the female body that it influenced his very physical comfort level; women who are moved, empowered, thrilled, and exhilarated by the expansion of their understanding of the human possible and female possible. There's a period of adjustment where we have to retool our brains to deal with these images that are distortions of what we see every day as the norm. This involves a recalibrating of our own understanding of what we are looking at.

Kaplan: Andrulla, do you find cultural differences between the United States and Britain in terms of responses to your hypermuscularity?

Blanchette: If I come out of my gym, which is in a busy part of London, I could walk across the street with shorts and a bra top, and people would look, for sure, but nine times out of ten, nobody would come over and say anything. If they look, they'll make sure I don't see them looking. If they say something, it will be on the edge of their breath. That's how it happens in England. I'll put it down to being conservative. In New York, it's a different story. I'm kind of shocked. I've been here many times, and it's not like I do anything different when I come here. I'm dressed the same way. And I'm with Ian, a black man of 220 pounds, a bodybuilder, by my side. Sometimes holding my hand. At every corner I pass, especially when we have to stop and wait for the lights, I'm accosted by people. They don't just look. They come over. They ask to touch. Or they try to touch without asking. And they make comments out loud. They talk directly to me, and a lot of it's very sexual. From the men. I'm not threatened or any thing. I think it's quite funny actually. Now I've never had any woman say anything to me. They tend to walk on by as if they didn't see me. When I'm with other people they tell me they literally see people trip in the street because they're looking. So it does cause disruption.

Kaplan: But isn't part of the point to be seen? It shouldn't be surprising that people notice you and stop and look. Isn't part of it a public display?

Blanchette: First of all, I do bodybuilding for myself, to make myself happy. When it's winter, I'm not going to walk around half-naked to show off what I've got. But if I'm walking down the street in the summer, I don't see why I should have to cover up and be ashamed of what I have. It's my body. Accept or don't accept it. This is me. When people make comments, whether they're nice or not, it's not going to penetrate my being and stop me from what I'm doing. Of course you're going to get reactions to any extremity. It's not disruptive if you see someone with pink hair anymore. Or loads of metal things stapled in the face. When the first person did it, people looked. In twenty years, maybe there will be thousands of women bodybuilders, and women will not be victims of society anymore. It won't be such an extremity to see. But right now it is.