Courtesan was created as the result of weekly dialogues and collaboration, with Mary Hildebrandt and Sophia Eun Jeong Lee, about the simultaneous exploitation and insufficient use of feminine labor.

The manifestations of this dialogue became sculpture, written narrative, textile prints and performance.

I taught ceramics techniques to Mary and Sophia Eun Jong as we connected our experiences, all from different counties, with research on ceramics history and environmental issues drawing on the concept of resources. We then created a collaborative creative writing piece about the destruction of the femme. We aimed to work in low-art, femme-craft for this project— ceramic vases and textiles. Our writing below details the story behind the creation of a large ceramic vase, and we created a large ceramic vase, covered in relief images that tell the story of its own creation. This work was exhibited, along with my performance of the ceramics and text becoming, at Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects.

Dad and John

Little Girl 

Goddxss

Theodora

One of the Textile Prints

Sculpture with Textile Prints Installation

Performance

Courtesan.

One of my earliest family memories is the day my dad came home from work after his new promotion at Spartacus Offshore Drilling Corporation. His quick corporate advancement made business history – he was the youngest CFO in offshore drilling since the industry’s origination. I remember how excited my parents were as they had struggled with keeping up the high-maintenance status appearance that was so important to their identity and to our Society. My dad’s new position brought social security.

My parents were married mere weeks after my dad graduated magna cum lade in finance. After my dad walked across the graduation stage, my mom promptly dropped out of school to walk down the aisle. She gave birth to me a year after their wedding. I came into the world hearing people constantly comment on how beautiful and successful my parents were at such an early age. This standard of success was measured on my dad’s status in the oil business, my mom’s status married to my dad, and my status at the most expensive private school in Society. Success was announced religiously, every Sunday, with expensive church clothes, generous tithing, and high-end brunches at the Society Capital Grill. The brunch ritual denoted a network of firm handshakes between my father and the other heads of the various reserved families that frequented the restaurant from 12:30-2:30 every Sunday afternoon.

My mother was soon voted in as Chair of Society’s most prominent fundraising organization— she was the youngest committee chair for the Junior League Society since it began in 1901, a record which holds to this day. No doubt, her achievements were a sort of grand ladies auxiliary scheme as a result of my father’s oil business position.

When I was 6 years old, my mother had been working on a gala with the largest monetary goal for a charity event in Society’s history. The gala was to raise money for the Museum of Natural Science in hopes that they could obtain an internationally sought after acquisition of ancient Greek artefacts. This acquisition would claim this knowledge for the education of Society as well as boost the tourism economy in our rich land. Because of the international press and potential economic advancement that was buzzing about this collection, Spartacus, my father’s oil company, became the featured contributor and museum sponsor that led to the successful acquisition of the world’s most comprehensive collection of ancient Greek ceramics.

In order to properly maintain the level of achievement customary to this type of exhibition, a very fashionable researcher in the field of art history, John Catalani— who had just obtained a PhD with honors from Duke University and had his highly acclaimed dissertation published by the press of the same institution, was hired as the new Director of the Greek and Roman Department at the Museum of Natural Science. John was introduced to my parents the night of my mother’s big gala. He was invited to give a short talk on the collection— an invitation that also served as an opportunity for the museum to woo him into working there.

John and my parents really hit it off, and it was not long before he was coming to our house as a distinguished dinner guest. John would engage me in conversation even though I was only a child— not a common practice as many people in Society lived by the adage that children should be seen and not heard. He always wore crisply starched pastel oxford button-down long-sleeve shirts and a bow tie. I had never seen men dress this colorfully before. I loved it when John came over.

John and my dad started going on men’s-only, deep-sea fishing trips together right around the time that my parent’s nightly fights became more and more violent. I used to pretend I was sleeping but would stay awake while I held my covers over my head, listening in fear for anything bad to happen. One night, my anxiety crescendoed as the symphony of breaking Waterford crystal echoed closer and closer to my bedroom door. I decided to get up and ask for a glass of water in hopes to stop the fighting. I could imagine it in my head— I would walk into the living room, slightly dragging the feet of my footy pajamas and rub my eyes to ensure the fact that I had been sleeping and had no idea what was happening and therefore could not be implicated in my parent’s assaults.

It seemed like an eternity to muster up the courage to uncover my head as the crystal-breaking tempo increased faster and faster. I threw off the covers, jumped out of bed, and perfected my tired-walk in the rehearsal time that the hallway leading up to living room allowed. When I emerged passed the foyer, my mom was holding the vase over her head that John had brought over as a gift for my dad, “I know what this means! I don’t want you seeing him anymore! I swear to God, I will fucking smash this thing into fucking pieces!” My mom’s screams continued but reached a decibel that made her words indistinguishable. I had never heard sounds that were so severe, so enraged.

My dad’s face became plagued with panic, “Meredith, don’t you fucking dare!”

I had studied the vase intensely in the few weeks that it had been in our living room. I now know that it was from the 5th century BC, and it depicts a group of effeminate similar-sexed, gender-queer holy-people. At the time, I thought it was a picture of joy— like the time my mom let my cousins and I play in the sprinkler naked in the back yard (because she and my aunt were a little drunk and couldn’t find where the maid had put our bathing suits). I had heard the grown-ups talk about how Mr. John had been asked not to show the vase in the collection— despite it being a priceless heirloom. People said it wasn’t appropriate for Society’s public to view.

My mother indignantly lowered the vase with a forceful thump. A thin, translucent shard chipped from the bottom edge, and what would, after years of travel, eventually become a fine spider web of cracks across the bottom of the vase’s surface was birthed in but a single millimeter.

* * *

When I was 12 years old, I started to take etiquette classes with all of the other white upper middle class girls in Society. The etiquette classes started at the end of September, and took place at the local Presbyterian Church that my family had been attending since my baptism. The etiquette classes were available only for the young girls, but the course’s schedule piggybacked onto the start of the year’s co-ed confirmation class.

During the last class of the etiquette track of the after-school indoctrination, the lady youth ministers came to give the final lesson and introduce themselves as the hip, young Christian women that would assist Reverend Dave in teaching the confirmation courses to come. Their names were Alison and Mandy. They both had blond ponytails that sat high on their heads that would wisp slightly back and forth behind their necks as they nodded their bright eyes and smiled with glossy lips, saying, “We were both teenagers, and we know how hard it is. It can be really tough walking with Christ, but loving Jesus will bring you unconditional and eternal love in your heart… Can we get a volunteer?”

My hand shot up—I loved the idea of being loved forever. Alison and Mandy asked me to come up to the front of the class. I sprang out of my seat. Mandy handed me a red construction paper heart. Alison took this cue to ask for five more volunteers. She lined up the five girls in front of me and said, “Now, y’all five are going to pretend to be boys that Amanda likes.” Everyone chuckled; Alison and Mandy simultaneously cocked their heads to the side with a subtle disapproving grin, “Now y’all this fun, but it is also serious, and what I want you to do is, one by one, walk up to Amanda,” Alison took the first girlboy by her shoulders and ushered herm with forceful exuberance, “Tear off a piece of Amanda’s heart and walk over there,” she pointed to the other side of the room. She instructed each of the following girlboys standing before me to do the same. When the last one approached me, Mandy took the last piece of construction paper out of my hand and gave it away, addressing the class, “Now you see, Amanda decided to have sex with all of these boys before marriage. And each time she did, she gave away a piece of her heart until there was no heart left for Christ’s love.”

It was a Friday evening, so after class, my dad and Jeff picked me up from church. Since the divorce, my mom had eventually allowed them to have me on the weekends. Jeff had a business dinner that night so my dad and I dropped him off at the restaurant and drove home. (Jeff was the Marketing Coordinator for an up and coming motor oil manufacturer and spent many Friday nights entertaining clients at fancy dinners. Even though my dad and Jeff were both separately out at work, both of their companies prohibited them from bringing a male date to any type of work function— it was a “you can continue to work here because you make us a lot of money but we all have to be able to pretend you live as a straight person” policy.)

My dad and I ordered in or went out to eat practically every Friday night as Jeff always did the cooking. I had every menu for every restaurant within a five-mile radius memorized. For some reason, my dad decided that night that he would make, “linguini alla marinara”— a bag of noodles and a jar of pasta sauce. While my dad boiled the water, I sat on the couch and studied the vase John had given him 6 years before. It was my weekend ritual; the object put me into a type of meditative trance. I would make up stories about the figures that were sculpted on its surface. I would act them out in different whispered voices to myself. However, on this particular Friday night, I silently fingered the growing spider web of fine cracks and thought about how bad it would be to give away my heart until I had no heart for Christ. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to help but ending up heartless.

At the end of the year, all of the boys and girls took first communion together. The service was followed by a seated dinner in the church’s lush banquet hall that was complete with marble floors and flying columns that anchored each side of sweeping arched windows. The windows were dressed with thick gold tapestry curtains. After the dinner, there was a dance where we were meant to perform all of the etiquette with which the girls had been flawlessly trained. Colin Johnson asked me to dance for my first slow dance. After a few dances of proper form— “leaving room for the holy spirit” between our dancing bodies, I excused myself to the lady’s room. On the way back to the dance, I was diverted by Colin’s much older brother who was there to pick him up. We snuck out to the side of the church under the towering brick that eventually formed the steeple. He kissed me. It was my first kiss, and then, he fingered me.

* * *

President Johnson slurped the dark amber through the cold, clinking rocks as the luscious fire crackled at his slippered feet. The president’s personal assistant stealthily scurried into his study, warned him that the first lady was on her way up, and vanished again. Johnson quickly closed the globe, securing the scotch inside, and gargled one of his strategically stored bottles of mouthwash— Mrs. Johnson used any excuse not to kiss her husband, and he hoped to righteously rectify their intimacy nightly, as was his duty and right, mandated by the honor and sanctity of love. He loved her more than anything in the world since that first night under the steeple and the stars— it was so pure, so beautiful, really, he had always only wanted the best for her.

It had been a while, and to avoid conflict (she didn’t see the point in putting effort into arguing with people that she didn’t love), she prepared by popping a couple of Ambien. She slipped into a rose petal bath, and as the self-induced date-rape drug kicked in, she nicked herself twice while trying to shave the presidential snatch. She comfortably sauntered in and out of a blackout while he got ‘er done.

After the making of the love, he daintily kissed her bare shoulder. She threw up a little bit in her mouth from the delicate sensation. He traced the scar where her tattoo used to be, “How many more appointments until it’s completely removed? We have the Society state dinner coming up, and I love the black strapless dress that the seamstress brought up, last week, was it?”

“I don’t know,” she lied, “I have so much to do with the AIDS hospice art auction. I don’t know if I’ll have time to go to another session before the dinner.”

“That’s a shame, your skin used to be so flawless,” he complimented, “I can’t wait to see you like that again; that dress will really show off your natural beauty once that tattoo is gone; not to mention it’s a very expensive dress; the people are already going to talk about how I have spent all that money on a gown, but especially if you wear it inappropriately; I’ll call the plastic surgeon myself tomorrow and see if he can fit you in; have you decided weather or not you will get the others removed?”

“I really don’t have the time; I’ll wear something else. I like the vintage Dior anyway, and it’s less than half the price. Honey, I really must use every minute towards finishing my sculpture for this year’s auction.”

“I don’t understand why you have to spend so much time making a new work for this auction every year. You know you are extremely talented, but you are the wife of the President. Don’t you think it’s best you use your resources to oversee this event along with others? Perhaps diversify the causes you support? It will help me in the upcoming elections.”

She kissed his lips with overwhelming evasion until she passed out. President Johnson summoned two servants to put her into bed. The next morning, she awoke before the birds; she slipped into her studio. (He had built her her own art studio in every house they had ever lived in; it was, in her mind, the majority of their arrangement.) She emerged on the fourth night to again pay for her prosperity in an Ambien-haze. As he made love, she sucked the clay out from under her fingernails, distracting herself from her physicality even further.

* * *

After Colin’s older brother fingered me under the church-steeple, we went together for a year until I, at the age of 14, was tired of carrying around the burden of my (willing) virginity.

I made sure to give it up while I was on my period so he wouldn’t know that those three boys had popped my cherry, 7 years earlier. He was 19 and per my instructions, brought the cheap caramel-flavored whisky to accompany the night’s festivities. Colin’s older brother took care not to let me get drunk until after because he “wanted it to be special.”

After it was done, I mixed the whiskey with lemonade and drank until I passed out—relieved, that I no longer had to endure the anxiety of waiting for the day when the last piece of my heart would be given away. 

Six months later, Colin’s older brother and I were riding around town in his Mercedes, and when we stopped to get gas, I asked the attendant for the bathroom key. “Sumun’s alry en der,” he spat out a bit of the brown tar stored under his bottom lip. I walked around the side of the building and gave a polite tap on the door of the lady’s room to gently inform this ‘someone’ that I was waiting… and waiting…. and waiting. I knocked again, and someone violently kicked open the metal door in attempted obliteration of the knocking source, “Bitch, I am fucking busy in here so you better be shitting your pants.” I fell in love with this tough femininity who was glovelessly dying her hair jet black in this gas station pisser.

“It looks like a giant squid got murdered in here.”

“You do cocaine?”

“Yes.” I had never done cocaine.

“My name’s Roach. Not as in cock. Short for Rochelle,” she said, attaching her car keys to the giant hubcap with the female bathroom stick figure drawn on it. She threw them at me, “You’re driving,” I caught her new key chain just before it smacked my face.

“I just got my learner’s permit, and my driver’s ed teacher told me ‘women can’t drive anyway’ so he just passed me without ever teaching me to drive on the freeway…”

“It’s okay, the car shakes too much to keep going if you get above 55.”

“Umm… okay.” I got into the driver’s seat.

“Wait gimme those,” she reached for the hubcap, dug a white powdered lump out of a baggy, and held the key under my nose. I sniffed, she did the same, handed me back the keys, and I checked my mirrors, secured my seatbelt, made sure my hands were at 10 and 2, checked my blind spots, put on my turn signal, looked both ways, and exited the gas station onto my first highway drive.

During my month with Roach, she taught me how to fuck anyone who had even a speck of drugs to give me, and in the year that followed, I had fucked my way up the pyramid of Society’s biggest dealers.

After I was sent away to and then expelled from a very expensive, non-refundable boarding school, both my parent’s cut me off, and I found a really nice house to live in that had a beautiful, tropical pool— in exchange for the small price of me bottoming in black-market, underage, bareback, gayboy porn.

∆ ∆ ∆

In Korea, during the late 13th century Goryeo Dynasty, a young king, Jin II, ascended to the throne after the sudden death of his father— whom the realm suspected to have been poisoned by a Ming Dynasty spy. King Jin II hoped to build up military strength in order to reinforce national defence and to strengthen the absolute authority of the Goryeo Dynasty. One loyal retainer, Sung Gea Yi, underwent military discipline at full strength, everyday, for ten years.  Upon completion of his training, King Jin II put full confidence in Yi’s troop, and one day, sent the troop on an expedition to conquer the north. Yi advised against the king’s decision— Yi predicted that the mission would have a high risk of failure because he believed there were many weaknesses in fighting against the powerful Ming military in the bitter winter weather. When Yi came back to the palace with his defeated troops, King Jin II blamed Yi for the miserable failure. At the same time, Yi had already started to distrust his Majesty, and the King’s false faulting made Yi decide to revolt against the Goryeo Dynasty and to find a new Dynasty to serve.  

* * *

In a shabby room, a young servant called Mi Sook painfully birthed her lovely daughter without anyone else around. Nobody had even recognized her pregnancy except for the eldest servant who liked to keep to her own business. Mi Sook had to hide the shame of her unwed pregnancy in order to remain in employment with aristocrat Kim’s family. Mi Sook woke up everyday before the birds to allow the time to take the great care that was needed to successfully keep her secret because the head of the family, An Dong Kim, constantly kept Mi Sook by his side— she took great care of many things very sensibly.

After she gave birth, Mi Sook could not stop crying because she blamed herself for her daughter’s misfortune. Mi Sook decided to leave the Kim family, as she didn’t want to raise her child to be a servant. That night, she ran away to a small Buddhist temple where she offered a Buddhist prayer.

* * *

Kim was a notable scholar who was well versed in the classics of the East and was also a meritorious retainer who helped found the Joseon Dynasty. Kim and Yi had studied in the military together long ago. During that time, they had built a firm friendship as both were assimilated towards Confucianism.

During the Goryeo Dynasty, the state religion of Buddhism was unchallenged, and sometimes a Buddhist reader who was heavily involved in politics had more power than a king. In the end of the Goryeo, however, Buddhism started to decline due to corruption, and exposed nepotisms gave rise to anti-Buddhist political and philosophical sentiment. Yi was one of the first anti-Buddhists, and he sought to adopt Confucianism. Yi was particular towards the Confucian notion of Loyalty— he believed this idea would strengthen the royal authority against Buddhism.

Fifteen years after Yi’s dissension from the Goryeo Dynasty, Yi had become ruler of the Choseon Dynasty, which flourished and kept active trade as well as a good relationship with the Ming Dynasty. Yi, who was also deeply versed in Art, encouraged the relationship and cultural exchange with the Ming Dynasty by importing ancient Chinese ceramics. Yi also encouraged the housing and revering of gifted artists at the Palace.

* * *

Mi Sook reared her daughter at the Bo Eun temple. The chief monk named Mi Sook’s daughter Soo Ye. Since Buddhism was firmly ostracized by the Choseon Dynasty, many of the temples were burned so Mi Sook took Soo Ye and moved to a small community nearby. This village’s main source of income came from a ceramics kiln. Mi Sook got a job cleaning the clay studio at night. She saved wages and bought every book she could find so as to educate Soo Ye. Because of Mi Sook’s commitment to her daughter’s education, Soo Ye mastered the works of the great authors. Soo Ye’s growing passion,  however, was to play in the pottery studio when she accompanied her mother to work. One day, a master craftsman recognized her gifted artistic craftsmanship, and he secretly trained Soo Ye.  Mi Sook didn’t approve of Soo Ye spending her time engaging in such foolish acts, but her mother could not stop her desire for art.

Soo Ye practiced her talent more and more, and then her tutor brought her a proposition of great esteem— there would be a national competition for a court artist. However, the examination was only open to men. Soo Ye took great care in crafting her male disguise, and s/he won the court artist position.

Although Soo Ye was given more riches than she ever even knew existed and sent much of the wealth back home to her mother, Mi Sook assumed that her daughter, living life as a man, was experiencing the same unhappiness she had known while she was hiding her pregnancy from her master. On the contrary, Soo Ye was living her dream and constantly assured her mother of this. Despite this reassurance, Mi Sook depressed herself into an early grave.

Soo Ye could not stop her crying, and it was during this sadness, that she was found out to be a woman. She was brought before the court and stripped down to reveal the truth of her shameful femininity. King Yi was so struck by her beauty that he decided not to punish Soo Ye, but instead make her his queen and make love to her that night.

∆ ∆ ∆

After I cleaned up and graduated from art school, night after insecure and lonely night went by, and I found Colin’s older brother on Facebook. He looked like he was doing well so I messaged him to flesh him out. He had read some of my reviews and had been following my work online. So, a few months later, I flew to see him, and my panties came off.

We spent a fun couple of days together. I shared with him the feeling of emptiness I felt after finishing school. I had no money to make art and could not find a job anywhere. As he was driving me back to the airport, Mr. Johnson asked me to marry him.

“I’ll pay to ship your things, but you can keep your apartment for now if you want. I know this is sudden, but it has always been my job to take care of you, and now I finally can— I’ll build you a studio in my house, and you can just make art all the time.”

Now that Mr. Johnson had become President Johnson of Society, he didn’t understand why I still needed the security of my art-making— he had achieved the highest position he could for himself, for us.

To achieve the minimum appeasement for his political reputation, I, as First Lady Johnson, put together an annual art auction for AIDS hospice of Society, and this year, I had decided to feature the work of newly discovered high-art.crafts created by ancient female and female-identified artists.

* * *

I could smell Soo Ye’s skin on the vase when I opened the crate. My pussy was wet, and I could not stop my crying.

I am in love with her more than I’ve ever loved anyone on this earth— a love that has halted the masking of every trauma I have survived and subdued and continue

here,

in Society.

She simultaneously experiences the same impossible love for me, through time and space we understand each other more than anyone could ever hope to be understood— we scratch the sensation of fulfilment for the first time in our herstories,

but it is a glimmer of a reflection—

we can only exist together through the art.

…