Tag Archives: Public Domain Art

So much of the world I love is made by trans people. I can’t bear to lose any more.

My World Without Trans People by Suzanne Forbes Nov 12 2018 Public Domain
The great passion of my life, fantasy and science fiction storytelling, is full of the contributions of trans people.

I wanted to make some art for Trans Awareness Week. I have made many drawings and paintings of trans, non-binary and Gender-Nonconforming folx over the years; you can see some of them here in my “Visibility” album. I try and will always try to tell the stories of the people I meet, with the  love and honor they deserve.

I wanted to do more than document trans people, though. I wanted to celebrate their contributions. Last night I lay awake thinking, how can I talk about how much the creative power of trans and GNC people means to me? How can I tell the world how much their work and lives inspire me? And I realized, it was by imagining a world without them.

Imagine the world we’d have now with the ones we’ve lost to violence, despair and lack of medical care.

I can’t bear to lose any more. We must protect trans, non-binary and Gender-Nonconforming people, all their lives.

I made this image myself today on November 12, 2018 and I hereby release all copyright to it. This image is copyright free. It is a Public Domain work. You can download it in a variety of sizes here on flickr.

 

 

Drawing is my medicine: free protest and march sign art.

suzanneforbes NoBan Jan 28 2017 NoWallI made this drawing of Lady Liberty after a guy on twitter said he’d donate $5 to the ACLU for every hand-drawn image of support for refugees and detainees tweeted at him.

It’s licensed thus: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain. Anyone can use it for anything they want.Public domain BaphoMeta by Suzanne Forbes Jan 2017

I made this drawing of a variant Baphomet after seeing this post of a miniature Baphomet statue (I want one for my dollhouse garden so much!). The Satanic Temple sells them in their online store.

It is licensed as follows: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.

The horrific situation with the US makes me want to make transgressive art that shows love and faith. I don’t know if this will give comfort to anyone but me, but it makes me feel better to have made it. Thanks to the monthly support of my Patrons, I can make and distribute free and copyright free art. He can gut the NEA, but he can’t stop the people from supporting artists.

Usually I make my free drawings available with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike License (CC BY-NC-SA), so that people can use them freely but Urban Outfitters can’t profit off them. However, in this case, if Urban Outfitters wants to make t-shirts or phone cases with my fat, hairy, trans demon sheltering a spectrum of marginalized children, they are welcome to.

This drawing is in no way intended to be a critique of the official Satanic Temple Baphomet statuecreated by Brooklyn sculptor Mark Porter after a drawing by 19th-century French occultist Eliphas Levi.

The official sculpture is a transgressive work of art that derives visceral power from the clever use of two children in a pose that echoes popular formatted iconography of the 1950s.  No shade, just a variant, an homage I offer to the world!

I hope the statue will be placed at the Arkansas Capitol; I love the mission of The Satanic Temple:

The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will. Politically aware, Civic-minded Satanists and allies in The Satanic Temple have publicly opposed The Westboro Baptist Church, advocated on behalf of children in public school to abolish corporal punishment, applied for equal representation where religious monuments are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy, exposed fraudulent harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners and claims in mental health care, and applied to hold clubs alongside other religious after school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations.