#Patty Wagstaff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamboundedstar · 2 years

Text

Bob's Burgers Zeke x Tina Head Canons and Story Scene Ideas.

I'm separating headcanons and ideas because the headcanons are more solid in their stance while the ideas are just shaky story scenes that I think would be cool to do but I'm not sure if I would be into it being my main line headcanon.

Headcanons:

1. While Tina is still dating Jimmy Jr. She tries to apologize to Zeke for being so hostile towards him at the beginning. She admits that she was jealous of how close he was with Jimmy Jr even though she knew him longer, how he seemed to thrive at everything that she hoped to be good at, and how despite being obnoxious, loud, rough, and gross he still was able to get nearly everyone to like him. Meanwhile, she struggled with being tolerated by her Wagstaff peers that weren't her siblings.

Zeke thinks it’s insane that Tina could be jealous of him when he’s jealous of her. Zeke wish he had Tina’s life with parents that aren’t divorced and siblings he could he could hang out with all the time. Not to mention Tina had years to develop the relationships she has with people. Zeke’s family moved around a lot so he had no choice but to make a quick impression on people because he never knows when he’s going to move away again. Even if Tina thinks she has no friends, she always had her Gene and Louise to turn to; Zeke had no one in his family because they were either too old/busy to bother with him, too young to even walk, or only visits for a little while because they live in another state.

Tina grows to appreciate Zeke more after this conversation and officially sees him as a friend rather than Jimmy Jr’s friend that she just has to learn to live with and has mixed feelings over the fact that he has a crush on her.

2. Zeke becomes Louise and Gene’s plan B (or Z for the initial humor) whenever Tina is down in the dumps after Jimmy Jr cancels a date last minute (That is if Zeke isn’t the one Jay Ju canceled on Tina for already). Just a platonic get together so Tina can get her mind off of how much of a jerk Jay Ju is being again. (Kind of like Peppermint Patty forcing Charlie Brown to go to the fair with her so she can help him gets his mind off Snoopy leaving for his original owner in in “Snoopy, Come Home”)

3. Tina succeeds getting Zeke into The Equestranauts series and Zeke unironically talks about the show in the open with her whenever she brings up first.

4. Tina is the first to join Zeke and Peter’s Women Issues Group to help support her friend.

5. Let’s face it, probably one of the reasons Zeke has a crush on Tina is because she probably has some of the biggest boobs in their grade (not the biggest but one of the biggest anyway). It’s not the only reason, but we can’t deny it’s not part of the reason. Zeke being a boob guy is part of his character and we just have to deal with it like we have to deal with Tina being a butt gal. Darn hormonal teenagers! Lol (Heck I should have named my Zekina Beauty and the Beast idea, Booty and the Breast XD)

6. Tina basically becomes 50% of Zeke’s impulse control while everyone else holds the other half of his impulse control which is dangerous since one of the holders of the other 50 percent is Louise.

7. Tina learns to put her foot down more and not be as easily influenced by Louise thanks to Zeke’s help (which also helps in turn to help her be more solid in her being 50 percent of Zeke’s impulse control).

8. When Zeke and Tina get together, Zeke loves giving pda and Tina loves receiving it, but she tries to not overdo it so she isn’t responsible for her family losing business by being too obnoxious with their affection.

9. When they start dating, it’s easier for Tina to count the times Zeke doesn’t have one of his arms around her or hold her hand than it is when he does.

10. Zeke and Tina get married on the beach. Though, they joke about getting married at the aquarium due to it being a church once.

11. After their first time together Tina calls Zeke Zbee assuming that all this time Tbird was just the first letter of her name and a reference to the birds and the bees and had no idea Tbird was short for the name of a car. Zeke got a lot of mileage out of that one (no pun intended)

12. Wrasslin’ is Zeke and Tina’s euphemism for hanky panky, Louise and Gene teases them every now and then about it once they found out.

13. Zeke handles the money related problems in the relationship because he is better at math in comparison to Tina, not the best but still better than Tina.

14. Their first child will be named Daniel or Danielle (depending which gender on I choose) either way the kid will be nicknamed Dani

15. What Zeke loves most about Tina is how she’s always full of surprises. She can be a weird, sweet, insecure, do gooder nerd one moment and the next a fearless, troublemaking badass. A strange anomaly wrapped in a mystery that he wants to solve.

16. What Tina loves most about Zeke is the fact that he really believes she’s this interesting, unsolvable mystery. The girl from her inner world she wishes she was is someone that Zeke already believes she is and she never wants to lose that.

17. Zeke and Tina tried to help set up Saucy up on hermit crab dates at one point, but it didn’t work out. You can’t force love in the wild.

18. Zeke probably hates robots because they keep taking the jobs his family applies to and forcing them to move. Either that or he saw the Terminator too young and now is scarred for life.

19. I can see Zeke reading an erotic friend fiction at one point and leaving the review, “Hot stuf Tbird! Cud use more boobies tho ;].” Tomatina (tomato faced tina) appears after that. (Yes Zeke also spells bad XD)

20. Because of his wrestling background, he probably has the potential to give good massages. Tina certainly would want to put that to the test as soon as possible when they are married.

21. Tina makes it her mission to get the best gift for Zeke every birthday and Christmas. Zeke likes to tease her about it and make it a challenge for her to figure it out. It’s frustrating but she knows he only does it to make the point he’ll love whatever she gets him no matter what, as long as it’s not a robot of any kind.

22. Back to when they were teenagers, Tina and Zeke probably used his hidey hole a lot to privately console each other and talk about their current issues troubling them once they became closer friends.

Shaky fanfiction scene ideas (but I’ll still format it as the headcanon list even though the majority of the numbers are part of one story narrative):

1. Everyone comments about how close Zeke and Tina’s friendship has gotten which both deny and Tina feels that Zeke’s that way too everyone because of his personality. Even Jimmy Jr. is a bit threatened by how close Zeke and Tina are now even though Zeke never and will never cross a line. Jimmy Jr. honestly preferred when Tina hated Zeke because he knows how easily she falls in love with guys that are nice to her (especially ones she knows has a crush on her). Tina would of course be insulted by how little Jimmy Jr trusts her loyalty to their relationship.

2. Tina breaks up with Jimmy Jr. after high school when she realizes he’s never going to fully commit to promising her to be faithful during a long distance relationship. Jimmy Jr. and Zeke’s friendship falls apart as well when Zeke chooses to go to comfort Tina first before JJ.

3. She takes a break from dating for a while after the Jimmy Jr. heart break. After her date break, despite the chemistry she feels with Zeke, she will still continue to date other guys before she’s ready to acknowledge her feelings. Zeke’s also has his fair share of dates with other girls as well. They like to laugh over their failed dates and help each other move on.

4. Tina leaves to go to college to become a novelist. She’s delighted to see Dillon and Susmita to be going to the same college and thanks the heavens above that she may finally have a friend group to call her own that’s not terrible to her. Unfortunately, her personal hell comes true when finds out she’s roommates with Tammy Larsen.

5. To afford to go to college, Zeke tries to join the navy but they reject him because of his ADHD. His dad kicks him out at 18. So with nowhere to go he offers to work at Bob’s Burgers for a place to sleep until he can find a job and his own place to stay. Zeke is right at home with the Belcher family and is delighted that Bob is willing to teach other things besides burgers upstairs in the Belcher kitchen. This confirms to Zeke even more that he wants to go to culinary school.

6. Zeke and Tina would still text each other a lot when Tina is away in college (Tina would eventually get her own phone that’s not only for emergency before college, don’t ask me how XD). No way is Zeke going to let Tina and him become estranged, much to Tammy’s annoyance (a girl’s gotta sleep sometimes lol) and massive jealousy.

7. On summer break of college, Tina would visit her family home. She as well as Zeke would be shocked by all the changes their bodies and attire went through while they were apart. Zeke would lift her up in a big, bear hug to greet his good friend and push down the funny feelings in his tummy while everybody else joins in on the hug.

8. The sexual tension in the air would be so thick that it would need a chainsaw to break it apart. Louise and Gene would have fun with making it worse while Tina is home.

9. Jimmy Jr. would also be back in town during Tina’s summer break. Tina would be lying if she said that Jimmy Jr didn’t take care of himself well as well. Jimmy Jr would happen to be single at the time and also found Tina she aged gracefully too. Jimmy Jr. would ask her to dinner with him to catch up. Knowing full well he is trying to do, Tina agrees to go. Zeke finds out about Tina seeing Jimmy Jr and tell her to have a nice time even though he’s dying inside. He can’t force her to love him, so why try to stop her from who she wants to be with more.

While Tina goes to meet up with Jay Ju, Zeke “borrows” some beer to ease the pain of letting go. Louise would find everything out and slap some sense into a drunken Zeke. Whether she admits it or not, she’s on team Zeke and there’s no way she would let Tina let Jimmy Jr hurt her again or see her practically adopted brother be sad over this easily fixable thing.

Louise would remind Zeke that him and JJ aren’t friends anymore so what is stopping him from barging in to the restaurant telling Tina that he wants her bad and killing JJ. Even in his drunken state Zeke wouldn’t want to kill JJ, but he would agree with Louise that he’s been playing it safe in the friendship for too long and it’s time to rock the boat.

When Louise and Zeke make it to the restaurant, Tina would already be leaving the place looking like she did something very cathartic. It would be revealed that Tina basically only agreed to meet up with JJ again just to make it clear to him that she outgrew him and that there’s no chance that they will ever get back together again after everything he put her through, that and get a free meal.

Louise would be proud of her sister to finally overcome the JJP drug while also pushing Zeke to say what he went there to say. Zeke nerves and drunken state would get the better of him and he would zoom to the nearest trash can to barf. After an awkward ride of silence home, Tina would help give Zeke water until he would be sober enough to talk things over.

Zeke would pour his heart out that he still holds a torch for Tina and never stopped even when they were doing great as just friends. He wanted to tell her so much sooner but it was never the right time. Then when Tina came back for summer, he thought fate finally gave him and Tina a chance to start something. That is until Jimmy Jr popped in back to town at the worst possible time. He was so heartbroken that he thought he missed his shot again that he was going to drink the pain away until Louise stopped his pity party.

He would say screw it whether it was the right or wrong time to say it because he’s done staying silent just so the next long necked Casanova can come and steal her heart while he just learns to live with it. If Tina still didn’t want to give him a chance, he would be fine with that, but at least he got what he needed off of his chest. His only hope now would be that if Tina did reject his confession they would still be friends.

It would be Tina’s turn to get something out of her hand and give it to Zeke, it was an after dinner mint from the restaurant. Tina would tease him that she didn’t want to kiss someone with barf breath. Zeke never would have dreamed that he would be trying to suck through a mint so fast.

Their kiss would be soft and innocent at the start but get more and more intimate once Tina wordlessly gives Zeke permission to do so. Years of unreciprocated love pouring out and being shared by one another and it makes them both feel like the only people in the world that matter to each other for a moment.

10. After they become official, Jimmy Jr apologizes to both of them for real this time and hopes that one day maybe they could all be friends again. Not wanting to hold any grudges, Zeke and Tina want to bury the hatchet with Jimmy Jr. but make it clear they aren’t pals yet and they want to see that Jimmy Jr. earns their trust first.

Okay, that’s all that I have stored up in my brain for ZekexTina headcanons and fanfiction ideas (which is basically just a bunch of scenes that form into one big story honestly, I’m not very good at making my ideas small XD)

Okay here’s a bonus headcanon for Gene. His favorite song from Veggietales is Barbara Manatee and thus formed his attraction to the manatee puppet in that ship kidnapped episode.

#Zekina #Bob's Burgers #I really just typed all of this out didn't I XD?

52 notes · View notes

oui-bo · 11 months

Photo

Patti Smith - Sam Wagstaff @pattismithandrobertmapplethorpe via @saltyandsweetblog and @wildwitchlady

3 notes · View notes

yahoo201027 · 11 months

Photo

June 10: Happy 39th Birthday to Actress Betsy Sodaro, who provides the voices of both the crossing guard stationed over at Wagstaff and proclaims herself as a witch as the character of Jackie from Season 7′s “Teen-a Witch” (2016) and a member of the Thundergirls as part of Troop 257 as the character of Patty from Season 5′s “Tina Tailor Soldier Spy” (2014) and Season 10′s “Motor, She Boat” (2019) on Bob’s Burgers.

#Bob's Burgers #Bobs Burgers #Bob’s Burgers #Betsy Sodaro #Voice Actress #Cartoon #Animation #Fandom Birthday #June 10 Birthdays

0 notes

michaelsteinmedia-blog · 2 years

Text

The secrets and struggles of female aerobatics legend Patty Wagstaff

Patty Wagstaff (née Patricia Rosalie Kearns Combs; born September 11, 1951)[1] is an American aviator and U.S. national aerobatic champion.

Wagstaff was introduced to aviation as a child; her father was a pilot for Japan Airlines. After graduating from high school in California, she moved to Australia for five years where she traveled up the west coast of Australia in a small single-engine boat with no radio. After moving to Alaska in 1978, she worked for the Bristol Bay Native Association in Dillingham, Alaska where she started taking flying lessons and began her own career as a pilot. Her first flight in a small airplane in the Alaskan bush ended in a crash and that was when she decided to learn to fly. Her first lesson was in a Cessna 185. After earning her single and multi-engine land, single engine sea and commercial and instrument ratings, she became a Certified Flight and Instrument Instructor. Since then Wagstaff has earned a commercial rotorcraft rating and has flown many types of aircraft. She holds type ratings in the TBM Avenger, T-28, L-39 and Tucano.

Check out this episode!

0 notes

nocternalrandomness · 2 years

Photo

Patty Wagstaff in the Extra 330 LX

#Aerobatic aircraft #Airshow #Patty Wagstaff #330LX #Stunt plane #Competition aerobatics

39 notes · View notes

serotoninnoradrenalinthoughts · 4 years

Photo

Mapplethorpe (2018) directed by Ondi Timoner

#Matt Smith #matthew robert smith #Marianne Rendón #John Benjamin Hickey #mckinley belcher iii #robert mapplethorpe #patti smith #sam wagstaff #milton moore #mapplethorpe #mapplethorpe movie #2018 #ondi timoner

64 notes · View notes

swampgallows · 4 years

Text

I think often about musician and poet Patti Smith and her relationship with photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe. In their early twenties they were a romantic couple, but as Mapplethorpe learned more about himself and his interests he began identifying as gay. He went on to have relationships with men, notably with his curator and mentor Samuel Wagstaff for well over a decade. Patti Smith got married and had children. Nevertheless, they maintained a deep, lifelong relationship.

Mapplethorpe’s vast and bold body of work showcasing his (explicit!) belonging in the gay, leather, and BDSM communities is evidence that he had no need for a “beard”, and to Patti Smith he was not just an ex-boyfriend or fellow artist. They were inseparable parts of each other’s lives, inspiring and collaborating on each other’s artwork, living together, and sharing their various friend groups and connections. She regularly visited Mapplethorpe in the hospital as he was fighting AIDS and was one of the last people he spoke with before his death. She writes in her book Just Kids that she woke up the next morning and instantly knew that he had passed.

People often ridicule the concepts of quasi- or queerplatonic partners (also called “zucchinis” in the ace/aro community) specifically because they’re considered applicable only to aces/aros. But for all intents and purposes, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe’s relationship was queerplatonic. They were life partners in a way that was not as simply cut and dry as just “best friends” or “partners”; both Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith had other intimate, romantic, and sexual relationships in addition to the relationship they had with one another, independent of any kind of polyamorous context. Their love was different but tantamount to those relationships.

This isn’t to say that Mapplethorpe or Patti Smith “would have” identified as zucchinis or anything like that. Their relationship already existed as it was, regardless of whether or not they had a name for it, and to deny communities the vocabulary to talk about these unique relationships is to erase their significance and magnitude. There are many experiences of the ace/aro communities and the rest of the lgbtqia community that overlap, and to disown new ideas and concepts because of aphobia hurts the rest of the community, as well as the rest of society. Dismissing Patti Smith’s role in Mapplethorpe’s life—and his role in hers—purely on the basis of their orientations and their applicable roles is disingenuous to both parties and narrows our perception of the vastness of human connection. Are they “just friends” because Mapplethorpe was gay and Patti was married? Is it “lesser” to the relationships they had with Samuel Wagstaff or Fred Smith? Is their relationship and its impact only important because it used to be romantic?

Part of acknowledging asexuality and aromanticism is acknowledging the diversity and strata of human relationships, yet this seems like a conversation that a lot of people seem averse to having. Hopefully once these ideas become more commonplace, we as asexual and/or aromantic people wont be stuck having to explain or hide ourselves so much.

#aromanticism #asexuality #lgbtqia #patti smith #robert mapplethorpe #i had written most of this in an ask a while back but i revised it for its own post

1K notes · View notes

chadscapture · 2 years

Text

Patty Wagstaff

#Patty Wagstaff #extra 300/s #osh22

1 note · View note

aids-snapshots · 2 years

Text

Snapshot: Robert Mapplethorpe

Self portrait [Photograph]. R. Mapplethorpe, 1988, (https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/5354)

In 1988 Robert Mapplethorpe took the self portrait featured above. By this point, the famous (or infamous) New York photographer was well into his diagnosis with AIDS. It was consistent with his way of capturing time, taking self portraits in intervals as well as photographs of his friend Patti Smith (Sischy, 1988). This photo though has the distinct nature of showcasing- in a visual sense- what disease was doing to his body. Despite his deep desire to extend time of a moment, like the sculptures he admired (Dunne, 2013), Mapplethorpe could not live forever.

In an effort to continue on his life’s work, which gained acclaim and continues to be shown around the world, Mapplethorpe established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Being a major force in the art community and the queer community, thanks to his years of work Mapplethorpe had a slew of connections in order to best ensure the longevity. Prior to his death, he helped to raise funds for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) (Dunne, 2013). After his death the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation went on to support other HIV/AIDS initiatives, such as the Robert Mapplethrope Residence-- a former long-term care facility for AIDS patients (Weaver, 2017).

With the AIDS epidemic largely centralizing within the queer communities of urban hubs, Robert Mapplethorpe was very familiar with AIDS prior to being diagnosed in 1986. He lost friends, colleagues, and even his lover/mentor Sam Wagstaff. This connection, and the body of his work finding focus on the human body left him in a prime location to always be thinking of how AIDS was affecting his life and the lives of others. In his lifetime the use of the camera to capture the human body may have been controversial (for both obscenity and objectification of the Black models), but Peggy Phelan (via Muñoz, 1999) explains:

“Mapplethorpe’s photography does “objectify” men, but what is astonishing about his work is how much room there is for dignity despite this objectification. His photography demonstrates that love and understanding of a body, while always involving objectification, precisely because it is made over in the mind and eye of the other, do not have to violate or eliminate the private grace and power of the model” (p. 71).

Robert Mapplethorpe died on March 9, 1989. As the bodies of so many were monitored, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation looked to fund medical programs in the U.S. aiding AIDS research, especially in helping the lives of those living with AIDS (The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, n.d.). The photograph represents the artist not only in a physical sense, but in his need to confront death.

📸 Series 📚 Bibliography

#queer history #aids crisis #robert mapplethorpe #photography #race in photography

6 notes · View notes

47burlm · 2 years

Photo

Patty Wagstaff (née Patricia Rosalie Kearns Combs; born September 11, 1951) is an American aviator and U.S. national aerobatic champion.

In 1985, Wagstaff qualified for the US National Aerobatic Team and competed both nationally and internationally until 1996. She was the top U.S. medal winner, winning gold, silver, and bronze medals in international competitions for several years. In 1991, she won her first of three US National Aerobatic Championships, the first woman to win that competition. She was the International Aerobatic Club champion in 1993. The following year, her Goodrich-sponsored Extra 260 airplane was put on display next to Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. From 1988 to 1994, she won the Betty Skelton First Lady of Aerobatics award six times in a row. In 1996, Wagstaff was the top-scoring US pilot at the World Aerobatics Championship. That year, she was also the first person to win the Charlie Hillard Trophy, awarded to the highest scoring U.S. pilot at the World Aerobatic Championships.

In 1997, Wagstaff received her first Hall of Fame inductions, becoming inducted into both the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame and the International Women's Aviation Hall of Fame. She was awarded the National Aeronautic Association Paul Tissandier Diploma in 1997 and won the Bill Barber Award for sportsmanship in 1998. In 2001, Wagstaff began training pilots of the Kenya Wildlife Service in Kenya. In 2002, she won the Katherine and Marjorie Stinson Award, and in 2004, was elected into what is arguably aviation's most prestigious hall, the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In December 2006, she was inducted into the International Council of Air Shows Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2007, the International Air and Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

Based in St. Augustine, Florida, Patty Wagstaff Aviation Safety, LLC trains pilots from all over the world in aerobatics, airmanship and upset training. She continues working in the aviation field as an airshow pilot, stunt pilot for films, consultant, flight instructor, and writer. Wagstaff is emeritus board member of the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, and was on the Presidential Advisory Committee to the Centennial of Flight Commission. She flies airshows across North America in a variety of airplanes, including an Extra 300S, T-6 Texan, and a P-51 Mustang. In addition to airshows, she has flown OV-10 Broncos as a seasonal aerial firefighter director in California. She is an instrument-rated pilot and has owned a Beechcraft Baron and a Cirrus SR22 and currently flies a Beechcraft Bonanza.

youtube

6 notes · View notes

andrew-auston · 3 years

Photo

Airshow Aviation Director Matt Lehn said you can expect to see the same twists and turns of years gone by, as well as new planes.

“This year we have the C-17 that you just saw land, they make a magnificent demonstration. They're out of Charleston, the F-16 show too.

This is the first time we've had it in quite a few years. They will be a silicon jump team, Patty Wagstaff, world renowned champion, "said Lehn. Lehn said they are expected to bring in three to five thousand people a day.

At Aero India Show Sushant Gupta On GPA For DRDO.

#sushant gupta defsys #air show #florida

2 notes · View notes

talbottoneshat · 3 years

Text

Robert Mapplethorpe: Master of Black & White (Jan Alex)

For this research project, I wanted to look at a photographer who I often forget ever took photographs. Though he is best known for his stunning and downright masterful black and white photographs, Robert Mapplethorpe(1946-1989) has always existed in my mind as a multi-disciplinary artist. With that in mind, compiling this research was a process of rediscovering Robert Mapplethorpe as a photographer, arguably the artist’s best medium.

Born on Long Island, Robert Mapplethorpe began his career as an artist in New York City in the mid 1960’s. In his early years as an artist he lived with his girlfriend Patti Smith, the famous singer-songwriter, and this period of his life is intimately captured in Smith’s award-winning book Just Kids. During this period he worked on collages and multimedia studio art, but in the late 60’s/early 70’s he was given a polaroid and began taking black and white polaroid photographs to incorporate into his collages. Soon after he was given a medium-format hasselblad film camera and was quickly taken by the medium and shifted his focus to photography in its own right, with few of his early collages actually containing any polaroids. Over Mapplethorpe’s nearly three decade long career he focused almost entirely on black and white studio photographs and is regarded as master of the form. His work covered a wide array of subjects including celebrity-portraits, self-portraits, male and female nudes, and even commercial projects. His most controversial work’s were undoubtedly his photographs focusing on New York City’s underground S & M scene. Though he himself has described some of his more shocking photographs focusing on the S & M scene as “pornagraphic”, critics have contended that his work on the subject, which was praised for its technical and formal mastery, presented the public with representations of the lgbtq+ community that can be considered high art. He aimed for a shock value with his work, and to explore tensions that exist between the male and female, between conformity and expression and ultimately most would contend that the obscenity in his work is never really obscene. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with AIDs in 1986, and four years later in 1989 he died of the disease, only one year after the Whitney Museum of Art mounted his first major american museum retrospective.

For this research, I have decided to focus on the progression of Mapplethorpe’s photography over the span of his career by looking at key photographs from different points in his life. Because Mapplethorpe’s subject matter varied so widely, I will try to address that variety. Early in his career as a photographer he took many polaroid photographs and focused on the intimate, his friends, himself, and his lovers and friends. Take for example this untitled polaroid from 1972, a portrait of a man in which a great deal of motion is captured. It is far cry from the composed, formal compositions he would later become famous for, and it suggests that at this point in his career he had yet to fully decide which direction to take his photography, but his interest in portraits and the intimate is apparent. We can see how this shift in his approach began to occur when we look at this portrait of his partner Sam Wagstaff in 1979. In this photograph, a non-polaroid film shot, we can see a heightened attention to formal composition and also to capturing the distinct contrasts between black and white.

In the 1980’s, his career was flourishing and he expanded his work to include highly formalized male and female nudes, studio portraits of artists and celebrities, and even still lifes. His male and female black & white nudes, in particular, have been praised by art historians and critics for embracing classical aesthetics and in many cases evoking the style of classical and renaissance sculpture. Take for example this photograph, one shot from a body of work he collaborated on with the model/bodybuilder Derrick Cross, this photo and others Mapplethorpe took of Cross are certainly reminiscent of the poses struck in ancient sculpture. In another example of his highly regarded studio nudes, there is this photograph from his work with the female bodybuilder Lisa Lyons. In this photograph see again the compositions nod to classical sculpture, but the mere choice of a female bodybuilder was a bold one and challenges our conceptions of beauty by confronting us with an image that simultaneously possesses “masculine” strength and “feminine” beauty. Another stellar example of his studio nudes/portraits which I found particularly striking is this portrait of two of Mapplethorpe’s friends Ken Moody and Robert Sherman. This photograph really demonstrates Mapplethorpe's deep consideration of the black and white format and his ability to create provocative, highly distinct images.

Despite expanding the scope of his work substantially by the end of his career, Mapplethorpe consistently came back to the self-portrait, and it's in his self-portraits that we see his most intimate moments of self-expression. Mapplethorpe was obviously an artist and individual who strived for self-expression and his self-portraits are excellent examples of that. Take for example this diptych from 1980, in the one photograph we see Mapplethorpe in subtle drag, a nod to his explorative, non-binary sexual identity, and in the other he is dressed as a greaser, speaking to his conservative upbringing and his tendency to simultaneously embrace and fight traditional conceptions of masculinity. Without a doubt however, my favorite Robert Mapplethorpe photograph is his final self-portrait, taken a little under a year before his death. In this self-portrait, Mapplethorpe demonstrates not just his formal and technical mastery, but also a level of transcendence. His body, dressed in black, melds into the stark black background, leaving his head floating in space as his hand firmly grasps a skull-topped cane. This image to me suggests his own awareness of the legacy he left behind and also an acceptance of inevitable death. His floating head suggests that even with the loss of his physical body, his image, ideas, and art will continue to exist, and his hand grasping the cane shows his firm hold on the reality of death.

Source List

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/biography/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mapplethorpe

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/robert-mapplethorpe

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/exhibitions/2021-03-12_gladstone-gallery/

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/

5 notes · View notes

bo-dd-ah · 3 years

Text

Robert Mapplethorpe est né le 4 novembre 1946 aux Etats-Unis dans une famille catholique d'origine anglo-irlandaise. Il est le troisième d'une fratrie de 6 enfants. Des son plus jeune age, Robert aime créer: il réalise des bijoux en perles à sa mère.

A 17 ans, il entre a l'Institut Pratt de Brooklyn ou il étudie le dessin, la peinture et la sculpture. A cette époque il commence a realiser des travaux avec plusieurs techniques s'inspirant du travail de Marcel Duchamp et Joseph Cornell. Apres avoir été diplomé du baccalauréat des Beaux-Arts, il rompt de manière brutale avec sa famille car son père lui impose une carriere dans le dessin publicitaire. Il s'installe donc à New York et ne vit uniquement que d'emplois peu stables.

A la meme époque il découvre le cannabis et le LSD. En 1967, il se considère comme bisexuel et polygame. Il rencontre patti Smith avec qui il vécu 3 ans. Malgré leur difficultés financieres, Robert achete tout un tas de magazines pour en découper les images et faire des montages. A la fin des années 60, Mapplethorpe commence à avoir des relations intimes avec des hommes et fréquente des clubs gays.

Il découvre le photographie au début des années 1970 en empruntant le polaroîd d'une amie. Son premier modèle est son ex-compagne et maintenant amie: Patti Smith. Avec beaucoup de difficulté à financer les pellicules de l'appareil, Robert expose ses clichés dans sa premiere exposition intitulée "Polaroid". La Polaroid Corporation repère son travail et lui attribue une bourse lui garantissant toute les pellicules qui lui seront nécessaires.

Apres ses débuts au Polaroid, Sam Wagstaff (compagnon et mécène de Robert) lui offre un appareil photo Hasselblad. Il photographie toutes les personnes qui l'entourent de pres ou de loin. Il propulse sa carrière avec des clichés dit "choquants" du milieu sado-masochiste. En 1980, il rencontre la premiere femme championne de body building, Lisa Lyon. Ils travaillent donc ensemble sur de nombreux portraits puis Robert se concentrera alors sur des nus, tant feminins que masculins.

En 1986, Mapplethorpe est souffrant: il est porteur du virus du VIH. Il redouble alors d'efforts pour développer son style photographique. Il cherche à ler les fleurs, les corps, la sexualité et les portraits dans son art. La même année, se sachant condamné, il fonde sa fondation "Robert Mapplethorpe Fundation" qu'il confie à son avocat, pour soutenir financierement les recherches concernant le sida et les infections liées au VIH. 3 ans plus tard, Mapplethorpe décède à l'age de 42 ans.

Le style photographique de cet artiste met en valeur le corps humain, toujours en noir et blanc, afin qu'il paraisse beau. Ses nombreuses collaborations avec la body builder Lisa Lyon, confirmera l'intérêt que porte l'artiste envers le corps humain. Mon médium artistique préféré est la photographie, alors Mapplethorpe m'inspire beaucoup lorsque je travaille sur du noir et blanc.

2 notes · View notes