Yesterday I was so excited to rush home from work to discover that my copies of ‘The Femme Coloring Book’ had arrived safe and sound at my house! For those of you who have not yet heard of this fantastic project, it was edited by Caitlin Sweet and includes the drawings of femmes from all over. Each drawing celebrates or explores the femme identity of the artist. For example, my page in the book deals with the paradoxes of femme identity for me- “femme is baking cupcakes while discussing queer theory. It’s loud makeup and big tattoos. It is a trashy, sexy, and smart queer perversion of femininity!

The coloring book includes the perspectives of 47 different femmes including well known femmes like Michelle Tea, and Nomy Lamm. Publishing of the coloring book was made possible two San Francisco donations, and all proceeds from the book are donated to Fancyland - a queer land in California.

Last night when the books arrived I sat down on my couch and was mesmerized by every page, each was so different and really reflected the diversity of our femme community. This was a new and exciting format to witness the creativeness of femmes, both those who consider themselves visual artists and those who don’t. So often I see ‘femme’ reduced to simplistic definitions, or analysis but the coloring book really shatters those assumptions. There are paint by number’s about consensual domination, including “4. hanky code color of your choosing!” by Ryen Jane Blaschke to a contribution by The Machine about a femme sewing an outfit, half dressed and saying “I’ll be ready in a minute.” I saw aspects of my own femme identity in so many of these pages. Reading this book felt like going to an excellent slumber party, staying awake all night painting our nails and whispering! Even though I knew less than a handful of the other contributors, after looking at the book I feel like we are all friends, and I’m ready to pull out the crayons!

For more information about The Femme Coloring Book visit their myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=141545634

and if you happen to be in NYC and want a copy for your very own, I have a few that I will be selling on their behalf out here on the East Coast

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 9:20 am and is filed under femme community, musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.