"TW: SELF HARM"

25-ish years ago I cut three words into my skin - UGLY, SLUT, WHORE. All capital letters. All with a razor. The first word I cut when I was 11.

I’m making these three words into three artworks.

“How much does your soul cost?” was my starting point for this project. I ask myself what I was hiding inside of me and how much I would charge to share some of those stories.

1. THE PLANNING

I started out with the papers and the theme.

Planning my pages - this has took me about a week. From picking the pages to figuring out composition and making rough sketches… this is where I’ve landed. Included photos of the pages before I do anything to them.

2. PROCESS

I've written about my process previously in Calender Girls, Feeling Blue and the main Vintage Girl page. I still wanted to include some process photos to take you through the making of each of these.

Materials used:
Vintage magazine pages, Tippex-stick, glue stick (Pritt), markers, pencil.

All the final girls are scanned and edited using Photoshop.
Traditional and digital, mixed.

THE COLLECTION

Collection available on KnownOrigin April 7th.

1. "WHORE"

At 11 I cut the word "whore" into my arm in an attempt to deal with shame and trauma. At 17 I burnt the word "off" with a pack of cigarettes, smoking them one by one and then pressing them into the scar.

2. "UGLY"

I did cut this into my forehead as a weird echo of all the times I was told I was ugly as a child. I tried to silence it, reclaim it, by showing the world that I had accepted it.

3. "SLUT"

This one was possibly the hardest one to make. I cut the word "slut" into one of my breasts. It was also the very last time I cut myself so it sits differently in my memory.