Fat Bubble: Shoog McDaniel

Welcome back to the Fat Bubble, and I’m so glad you’re here. This is my little weekly contribution to the fat bubble that you are creating within yourself – the antidote to the weight stigmatising dominant culture that we so often have to engage with, that creates pain where what we really need is healing. I hope this newsletter continues to offer resources that prioritise healing and wholeness.

Last week I shared the work of Jessamyn Stanley, and I have happily been in my own fat bubble, reflecting more on some of the words I used – elemental, fluid grace, bodily. I have been thinking of the wonderful organic shapes that are created by our magical forms, and I knew there was an artist I really wanted to share with you this week... it’s Shoog McDaniel.

Shoog is a southern, queer, non binary, fat photographer and artist living in Florida, and they take the most captivating images. Their work often features fat folks, and in Shoog’s work, these beautiful bodies are often shown in a scenery that mirrors the bodies that are represented. 

I remember the first images I saw of Shoog’s, on Instagram – it was a photoshoot in the desert. I found it so magical, and so healing, to see the raised relief of bigger bodies replicated in the raised relief of the landscape around them. I often get the sense of a lot of fluidity and movement from Shoog’s images – they really do feel like a snapshot in time.

There is so much love and rest in Shoog’s images - bodies entwined, floating, resting, reclining. It’s an important aspect of Shoog’s work, that it focuses on bodies, and lives, that are often neglected and omitted from dominant culture. As they say on their website:

"I strive to connect the viewer of each photo to beauty within themselves, through understanding the brilliancy of diversity, by showing them that there are many ways to be beautiful. I also focus my lens on the wildlife that Florida has to offer, and I live to expose the majestic nature of Florida's fresh water springs that hold me up when thin.cis.het.patriarchy gets me down"

I really resonate with Shoog’s work as a direct response to thin cis het patriarchy – the focus on beauty, and majesty, of both nature and marginalised bodies, is a powerful resistance and contributes to the world we want to see. I often find the images very meditative and reflective, potent and striking, this is art we have been starved of, and art we all deserve.

You can find Shoog’s photography, and art, on Instagram and also on their website, and Patreon.

PS this liberatory focus of Shoog’s work, and Juneteenth this week, (and also the rising of the orcas), has me reaching again for Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs - it’s a book that gives me something new and deeply profoundly insightful every time I engage with it, and perhaps you will love it too.

Until next week, friends, wishing you safety and joy.

Vicky