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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2007)
lUStOUt NIGHTLI JULY b. 2007 NIGHTt IFF NIGHTLIFE Before and After Painter documents women in transition ormally when you have before-and- affer images, they are focused on the location of change,” painter Gwenn Seemel tells me over a plate of freshly baked banana bread. “I want ed to debunk that.... It’s a whole person; it’s not just having their genitals changed or having bigger breasts put on or getting your period or whatever.” The artist invited me to her home, studio to discuss Swollen: Portraits of Before and After, an ambi tious exhibit d<Kumenting women who have experi enced some sort of profound transition in the past BY JIM RADOSTA year: puberty, pregnancy, marriage, even breast enlargement surgery. Two of the subjects are queer. “Each...is going through some kind of physical Funatake, who is raising a 10-year-oid son change, except me. I’m sort of the control named Evan, founded Transparentcy, an online subject,” Seemel says. “I wanted to include back resource to raise awareness and provide information ground elements that would make obvious what for transgender parents around the world. “A sig their change was but also have an interesting nificant number of them are U.S., hut I’ve interact metaphor. So each of the women has a physical ed with someone from Israel, Mexico, Singapore, change that the Earth has gone through assigned Canada, kind of all over.” to her...for breast enlargement, it’s tectonic plates Funatake exudes serenity in her “after” portrait. colliding.” Appropriately, a rainbow shines in the background, Although Mary Anne Gard considers herself representing the beautiful outcome of a long a reserved person, she agreed to share an intimate process. personal change with Seemel: The 56-year-old “The focus is very personal, but 1 notice just lesbian just went through menopause. “It’s hard, in another level of comfort, at-easeness, less worry... a way, because I am private, but it’s universal, and even though it’s not something that’s obvious,” she there’s many women that are going through it,” she says. “This is something that I started thinking about says, “and the men that are surrounding them are wanting back in pre-double-digit years, so for a signif going to go through it in some way, too." icant part of life, [transition] was unattainable or not Gard, a physical therapist who is pursuing realistic or risky.” a master’s of divinity to become a hospice chaplain, Funatake is eager to see how Swollen captures reveals that the effects from menopause were more her interior and exterior changes. Regardless of than physical. “It turned me more to look at spiri what she thinks about the finished product, Seemel tuality in my life. There’s sort of a softening of hopes for a strong reaction. a person. There’s also more of a fearlessness in a lot “A lot of art doesn’t connect with people, so 1 like of ways; you don’t care so much what people doing portraits because 1 know that 1 have at least think.” (See Page 28 for visual evidence.) one person who will love, or hate, that painting," she Paula Funatake also underwent a monumental says. “Hopefully, 1 manage to communicate to more people." © change in the past 12 months: After living as a woman for many years, she took the final step toward a body that matched her identity by flying Gwenn Seemel’s S wollen : P ortraits of B efore to Thailand for sex reassignment surgery. Seemel AND AFTER is on display through July 25 at Littman says she was “fkxired" upon seeing the 51-year-old Callery, 1825 S.W. Broadway #250, with an artist business analyst for her second sitting. talk from noon to 1 p.m. July 17. For more “1 expected changes for everyone...hers, information about Paula Funatake, visit U'U’U’. though, was really marked. I told her, ‘You’re so transparentcy.com and m2f2hangkok.hloaspot.com. much more confident now.’ She’s like, ‘I’m not hid ing anything anymore.’ 1 really wanted to make Arts and Culture Editor J IM RADOSTA needs your sure to show that.” feedback. Write to jim@justout.com. Jim's Closet 'BEFORE AND AFTER SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY* (2006 AND 2007) 46 “It was very interesting for her to pick up on changes I never really noticed,” Paula Funatake says. ”l'm living every day with gradual pace, so she was able to see differences that I wouldn't have.”
