Without delving too deeply into all that super raw stuff, here are some drawings I’ve produced. The first two are commissioned digital illustrations of Lillian and Jaimielee (the Fancy Bonanza winner); the rest are further explorations of ugly/ vain/ amazing/ perfectly cromulent embodiment.

Illustration of Lillian, who is fat and pale skinned, wearing a sheer black blouse with a red polka dot pencil skirt and red shoes. She stands on a checkerboard walkway in space!

Illustration of Jaimielee, a fat babe of colour with orange hair, helping her fluffy white dog Muscles stand up in the middle of a suburban street. Jaimielee wears a blue chevron striped top with a grey cardigan and blue jeans; Muscles wears a cute grumpy puppy face.

Illustration of myself (with longer blue hair) wearing a disdainful look upon my face and a singlet that says "Don't invalidate my ugly."

Illustration of a fat babe with brown skin and candy pink hair standing astride a yellow bike with a basket full of flowers, books, food and a white puppy.

Illustration of a babe with white skin, zits and huge honey coloured hair looking in a hand mirror. A speech bubble above says, “Look at yourself!” and text on the mirror says, “Stop looking at yourself.”

As I got more into fat activism I started to realise that the problem wasn’t me, it was this construct of beauty, and while it was nice to know it might not all be my fault… it still didn’t feel good to embody ugliness and to be treated poorly because of that. Not everyone has thought me ugly, but those that haven’t (and do not) surprise me!

As a blogger posting photos of their outfits it feels like ugliness still holds me back – because when I look at the most popular bloggers, they all embody and uphold traditional beauty standards and practices. I do not. The other day I was thinking about this, and trying not to blame myself for not being a beautiful and successful blogger, and I realised that maybe embracing ugliness was an answer. I will never have smooth skin. I doubt I’ll ever shave regularly again. I have visible tattoos, piercings, stretch marks, and scars. I am fat. I am not particularly graceful. I laugh loudly. I don’t cross my legs. Yet I still identify as femme, because it’s important to me to embrace a femmeness that challenges my culture’s screwed up notions of femininity and beauty.

Illustration of a fat person in a pink polka dot bra and undies with stretchmarks and hairy legs sitting above a banner that says "Ugly femme pride".

I don’t have to be beautiful, and I don’t owe it to anyone either. It took me two years to fully understand this after first reading Lesley Kinzel’s Uninvested in Being Beautiful. I was so struck by this epiphany today that I decided to draw it. UGLY FEMME PRIDE!

After having a minor panic attack, Nick’s helped me think through the solution. We’ll be re-running the giveaway and this time we are tracking the hashtag entries in a number of RSS readers (yay backups!) The #fancybonanza redux will now close December 14th at 12pm AEST (+10GMT), and I’m going to be giving away TWO more necklaces (blue and green) to two runners up.

It really blows that everyone has to re-enter the draw and I’m so sorry we weren’t aware of this Twitter limitation before we ran it. I’m so bummed out because I wanted to ensure that the winner would receive their necklace and brooch by Christmas!

In an effort to make it even more clear that I do not want this kind of self esteem eroding, multimillion dollar marketing scam bullshit infecting my life and this blog I’ve been working on a graphic for websites and blogs to use to proudly declare NO DIET TALK! This is a way for those of us who are made uncomfortable and triggered in conversations that centre around diet and weight loss to feel a bit safer, and I’m hoping that the graphic is spread far and wide.

Right click and save to your computer friends, then upload to your website!
These are all transparent png files for optimal stencilesque radness and to fit in with a wide variety of site designs. The white graphic has a black background added in with CSS, it will look great on most dark backgrounds.

I’m releasing this graphic in a few different colour variations under a Creative Commons Non Commercial No Derivatives license which means you can share the image and post it where ever you want on the internet, but you can’t modify or use it for commercial means.

I’m going to be making up brooches with this design too, so stay tuned!

Here’s some further reading on diet talk and why it sucks:
The anti diet-talk mantra by Sonya at Lip Mag
FAT: The Dirty Word by Mary at A Merry Life
Trimming the fat from “fat talk” on The-F-Word
Dear Dieters; A Letter to People at Work by Marianne at The Rotund

A photo of fat necklaces in white, red, silver mirror, green and blue.

“Does it say something? What does it say?”
“It says FAT!”
“Oh!”

Ordinarily I would jump in to explain defensively, just why I had the audacity to sell necklaces with THAT WORD cut out of pretty colours in fancy letters; however I just smiled and nodded. I’m a bit tired of feeling sheepish about fat and that’s why I made these necklaces, but I realise how awkward I still feel about the F word outside my community. It’s just a word, right? No it’s not just a word. It’s an identity. It’s my body. It’s a rebellion. It’s my attitude. I don’t want to feel defensive about this part of me but it’s hard when I’ve been taught that this word, this embodiment, is so taboo.

It’s a reminder that fat acceptance, or self acceptance, isn’t a destination. It’s lots of little steps, it’s sitting down for a while to reflect on how far I’ve come, and it’s the chub rub between my thighs from making it to this point.

Even though the colour of my bike was the approximate shade of a McDonalds cheese slice stuck to an oily wrapper, I grew close to it and learned of all its secrets. If I wanted to carry stuff on the rear rack I had to balance it just right because it was a little bit wonky; and no matter how hard I tightened the bolts on my handle bars and seat they would go askew at inconvenient moments throwing me off the bike violently unless I paid attention to the warning signs.

I had that same bike until I was about 16 and with it I explored three different neighbourhoods; I rode around multi-story carparks, made my way through bushland to fish water lilies out of the creek and snuck out to the shops to get ice blocks on hot summer days. There must have been some moment when I thought I had outgrown my ugly yellow bike, leaving it in the garage in favour of catching trains and buses to explore things outside my neighbourhood. When I learnt how to drive a car it seemed that I would never ride a bike again!

In recent years I’ve noticed a renewed interest in biking for transport and fun. Brisbane City Council have even started the City Cycle initiative with bikes for hire to get around the inner city and CBD. The programme is pretty cool but I never lived close enough to a City Cycle station to have a go. That, and the last time I’d ridden a bike was well over a decade previously! So living too far away from a bike station, having long distant bike experience, no helmet and lingering doubts that one of the City Cycle bikes could even hold my magnificent body sort of precluded me from jumping on a bike like the Council wanted. Their “healthy initiative” unfortunately won’t be a great success until it becomes more accessible and inclusive.

The thing about encouraging fat people to “just get active” is that far too many activities are unwelcoming and even hostile to fat bodies. Did you know that many resistance machines at gyms have weight limits? Fat people do. Have you ever gone on a nice walk only to have people looking at you or screaming fat hating jeers out of cars? It happens to fat people all the time. So pardon all the fatties when they react with extreme suspicion to council “healthy lifestyle” initiatives!

It wasn’t until I came across the Fat Babes on Bikes Tumblr that I truly believed I could possibly get on a bike again. When the seed was planted, it grew furiously! Fuck Yeah Fat Positive started receiving lots of tips and information about bike riding for fatties and with those bits of encouragement I started researching bikes, tyre pressure and seats until I was fairly confident that I’d be able to sit on a bike and fly down a hill just like I used to.

Before we moved down the coast I had a few goals, and buying a bike and learning to ride again was one of them. My plan fell into place beautifully thanks to Zoe, who sold me her Electra Amsterdam Ticino! I started out by having a ride on the grass with the seat lowered but found it really hard until I figured out the gear was set high, another challenge for me since my childhood bike was only a fixie. My first practice left me feeling exhilarated but a bit daunted, it was a challenge to balance myself on the bike and control the brakes.

A photo of me wearing a bike helmet and smiling.

So I sat back down at my computer and looked up information on learning to ride as an adult. Best of all, I discovered I wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t a complete failure for forgetting how to ride a bike! Top tips that were helpful for me: don’t use the handlebars to steer, instead use them for balance; it’s easier to ride in a straight line when you’re going faster; and many people find rolling, not pedaling, down a gentle grassy slope useful for getting their bike balance. There are quite a few more tips on this fantastic forum thread too!

A few days after we moved into our new place Nick went out and bought his own bike. The assistant at the bike shop was super helpful and listened to all the things Nick wanted to have in a bike, plus he ensured the best fit. Nick bought a speedster, a much faster bike than my Dutch city-styled Electra, and we started out slowly for my benefit because Nick seemed to be able to get the hang of his bike much easier! Once I raised my seat to the right height for me everything clicked and I was able to ride down the street with a fair degree of ease (but alas, very little grace!)

A photo of me standing next to my light blue bike in the middle of a street.

A photo of me standing with my helmet on and my blue bike in front of me.

A photo of me riding my bike, taken from the side.

We’ve been riding down to the shops, along the local bike path and exploring our neighbourhood and while I’m still a little nervous it’s incredibly liberating to be able to get on a bike and make it fly. It’s been so beneficial for my social phobia too, allowing me to go outside for some exercise and exposure to the world while still having a little personal space bubble enveloping me and my bike. I’ve been able to ride around by myself without feeling like everyone is going to laugh at me, probably because my bike makes me feel like I really am in a badass bike babe gang! I’ve even got plans to sew myself up some cute biking outfits. Wanna join my gang?

A photo of me riding my bike away from the camera, down the road.

A very pink graphic that says Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female with a silhouette of a thin pink woman and the Libra logo.

I was surprised and stoked to hear I’d been nominated in this year’s Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female Awards in the Blogger category. What? Me! I’m just a lady who takes photos and draws and writes about stuff, and I honestly didn’t think there would be any recognition in future for me when I registered this domain.

I’m very proud to recognised as one of an emerging movement of people who want representation and normalisation in the mainstream media. It’s probably just through sheer bombardment of photos and writing and illustrations and other stuff that I’ve managed to wiggle my way into people’s consciousness and I’m glad you’ve let me in, and then started your own conversations about body image and size acceptance with yet more people.

That Cosmopolitan thought I was worthy of a run in this year’s awards is pretty amazing to me, and it gives me hope that in the future we can see a diverse range of bodies seen and heard in the media and not strictly the white, young, thin, conventionally beautiful and able bodied standard that is overwhelmingly present right now. I want my regular and new readers to understand this: you are valid, human and worthy of taking your fabulous self down the street being visible and awesome; and I want the media to recognise that we of the fance demand representation and respect.

A screen shot of my profile from the Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female site displaying a photo of me next to my profile. Click to read full text.

The first round of voting closes on May 9 and the three nominees in each category will go through to the final round of voting starting June 6 and closing July 18. The overall winner will wins $10k, an amount of money I’d be pretty gobsmacked to see and would probably put straight towards developing a plus size clothing label!

Pop over here to check out my profile and cast your vote.