Appreciate, admire, regard…all that good stuff, but I just don’t like Pierre-August Renoir’s paintings and you can’t make me.

It’s like Jane Austen. I’m not saying they weren’t highly talented individuals very important to the this and that, it’s just that I’d rather go out to an antique store, find a telephone that actually has a cord and then hang myself with it rather than spend an hour subjected to their individual, or indeed collected, works.

BUT, I know how many of you gals liked the big girls in art feature and I’m always glad when I see plus size women painted beautifully in any style so I thought I’d offer you a handful of Renoir’s portraits, mostly from his later years 1914 and on, featuring some of his larger models.

The first portrait is of Austrian actress Tilla Durieux who at the time was married to a prominent art dealer in Paris.

Nice job if you can get it.

The second –and perhaps my favorite– is of his longtime muse Gabrielle Renard, who just so happened to be his childrens’ nanny and his wife Aline’s cousin.

I don’t know whether he had an affair with her, but can you IMAGINE the fights?

“Pierre, WHY is the nanny naked in the studio again? I thought you were doing landscapes this week!”

Next there are several portraits of the mysterious woman labeled just as Andrée. Could it be actress and Impressionists’ darling Ellen Andrée?

It seems a good guess as Renoir definitely painted her often in their younger days, these portraits all show a voluptuous woman with a full, almost carnal, mouth. Other paintings and photographs of the actress show her to have very thin, tight lips.

Ellen Andrée would have been in her 60′s by the time these portraits were painted, not that any portraitist has ever shied away from shaving off a few years –or decades– from his subject.

Finally we’ve got some bathers.

You can actually blame the Hot Latin Boy for this post because it started with this painting.

Back story? Why sure.

The fella and I hadn’t seen each other in donkey’s ears and because your pal Plummy does like to make her entrances –I’m glad you all were sitting down for that shock– when I first appeared to him at Villa Plumcake it was at dusk, wending my way in white dress and gossamer thin shawl through a lovely shadowed garden.

I hadn’t seen him in months and I sure as heck wasn’t going to be stared at in the merciless glare of some fluorescent lights or, you know, the sun.

I plucked a single blossom of night blooming jasmine and stuck it behind my ear as the Pacific swallowed the last breaths of light.

He came up, put my hand on his heart so I could feel it beating (apparently that’s A Thing) and said:

“You look like a sílfide”

For any of you people who are, you know, normal, you would understand immediately that sílfide is a Spanish cognate for sylph.

I didn’t quite understand, so he tried to explain what he meant and somehow I got it into my head that he meant I looked like a selkie.

No, it didn’t occur to me that perhaps a not-widely-traveled Latin boy’s frame of mythological reference might not include little-known Scottish shape-shifting seal maidens, but it honestly seemed more likely than being called a sylph.

Still does. I’d make a damn fine selkie. Plus I could have a seal fur coat without feeling guilty about it and that would be swell because even Cruella DePlumcake can’t swing that coat.

Anyway, sylphs are to my mind quite thin and willowy as are nymphs so I was pleased to see Renoir’s 1919 work The Nymphs (also called The Great Bathers) featuring women who don’t fit the slender sylph model either.

I can carry off a scarf eight million ways to Sunday, I can wear white mother of pearl sunglasses without looking ironic, I can even deploy a Spanish silk fan without channeling Karl Lagerfeld in the pre-tapeworm days –these are no small feats– but the shawl? Jamais!

Oh sure I TRIED to wear a shawl, but I was always like the White Queen from Alice Through the Looking Glass and got myself all tied up higgledy  –and on more than one occasion– piggledy as well. So in the end I’d just throw on a shrug or a seasonally-appropriate mink, depending on the time of day and weep bitter tears.

The problem was twofold.

The first fold is I’m not naturally shaped for most of the ways I’ve seen shawls worn.

I’m pear-shaped without an excess of neck, that means my delicious self is most naturally flattered by keeping everything from the waist up free from heavy visual clutter, like a broad swath of bulky fabric obscuring the loveliest parts of my body; my neckline and my waist.

Fold two, the most important fold, was that I didn’t know how to wear a shawl in a way that flattered me without being fiddly.

Then when I went to Mexico, something clicked. Call it the spirit of Frida Kahlo (did I mention no waxing services for a month? Just a further reminder that I am at any given moment no more than six weeks away from looking like Harry from And The Hendersons fame) but I finally GOT the shawl.

For me the best look is to drape it evenly around my neck, adjust the scarf over my shoulders and then taking each of the outside edges –about five inches below the elbow is comfortable for me– bringing them together in front and tying just those bits in a small square knot, pulling down on the bottom of the shawl to make a nice sort of hospital cornered look that covers my shoulders but keeps the neckline open and the bulkiness to a minimum.

I discovered this by accident, but if you’re smarter than I am –and let’s face it, that’s not setting the bar prohibitively high– you’ll check out this series of tutorials by fellow big girl Kathie Plaskiewicz for The Proud Peacock.

Although I can’t imagine anyone even owning, much less using a scrunchie in public, what with it not being 1994 and all (an elasticated or drawstring bracelet is a chic-er choice) she gives you a whole mess of ways to wear a shawl, very few I’d seen before. What’s better is since she’s a big girl, you can see how these folds and knots look on someone of more, as Alexander McCall Smith would say, “traditional build.” Enjoy!

The Road to Ensenada is plenty wide and fast. I knew that because it’s in the lyrics of The Road to Ensenada by Lyle Lovett from the album of the same name which happens to be my favorite Lyle Lovett album when I’m feeling particularly Texan.

The lovestruck young waiter who jumped the gate of Villa Plumcake my first night in Mexico was from Ensenada (fun hint: if you are trying to impress a lady of position and quality, do not offer her hardcore intravenous street drugs on your first outing. Odds are if she won’t drink the tap water she probably won’t be all that enthused at the prospect of sharing a needleful of Mexican methamphetamine)

As it turns out, the road to Ensenada is about six feet wide and built into the side of what can only be described as OHMYGODSLOWDOWNIDONTWANTTODIEONTHISDAMNCLIFF. But it turns out Ensenada is a great harbor town with an excellent fish market and in a strange way I can’t exactly describe, reminds me a lot of Wales.

If I was a good and faithful blogger, dedicated to journalistic excellence and all that other stuff that doesn’t involve sitting in a cantina eating ceviche out of a cracked sundae glass and drinking 50 cent Coronas with a hot Latin boy, I’d have a picture and all the salient details of an enormous sculpture of a big girl’s kelp-covered torso and over which our antediluvian carriage driver waxed poetic while he and his equally aged horse jostled us around in a shiny (wherein shiny = not shiny in any conceivable sense) little surrey with the fringe on the top, doing his best to put an end to the last vestiges of dignity or bladder control I once possessed.

But I think we both know that in the journalistic battle between reportage and cheap beer, cheap beer will always, nay MUST always win, so I don’t have a picture of the big girl, or even really any idea where it was other than “next to that churro place” which I’m not exactly sure narrows it down enough to work my inimitable google-fu.

The driver went on and on and on about that sculpture, it’s new to the city (thus making my internet searching even more fruitless) and he’s clearly very enamored of it. At one point he even made a joke to my companion that I was the model.

My companion, the aforementioned Hot Latin Boy suggested it might be the work of Guillermo Valentin.

I have mixed feeling about artists who portray big women where the bigness is the focus. It smacks of fetishism and being reduced –even if it’s in a positive light– to one simple characteristic: fatness.

That’s not me. I mean, sure I’m fat. If I stay still long enough small Mexican children try to use me for shade, but that’s not ALL I am, it’s not even my most striking characteristic unless you’re looking at me from 50 feet away. I have a hard time feeling good about to being reduced –even symbolically– to a characteristic that frankly is kind of boring to me.

I’ll try to get more information on the sculpture and hash out my own complicated feelings on big girls in art, but for now I’d like to leave you with a few examples of Valentin’s work and ask you how YOU feel about fat women in art. Put it in the comments, gang!

I don’t usually go for a theme-y shoe, heck, I don’t even really like Degas all that much, but there’s something about these skimmers that speak to me. They’re whimsical but not overdone, so visually they read the same as a soft floral and not like Novelty Socks of Doom.

They also work across the generations. I could easily see a 14 year-old young lady wearing these with a sweet little dress, I’d certainly toodle around town in a pair of narrow but not skinny dark jeans and a ballet neck top, and a woman of a certain age could wear them beautifully with a chic pair of trousers, softly luminous jewelry (I’m thinking something like pearls with a bohemian edge) and a dove grey cashmere sweater set.

(now with sales code AND a recipe!)

Reading – Romancero Gitano by Frederico Garcia Lorca. A beautiful collection of poems from Spain’s most famous modern poet. He described his 1928 work as “a carved altar piece of Andalusia with gypsies, horses, archangels, planets, its Jewish and Roman breezes, rivers, crimes, the everyday touch of the smuggler and the celestial note of the naked children of Córdoba. A book that hardly expresses visible Andalusia at all, but where the hidden Andalusia trembles.” Read it in Spanish if you can, but a reputedly excellent bilingual collection of Lorca’s work is available here. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, this is an interesting blog outlining the relationship between Salvador Dali –who is responsible for the portrait of Garcia Lorca above– and the poet.

Watching - Evil Under the Sun. How had I never seen this before? It is early 80′s (possibly unintentional) high camp in all its glory! Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith as bitchy aging chorus girls done good! Roddy McDowell at his screamingest queenie best! Jane Birkin! Hats! Turbans! Turbans UNDER hats with coordinating clip on earrings! Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot! Cole Porter soundtrack! I just about died.

Hearing – The Sweetest Thing by U2. My favorite love song and is even nearer and dearer to my heart since going to Ireland. Say what you will about Bono, the boy knows how to apologize. Watch the video here. From now on, I refuse to accept any apologies not accompanied by the cast of Riverdance, an elephant and mostly naked men stripping on a firetruck.

Smelling - Organix Tea Tree Mint Shampoo. Do you want to smell like a Thin Mint? Of course you do. I’m no ‘poo except for the summer, but this sulfate-free stuff smells great and leaves my hair nice and healthy.

Loving – Horchata. Horchata is a creamy refreshing summer drink served throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish version is made with tiger nuts, but since I wouldn’t know a tiger nut if I stepped on one (and trust me, I’m not about to do that), I make a version of the variety they serve most commonly in Mexico and South America, flavored with rice, almonds and cinnamon. I don’t have a precise recipe, but here’s the gist:

Miss Plumcake’s Horchata:

Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot, with a few cinnamon sticks. Remove from heat and add a cup and a half or so of uncooked white rice (do not rinse), give it a good stir, cover it and let it sit at least 5 hours, ideally overnight. In the morning, give it a final stir and strain the rice water into a large pitcher, reserving one cup of liquid and dispose of rice (you could probably do something with the rice, but I don’t eat rice so I don’t know).

In a large microwavable measuring cup or small pot, combine one 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk and reserved rice water, heating until it has the consistency of fresh milk, then add it to the pitcher of rice water. Add a few drops of natural almond extract if you’d like, then chill. Serve over lots of ice with a few toasted almond slivers if you have it. Sabroso!

Hating - Flaccid Unnecessary Ruffles. Seriously. What is with these things? It’s like every top I see is just dripping with random bits of fabric flotsam. It just looks sloppy and cheap and if I wanted to look sloppy and cheap believe me, I’d be doing it in a much more entertaining way than just wearing stupid ruffles.

Wanting - All Espadrilles All The Time. My affection for the espadrille is well-documented, and especially now that I’m Fake Spanish, they’re pretty much all I want to wear this summer. The Emmah from Calvin Klein scratches my neutral-color, leg-lengthening high wedge itch (to be worn with shorts) and I’ve been wearing my wild Lacroix ones all spring, but really any ‘drilles will do.

Buying – Belted Linen Dress by La Redoute. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m heading down Mexico way for a month for some hot Night of The Iguana action and I’m going to wear mostly white linen. Because when your house comes with a maid, you can wear white linen every day. This dress is easy and versatile, use the belt that comes with it, your favorite scarf, wear it as a dress or a tunic. Whatever. Available in white and navy, you can get it for cheap if you use code OSPCOUPON16 to take 40% off your most expensive item.

At Lane Bryant you’ve got 30% your entire order until March 25th using code 000300384. I’m a big fan of the cargo jegging which is really more of a riding pant with cargo detailing than a legging. It’s surprisingly well-made and makes my legs look like ten miles of very good road.

I’m also digging the tissue-weight striped sweaters they’re practically giving away. They’re low cut but If you’ve got a defined waist and a good bust, this will be all about Brigitte Bardot on you.

From One Stop Plus you’ve got your choice of sales codes.

Use OSPCOUPON7 for 40% off a single item or OSPCOUPON8 for $20 off your $50 purchase, $25 off a $75 one and $30 off $100. Have you stocked up on slips? If not, now is the time. Whether you prefer shapers or full slips, get your underpinnings in order before those light spring dresses come out of the closet.

At  Avenue you can take 50% off your highest priced item using code JLE4473 and take 40% off your entire clearance purchase if you use code AV111081.

That’s right, you can double up on coupons. I’m liking this mini ottoman dress (get a better belt though, I’ve seen it in person) for your full-priced item and then clean up on denim with your clearance coupon.

If you’ve not been turned on to Amazon’s monthly $5 album downloads, you’re missing something good. There are some killers this month including The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed,( featuring two of the most iconic album covers of all time. Everyone knows Andy Warhol’s “peel slowly and see” banana for Louie Blue and the VU, but far fewer people know the woman responsible for Keef’s cake was none other than Delia Smith)  OK Computer from Radiohead, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and The Score from the Fugees.

That being said, we ought to differentiate between Fashion and the Fashion Industry.

The mainstream fashion industry and media has its head so far up its own emaciated backside that it can use its own lungs as convenient and ergonomically sound in-flight neck pillows.  That’s not going to change any time soon, so take whatever good you can find from it as a pleasant surprise and leave the rest. My current scientifically bangin’ measurements are 53-36^1/2-54 and I cannot buy ready-to-wear from any major designer.  That is screwed up.  I have –albeit on a larger scale– pretty the exact same proportions as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and the Venus De frickin’  Milo.  If you can’t design clothes that look great on my figure *coughMiucciaPradacough* the problem? Is not with me.

But Fashion? Fashion is by no means the exclusive provenance of 15 year-old Eastern Bloc automatons with bones but no faces. Sure that may be what we see on the runways right now –although admittedly with the revival of the early 90′s looks, we’re getting a bit more diversity of look on the catwalk– but after poring through thousands of editorial fashion images this weekend, particularly from the How to be a F**king Lady tumblr stream which is beyond fabulous I’ve decided one thing:

When you create something unusual, maybe even shocking, put it on your body and  sell it so hard that it becomes fabulous by sheer force of will, THAT is Capital F Fashion. It doesn’t belong to the thin or tall or blonde or rich or whatever actress has a new movie coming out. It belongs to anyone with courage and courage doesn’t give a damn about measurements.

Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with wanting to be pretty, but good Fashion –like all good art– is challenging and challenging ain’t always pretty.

So take this as a call to arms.

If we want to do Fashion, we can do Fashion. In fact, as big girls, we might actually even have a natural advantage because we command more attention with our physical presence. After all, there’s a reason Cadillacs are in parades but those little SmartCars aren’t. BE the Cadillac, girls and go commit some Fashion.

Reading – Nabokov’s Butterfly and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books by Rick Gekoski. Legendary rare book dealer, Man Booker Prize judge and semi-scoundrel Rick Gekoski tells the story of how his life has intertwined with several of the world’s most collectible books and literary objects J.R.R. Tolkein’s university gown (the books was published as Tolkein’s Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books in the UK) including Grahame Greene’s first edition of Lolita adorned with Nabokov’s signature hand-drawn butterflies.

Watching – Sherlock. You guys. Seriously now, you NEED to watch this and do it fast because it’s available for free streaming on the PBS website until December 7. In this three-part series for BBC Wales and Masterpiece Mystery, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are 21st century characters as gripping and real as any contemporary crime procedural. Benedict Cumberbatch (whose name I cannot help but read as Cummerbund Bandersnatch) plays the best detective this Holmes girl has ever seen or heard.

Hearing - Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. The best pop album of all time. That is all. Also, auto tune people people? THIS is how you do it.

Smelling – Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day cleaning products in Geranium. Cleaning, like monogamy and parenting, is one of those things better left to people who aren’t me. I kind of morally object to having to clean up after myself. I mean, I DO it, because I can’t find a cleaning gal I like and the last one stole all my best prescription drugs, but I’m NOT happy about it. It’s hard enough to find the time to MAKE the mess, and now I’m supposed to fix it too? Why is life so cruel? Still, I find the job a little less offensive with these schmancy organic products that make Chateau Gateau smell particularly lovely.

Loving – All the new Manolo blogs! Our very own Twistie at Crafty Manolo, Glinda at Manolo for the Beauty and frequent commenter La Petite Acadienne at Manolo Jewelry. Does this mean Miss Plumcake might be expanding her Manolo Horizons too? Maaaybe.

Hating - Ice Cream. All of it. No reason, I just hate it. It’s hard milk, but not cheese and thus is of the serpent.

Wanting - Jimmy Choo Crocodile Wellington Boots. There is NOTHING in that title the doesn’t make me happy. Fortunately for my bank account, there’s no way the calves would be big enough because if you think I wouldn’t spend $400 I don’t have on a pair of rain boots I don’t need because they’re CROCODILE WELLIES then you don’t know me very well.

Buying – Macaroons. I love macaroons. Not the mysteriously-trendy macarons, whose pastel allure has historically escaped me, but proper almond and coconut macaroons. I usually make my own or get them from Moonlight Bakery here in town, but if you wanted to send some to a friend, the folks at Scott’s Cakes do a fine job too.

So what about you? What do you have going on this week?

The thing is, that’s it’s not exactly accurate. There have always been thin people, moderate-sized people, fat people, and supersized people. We have always been around.

Want some proof? Take a look right here:

via See these four lovely ladies circa 1905? Notice the one in the rear on the left? Not precisely Kate Moss, is she? And yet, she exists.

Even the corset couldn’t stop women from being fat:
via

It just rearranged the fat. Sort of like Spanx with whale bone.

There have even been famous fat women in the past.

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln,
Queen Victoria, who ruled an empire while entirely failing to be thin. I think she’d have been very surprised to discover she was a figment of someone’s imagination.

The fact is we have always existed. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It was New Year’s Eve and rumor had it THE most fabulous miniature gay man on the face of the planet –I mean he out-Capotes Truman Capote– was having a little shindig and I’d heard so much about his legendary house I simply HAD to go or I would just DIE.

So I charmed, finagled, and finally begged my way into being someone’s plus one. The big night came, my ticket had to bail. Well. By that time I was already in sequined cocktail gown and white Dior tailcoat and by GOD I was going to this party, so I waltzed in with my lynx coat and hastily gift-wrapped box of Walker’s shortbread and I crashed that party like a pro.

I cannot even begin to describe to you this house, other than I accidentally knocked my handbag against one of the many Picasso harlequins on the walls that were tessellated floor-to-cathedral ceiling with art. Because why have ONE Modigliani when you can have three, plus some Dali etchings to fill in the spaces and a few Cecil Beaton photographs OF YOURSELF just for good measure.

Above the story-tall fireplace in the great room was a huge painting of our host as a young man, painted by his brother who apparently was something of a Big Deal back in the 30′s. My friend –who had also finagled his way into a plus one– commented:

“It takes a certain type of person to have their own portrait hanging in their living room.”

to which I replied, slightly hurt but for no good reason “Hey! I have my portrait hanging in my living room!”

“…Of course you do.”

And this is why I’m of two minds when it comes to the art of Les Toil, the artist behind the Toil Girls, a series of mostly individually-commissioned drawings of plus-size women in the pin-up style.

Francesca was a fan. I am definitely not.

On one hand, I totally get it.

I understand why women –maybe women who don’t necessarily get a lot of positive feedback about their desirability– would want to be transformed into a cheesecake cartoon.  Lord knows I’m all about the vanity and as far as vanities go, it’s a relatively cheap and harmless one. On par with those tack-o but inoffensive Glamour Shots you get in the mall.

On the other hand…sheesh. Low. Brow.  Now I understand that for some unknown reason you all aren’t required to share all my tastes YET (say what you will about Fascism, at least they had a unified aesthetic) but…sheesh.

BUT, all indications to the contrary, I’m not here to hate on Les Toil.

He seems like a decent enough fella. He certainly loves the big girls and, perhaps more importantly, is willing to monetize that love.  More power to him. It takes all kinds.

And who knows, maybe he’ll be the next Art Frahm and then someday you can entertain your grandkids with the photo the same way Frahm’s models (if indeed he used models) probably tell their grandkids about how they had to pose drop-knickered with a bag of celery for a five cents an hour.

However.

This whole thing just smacks of yet another case where instead of getting what they really want –say an oil portrait of your reclining nude self– big girls settle for what’s available and acceptable.

Funk

That

Noise

Houses settle, bets settle,  benches settle.

You? Don’t have to settle. Not about most things, and certainly not about this.

If your soul yearns to be a Toil Girl and only a Toil will do, by all means, get one. Get a dozen and make a freakin’ calendar and cherish the crap out of that hot kitschy mess.  BUT if what you want is a mixed media painting of yourself in the nude (and I firmly believe all women should sit for a nude painting or drawing at least once in her life) then kick the kitsch to the curb and get what you want.

“But what about the money?”

Mister Toil charges between $400 and $500  and to me that’s perfectly fair.  I know some women have this idea that if you sit for an artist you are being his muse and not only will he probably fall madly in love with your beauty, he will paint you for free.

These women are high.

BUT,  getting a fine art portrait (I view Mr Toil’s work as illustration, and there’s certainly no shame in the illustration game, but fine art it ain’t) doesn’t have to be that much more expensive. It just takes a little legwork.

If you want to drop a grand or more for a traditional oil portrait but don’t know where to start, you might try calling your city capitol building. Ask a docent who painted the portrait of the sitting governor. If he or she isn’t taking commissions, you might ask who they would recommend.

If you prefer a hipper more impressionist –though potentially less polished– portrait,  go to the coffee shops, teensy galleries, bars, wherever they display local artists. If there’s an artist you just loooove on Etsy, ask them if they’ll take a commission. Heck, even Craigslist works if you live in a relatively artsy town.

Meet with your potential artist, get a feel for the artist’s work and personality. I’ve found many if not most artists genuinely prefer to work with women with a more traditionally voluptuous build. If it clicks it clicks. If not, move on. It will help if you’ve got an idea of what you want and what you don’t want.

Just don’t settle.

In eighty years you (or your children or your great grandchildren) will love to see how gorgeous and vibrant you were in all your beautiful curving glory. Make it something you want them to see, especially above the fireplace.