See art by Mayra Alpízar | Carlota Berard | Jennifer Boe | Roz Bonnet | Luiza Brown | Nikoline Calcaterra | Judy Chicago | Selin Cileli | Maldoror Capvt Corvi | Maribel Cruz | Thomasin Durgin | Natalie Aniela Dybisz | Elvira | Anne Encephalon | Hélène Epaud | Quiara Z. Escobar | Fanni Fazekas | Pat Fish | Julie Gaw | Gina |  Kat Grandy | Martina Hoffmann (1 & 2) | Jelena | Judy Jones | Margaret Kalms | Brina Katz | Lorraine Lamothe | Ria Lee | Sharon Lee | Lana Leitch | Carol Nathan Levin | Katy Luxion | Sarah McCutcheon | Isa Menzies | Megan Morris | M. Parfitt | Petra Paul | Ana Elena Pena | Melina Piroso | Elentye Paulauskas-Poelker | Leigh Radtke | Jacquelyn Rixon | Isa Sanz | Vladislav Shabalin | Nelson Soucasaux | Paula Speakman | Alexandra Steiner | Melina Szapiro | Von Taylor | Jean Tracy | Joseph Tonna | Jessica Wagner | Jennifer Weigel | Terry Wunderlich | Tamara Wyndham | New Guinea menstrual hut carving Art of Menopause by Coni Minneci Ancient Peruvian menstrual art If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition) featured several of the above artists in an article about this museum and menstruation in 2003. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine Dishy (Turkey) showed some of the artists in 2005 in articles about this museum. HOMEPAGE CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could? Some MUM site links: HOMEPAGE | MUM address & What does MUM mean? | Email the museum | Privacy on this site | Who runs this museum?? | Amazing women! | Art of menstruation (and awesome ancient art of menstruation) | Artists (non-menstrual) | Asbestos | Belts | Bidets | Birth control and religion | Birth control drugs, old | Birth control douche & sponges | Founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) | Cats | Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory | Contraception and religion | Contraceptive drugs, old | Contraceptive douche & sponges | Costumes | Menstrual cups | Cup usage | Dispensers | Douches, pain, sprays | Essay directory | Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) | Extraction | Facts-of-life booklets for girls | Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads | FAQ | Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory | Founder/director biography | Gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux | Humor | Huts | Links | Masturbation | Media coverage of MUM | Menarche booklets for girls and parents | Miscellaneous | Museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | Odor | Olor | Pad, towel, napkin directory | Patent medicine | Poetry directory | Products, some current | Puberty booklets for girls and parents| Religion | Religión y menstruación | Your remedies for menstrual discomfort | Menstrual products safety | Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | Science | Shame | Slapping, menstrual | Sponges | Synchrony | Tampon directory | Early tampons | Teen ads directory | Tour of the former museum (video) | Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory | Underpants & panties directory | Videos, films directory | Words and expressions about menstruation | Would you stop menstruating if you could? | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | Washable pads | Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site. Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health   "The Goddess," while the blood is still wet.  She painted these pictures after a doctor diagnosed her with a double uterus (her doctor's drawing is below) which frequently means infertility.   "The Goddess," after the blood has dried.    "The Goddess," sitting.  All images copyrighted 2003 Elvira Austrian high school student Elvira, who lives in Vienna, sent these pictures on paper painted with her menstrual blood. [After she graduated and started studying medicine, she sent a Libresse ad. There she talks about how taboo menstruation and other subjects are in Catholic Poland, where she was born.] Here's what she says about herself, her pictures and this museum (I translate excerpts from the German e-mails, which follow): Dear Harry, First I would like to mention that I find your [Web] pages very inventive and full of information =). Especially great is the idea of finding old ads and showing how they've changed through the years! I've really enjoyed your virtual museum! I'm an 18-year-old high school student [the top high schools in Germany and Austria, and probably elsewhere in Europe, last a year longer than in the U.S.A., corresponding roughly to the freshman college year in America], live in Vienna, and stumbled on your site last night while looking for toxic shock information on the 'Net. I'm neither a professional artist nor have much time to devote to artistic activities, but I love to paint and have already painted two pictures with menstrual blood and would like to make my contribution to the Internet exhibit. Please send me a short e-mail if you're interested in seeing my work. [I love the German language adoption of the English word to use for sending e-mail: mailen {read her e-mail, below}. German, just as English once did from French and does from many other languages, has taken in many English words recently, especially for pop culture and technology. The English parliament - "parliament" comes from French - spoke French early in its history, and French was once widespread as the world's diplomatic language, which still retains many French expressions (détente, for example). Oops, I mean Freedom expressions.] Greetings, Elvira   Lieber Harry, Zu allererst möchte ich erwähnen, dass ich Ihre Seite sehr einfallsreich und informationsreich finde =) Vor allem die Idee, alte Werbearitkel herauszusuchen und zu präsentieren wie sie sich im Laufe der Zeit verändern ist wirklich bewundernswert! Ich habe Ihr "virtuelles" Museum sehr genossen. Ich bin eine 18jährige Schülerin, wohne in Wien, und bin gestern Abend auf ihre Seite gestoßen während ich im Netz nach Formationen über Tss gesucht habe. Ich bin weder eine "professionele" Künstlerin, noch habe ich besonders viel Zeit meinen "künstlerischen Tätigkeiten" nachzugehen, doch ich male sehr gerne und habe bereits 2 Bilder mit Menstruationsblut gemalt, und würde gerne zum Aufbau dieser Internetausstellung meinen Teil beitragen. Ich bitte Sie, mir kurz zu mailen falls Sie Interesse hätten meine Werke zu sehen. Liebe Grüße Elvira Dear Harry, .... Two photos [the top two on this page] show the same picture in wet and dry condition. I found it interesting to see how blood changed color as it dried. I take it that you want to know about my artistic education, but I haven't any. I can only say that I've liked to paint to reduce stress and relax. Painting with menstrual blood is new for me. I started one and a half weeks ago because I had negative feeling about my pelvis (after the diagnosis of a double uterus; I've forgotten the medical name for it) that I wanted to get rid of. [Double uterus is a condition in which, during pregnancy, the non-pregnant uterus might still menstruate, which can be mistaken for a miscarriage or abortion, which often occurs anyway. But a double uterus - see the illustration, below - can by itself mean infertility. Sometimes the woman has a double vagina, sometimes even a double vulva. {This information is from Gynaecology Illustrated, by Govan, Hodge and Callander, New York, 1985.}] The pictures represent for me very strong and positive representations of the Goddess. [Elvira wanted to cut open her abdomen and get rid of her abnormality, but settled for painting instead] Because I got rid of at least some of my negative feelings in this way I hope to have more opportunity in the future to paint similar pictures. I hope you like them! Greetings, Elvira The original German lies beneath the next drawing.   Elvira has a double uterus, the red lines, which is due to a failure of development while she herself was in the uterus. Her doctor told her that 15-20 percent of women have a double uterus, but one of these wombs is small in half of the women, unlike Elvira's. (I added the red words; the rest is part of the doctor's note pad. "Eierstöcke" means "ovaries" in German. Her doctor drew this. Lieber Harry, .... Zwei [Bilder] davon zeigen ein und dasselbe Bild im ungetrockneten und getrockneten Zustand. Ich fand es interessant zu sehen wie Blut die Farbe ändert wenn es trocknet. Ich nehme an Sie möchten etwas über meinen künstlerischen Werdegang erfahren, doch da ich keine Ausbildung oder ähnliches in dieser Richtung besitze, kann ich eigentlich nur sagen dass ich schon immer gerne gemalt habe um mich zu entspannen und um Stress abzubauuen. Allerdings ist mir das Malen mit Menstruationsblut relativ neu. Ich habe es erst vor einenhalb Wochen versucht, weil ich negative Gefühle, die ich meinem Unterbauch gegenüber aufgebaut habe ( nach der Diagnose von einer Doppelten Gebärmutter , ich weiß leider den medizinischen Ausdruck nicht mehr) abbauuen wollte. Die Bilder stellen für mich sehr stark und positiv wirkende Göttinengestalten dar. Da ich zumindest einen Teil von meinen negativen Einstellungen auf diesem Wege losgeworden bin, hoffe ich auch in Zukunft noch mehr Gelegenheiten zu haben diese Art von Bildern zu malen. Ich hoffe sie gefallen Ihnen! Liebe Grüße Elvira See menstrual blood pictures from another Viennese, Petra Paul, and read an interview with her in the Neue Welt (New World) newspaper. See the menstrual blood pictures of the vulva of the American artist Tamara Wyndham and her performance art. NEXT artist: Anne Encephalon See all the artists in the links in the left-hand column. If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM © 2003 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org