IRIS GOTTLIEB
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IRIS GOTTLIEB
illustration & animation
 

Recent Clients: The New York Times, Chronicle Books, Oakland Museum of California & Dr. Marten's

 
 
 

 

HI THERE. MY NAME IS IRIS AND I LOVE TO DRAW, WRITE, ANIMATE AND MAKE JOKES. 

 
 
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PROJECTS I AM PROUD OF

 

BOOKS I HAVE WRITTEN AND/OR ILLUSTRATED

 
 
 
 

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Love this man, ode to Frank Ocean. Do yourself a favor and listen to There Will Be Tears 🌊 • • • • • #queerart #frankocean #illustration #lgbtq #queer #portrait #theweekoninstagram #floral #pride #drawing #sketchbook #artistsoninstagram
Haven’t been on the internet or in my sketchbook for a while and it’s been real nice. Step out for a min if you can, stay in if you need to ✌🏼
6.5 weeks after surgery: it’s strange to feel a reversal in myself. For a long time prior I had the fear that while having surgery would rid me of a source of deep discomfort — a body part that was deeply embedded with shame and secrecy — it would consequentially burden me with the deep discomfort of being somewhere in between things and unable to pretend I wasn’t if need be. Between genders or between attractions or between bodies. A chimera. I was afraid I would need to tell people I had had breast cancer and that’s why I had a double mastectomy. I still am afraid of that and thought about how to quickly change my story in rural Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas to create safety during the last week. I was actually afraid in moments I would be hurt before I even spoke a word. But I am also finding myself proudly showing people my scars and how it’s all turning out. I walk around the house without my shirt. I watch queer eye and try to plan how to mimic antoni vibe looks without putting in any effort of working out. I want to look nice in my new self because I think it’s time that I feel that comfort in the discomfort. This step in the process is trying to let go of the notion that we must tailor ourselves at all to fit what we believe others want. I have passed the moment of fear of regret, and entered into well, I’m here and I don’t regret it at all. I am much happier in my own body and that’s all I can do for now — I will have fear and anxiety and sadness, I cried for 20+ minutes during call me by your name because I will never be a ‘true boy’ who looks like elio. And the story sad as hell. But doing this process was the best possible thing for me to do and all the shame I imagined would come with it is fading away as I come to love and appreciate the visible scars of the surgery. #lgbtq #queerart #illustration #topsurgery #queer #theweekoninstagram #genderqueer #selfportrait #queereye
A lil bandana to wipe the tears of leaving a friend after a cross country move — a lil bandana to honor an aspirational-self boy @antoni
🌵CA-AZ-NM-TX-OK-AR-TN-HOME TO STAY 🌿
Best surprise gift from @cassysiempre — best interpretation of top surgery by David Sedaris.
If you need me I’ll be slowly poisoning myself in the backyard with my best friend and worst enemy 💘
Week 4: It’s been easy this week. I don’t have many profound thoughts other than feeling more at home in my body. After 5.5 years here I’m moving home to North Carolina in a week, and it feels like a wave of transition as I move back to my home place and home self. I can touch and look at my incisions, they are turning pink and smooth. Every day they change and every day I am getting used to the previous day and being surprised by the next. I got scared they placed the nipples too far apart (aka in what feels like my armpits) ... but apparently they are just like that on boy people. (Those are bandaids not huge nipples.) I learned that under every boob is a pec that can twitch and move. I was afraid of this change, afraid of this process, afraid of regret, afraid it would look ugly and hurt and afraid in general. But now I feel good. In two weeks I will feel all of those things while driving away from California and settling into my new old place, but with both transitions I have been slowly planning them for years and will feel slowly more and more sure with every passing week.
true luv 🌵🌙 • • • • •(my drawing; tattooed by @q.art_ ; purple not permanent)
At every appointment I’ve had and every time someone has needed to touch my chest before and after surgery, I have fainted or become wildly nauseous. I have been so overwhelmed by the sensation of patchy numbness, tingling, scarring and touch in a place that is totally new to my recomposed body. When the large ace wrap came off on Thursday I hunched all day so the fabric wouldn’t touch my skin. I took a shower for the first time earlier this week. I stepped in the tub and the moment water hit my back I became paralyzed in a half crumpled shaking sob. I kept my eyes closed for the duration, helped around in my darkness by my patient partner. I got taped up in the darkness of closed eyes so when I opened them I couldn’t see the scars. But three weeks post-surgery today, I looked at the bottom incisions last night for the first time (not the nipple grafts, cuz that’s too intense for right now). It was really okay. The body is amazing in its ability to heal, recover & remake itself anew. Today I wore a t-shirt today for the first time into the world. It’s light purple and flat against my front. I can finally stand up straight. My mom helped me try on a jumpsuit with my eyes closed. It fit like a perfect flat, baggy sack. I am finding myself experiencing a lot of firsts. First touch, first skin, first shower, first t-shirt, first time standing upright. This is an entirely overwhelming process even if day by day I am stepping into it a little more. I am relating to myself in a different way, afraid and embracing. Realizing I don’t need to be any gender other than whatever the hell I am, I don’t need to be trans, or non-binary or a title at all. I’ll stick with being a rectangle she-boy who loves Harry Styles and stripes. It really doesn’t and shouldn’t matter that I am some amorphous being, to me or anyone else. Cuz it’s all made up by us humans to begin with. And so, the process continues.