From Behind Bars, Part XIII, On Body Tracings

This one’s a goodie, folks. I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days now, relishing the very idea of roasting the world’s most ill-conceived art project. I mean, this was a catastrophe. Picture this:

Partnering up with a fellow prisoner, who always, without fail, was thinner than you, which always, always, made me utter a few curses. This was some law, like Murphy’s Law, but instead of something always going wrong in any given situation, the Law was that you will always feel as fat as maximally possible in any given circumstance. And body tracings were the ideal situation for that, lemme tell you. Pictured here is the actual art room at CFC, but with fake patients. For confidentiality reasons, obviously they can't show any real prisoners. I can see some members of the cleaning staff and a receptionist. But. The body tracings on the wall are the real deal. In fact, I must've been in treatment when this picture was taken, because I very much remember seeing those tracings in real life. Too bad mine's not up there for all to behold...

So I partner up with a teensy little sprite, lie my fatness all over a giant piece of paper, and try not to preoccupy myself too much with my monumental thighs spread out for the entire world to see. I will her to move faster, faster, as she traces the outline of my entire body. I’m sweating now, and I hope she doesn’t notice it as the pencil goes up into my armpits and back down the other side of my arm.

I’m painfully aware of not just how big I am, but how looooong I am, too. My feet are barely on the paper, and half my head’s cut off, too. Suck.

She lies down now, and I’m done tracing her in about 3.849237 seconds. It didn’t take long, seeing as she’s the approximate size and weight of a hummingbird. I look at her body tracing, and then I look at mine, and a few more appropriate curses are uttered. I go to my corner of the art room, find a giant eraser, and proceed to narrow my body by, oh, you know, a few inches. I now look more like a Barbie doll, and I feel much better. I sit back on my heels in satisfaction, and notice that everybody around me is narrowing their bodies, too! And then I feel better, except the hummingbird now looks like a bumblebee. [Cue curse]

Once the tracings are completed, and the care techs and art/recreation therapists have calmed down a few girls from their minor panic attacks that included, but were not limited to, head banging, hyperventilation, and impulsive attempts at going AWOL, we begin the excruciatingly painful “creative” part, which, if you recall from my previous post on Art Therapy and other various posts concerning my missing creativity chromosomes, (although, it does seem I have an affinity for Easter hats, does it not? I am an accomplished maker of Easter bonnets. And it feels good.) I am so un-gifted in this area, so it could get really painful.

See, the point of this train wreck of a project was to color/paint/draw in our bodies the way we really felt on the inside. You know, our emotions and all that jazz. So most bodies were filled with black pain and Chiclet-sized particles of fat, broken hearts, blood, tears, gore, etc, etc.
And did I mention gore?
So I painted my body with some of the requisite black paint, (you weren’t cool unless you had black pain) a barren tree, and like, a sunset or something. I’d like to tell you it was deep, and meant so much, but it wasn’t. Not even a little bit. I just think sunsets are pretty, and something needed to occupy my faux Barbie-sized self.

This mission inevitably took more than one art project, which bored me to tears, because I always finished the first week, and spent the rest of the ensuing groups staring at the wall and listening to “artsy music” that was supposed to get us in touch with our artistic and inventive side, when in reality it sounded more like some sort of homage to Satan. You know, tribal incantations, animal sacrifice, stuff like that.

But finally, finally time is up, and it’s time to share our fear! And pain! And cellulite! With the rest of the group. We now have to hang our body tracings up, and of course, due to the aforementionedLaw, my tracing is hanging next to the bumblebee, and even Barbie can’t compete with a bumblebee. Boo. Double boo.

But.

Body tracings are over for another six weeks! And I am comforted, until the realization dawns that in another six weeks, I’ll weigh approximately 48585 pounds more than I already do. Suck. Double suck. I make a mental note to get my hands on a super jumbo eraser for next time, and then promptly repress the entire memory.