Let Me Be Your Valentine's Day Pin-Up Girl!

Tali Shapiro. She pretty much rocks my world. If you don't know who she is, you should. She's a rockin', super-talented 24 year-old arts student and lover of pinups and retro American culture. She's also been busy creating her newest (and quite fabulous if I do say so myself) pin-up girl art, but we'll get to that shortly. First, let's take a step back into history and explore the world of pin-up culture...



A pin-up girl or pin-up model is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as pop culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display. Pin-up girls are often glamour models, fashion models, and actresses.

"Pin-up" may also refer to drawings, paintings and other illustrations done in emulation of these photos (see the List of pinup artists). The term was first attested to in English in 1941; however the practice is documented back at least to the 1890s. The “pin up” images could be cut out of magazines or newspapers, or be from postcard or chromo-lithographs, and so on. Such photos often appear on calendars, which are meant to be pinned up anyway. Later, posters of “pin-up girls” were mass-produced.

Many “pin ups” were photographs of celebrities who were considered sex symbols. One of the most popular early pin-up girls was Betty Grable. Her poster was ubiquitous in the lockers of G.I.s during World War II. Others pin-ups were artwork, often depicting idealized versions of what some thought a particularly beautiful or attractive woman should look like. An early example of the latter type was the Gibson girl, drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. The genre also gave rise to several well-known artists specializing in the field, including Alberto Vargas and George Petty, and numerous lesser artists such as Art Frahm.

The term “cheesecake” is synonymous with “pin-up photo”. The earliest documented print usage of this sense of “cheesecake” is in 1934, predating “pin-up”, although anecdotes say the phrase was in spoken slang some 20 years earlier, originally in the phrase (said of a pretty woman) “better than cheesecake”. In the 1950's, for example, there was a magazine called Cheesecake that had a young Marilyn Monroe in an itsy bitsy yellow bikini on its cover in 1953.

These days men can be considered “pin ups” as well and there are male equivalents of attractive and sexy actors such as Harrison Ford or numerous male models, but really who wants to see pin-ups of men. Women are so much sexier!

Some famous Pin-Up girls include (to name a few):
-Bette Davis
-Joan Crawford
-Mae West
-Judy Garland
-Rita Hayworth
-Audrey Hepburn
-Grace Kelly
-Doris Day
-Faye Dunaway
-Mary Tyler Moore
-Jane Fonda
...and many more

And now, Lesbiatopia is proud to introduce, courtesy of the fabulous art of Tali Shapiro, your newest pin-up girl (just in time for Valentines Day)...

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Lesbiatopia's own Editor-in-Chief, Lesberita!!!

You might remember back to the beginning of January when Paula the Surf Mom introduced us to Tali, dubbing her (quite enthusiastically) as the Pin-Up Queen (yeah baby!). Paula talked about how Tali was "bringing cheesecake back in vouge" and boy did she ever! I was ecstatic when Tali agreed to make my shining face into her Valentine's Day pin-up girl. To Tali, Valentine's Day is very much a love hate relationship, as she explains on her website:

"Some of us love it and celebrate it with our beloved, and some of us spend it sitting alone, in a dark corner of a bar, muttering bitterly how Valentine's sucks. This design captures the duality of the love/hate relationship most of us have with Valentine's day. Love it or hate it, tell everybody how you feel about it with the 'Valentine's is for Pussies' bitter-sweet pinup, and click on one of the items below!

I know I've had my moments of loving (and hating) Valentine's Day too, and I think pretty much everyone can relate to our culture's rollercoastery attitude towards a holiday whose historical significance dates back to the days of Chaucer and his poem about St. Valentine and looooove:

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [choose] his make [mate]."

Anyway, whatever feelings you desire to express on V-Day (love, hate or delicious ambiguity), be sure to check out Tali's little shop of pin-ups (and her pin-up blog, too!), where retro pop-art meets the modern-day women. Is that sexy, or what?? MEEEE-OOOOOWW!!

Posted in: art,Lesberita,lesbian cartoons,Lesbian Life,Poetry