Blog / 2024 / Fashionpus
October 10, 2024
This cephalopod stiletto painting could be yours for $50—depending on when you get in on the online auction and how many people are bidding to support the work of New Hope Celebrates! Fashionpus is one of over thirty high heel artworks in the High Heel Drag Race Art Project, a public art exhibition and auction to benefit a non-profit that’s a voice for the LGBTQIA community in both New Hope in Pennsylvania and Lambertville in New Jersey.
You can see all the paintings in person by going to the locations on this map! Fashionpus is located at Nozomu Sushi, 9 W Mechanic Street, New Hope, Pennsylvania, and it’ll be there through the beginning of November.
It’s a good cause, and half the winning bid goes to me, helping the eight-armed wonder of my art to stretch in new ways!

Fashionpus
2024
acrylic on panel with high heel silhouette cut out
24 x 24 inches
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
As a kid I took a hard stand against superficiality. I remember looking down on the cool girls for their interest in all things feminine: make-up, shaved legs, and high heel shoes. In my teenage mind, being a woman meant faking everything about your looks, and that felt both frivolous and wrong.
Now I see my judginess for what it was. I was being a good little agent of the patriarchy, hating on girl-things because, according to the patriarchy, only boy-things qualify as real and good.
In the years since, I didn’t learn how to use cosmetics, I’ve never once shaved my legs, and only on occasion have I worn a bit of a heel. All of which is to say that I never grew into a fully femme kind of presentation of myself, but I did grow out of my hostility towards that stuff. I love what high heels and all the rest truly are: a kind of adornment that boring old sexists might see as shallow or inappropriate depending on the gender of the person who’s wearing them, but that most of us understand as self-expression.
This painting is called Fashionpus and it’s my ode to the much-maligned feminine in our society. This cephalopod stiletto is alien and beautiful and strange, layered and complex. Just like femininity.
Maybe this post made you think of something you want to share with me? Or perhaps you have a question about my art? I’d love to hear from you!
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