The Cheeky Shedonist

05/20/2026

Newest design: "Evolve Already," featuring Frida Kahlo. Individual links in captions.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCheekyShedonist?ref=seller-platform-mcnav&search_query=Evolve

DESIGN INSPIRATION
This 1932 photograph of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was shot by her father, photographer Guillermo Kahlo. I colorized the archival image and added a background of vibrant Mexican Talavera tiles or Azulejos de Talavera. Talavera style evolved from Spanish colonial, Moorish, and indigenous influences. Their vibrantly flowing, nature-inspired patterns evoke Art Nouveau aesthetics, and as such are ideal to crown and frame the core portrait.

Known professionally as Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), full name Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, this design's implacable leading woman was a celebrated Mexican painter with the distinction of being the first female artist to have work acquired for the Louvre museum's prestigious art collection. A sufferer of lifelong chronic pain; she survived polio at 6 years old, and was in a horrific trolley car accident at 18, after which she endured nearly three dozen failed spinal surgeries and eventually, limb amputation.

Kahlo channeled her physical pain and frustrations into two dimensional art that explored social and political identity, gender inequity, womanhood, pain and resilience. Her often uncompromising style was influenced by Mexican folk art, Surrealism, and Realism. Kahlo's8 1940 self-portrait, The Dream (The Bed), is an excellent example of the magical realism embodied in her style; it holds the record at $54.7m USD for the most expensive work by a female artist ever auctioned.

05/15/2026

New design: "Thought Crimes." Individual links in captions.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCheekyShedonist?ref=seller-platform-mcnav&search_query=Thought

DESIGN INSPIRATION
"Woman Holding a Fan," is a painting by Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma, circa 1895. Varma often modeled Hindu Goddesses on Indian women he painted while traveling the country. He is particularly noted for his paintings depicting episodes from the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and Nala and Damayanti, from the Mahabharata. Over time his representation of characters has become a part of the Indian imagination of the Hindu epics.

I enjoy merging modern, sarcastic, facetious and/or sardonic content with art and historical elements to celebrate unruly women – playfully but intentionally upending the historically male gaze-centered preference for meek, subservient (and ideally, silent) models of demurity.

05/11/2026

Latest design, "Revolutionary" – individual links in captions.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCheekyShedonist?ref=seller-platform-mcnav&search_query=Revolutionary

DESIGN INSPIRATION
My designs merge modern, sarcastic, facetious and/or sardonic content with art and historical elements to celebrate unruly women – playfully but intentionally upending the historically male gaze-centered preference for meek, subservient (and ideally, silent) models of demurity.

Consort Rong (1734–1788), known as the "Fragrant Concubine" (Xiang Fei), was a Uyghur consort of the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong Emperor. She is often depicted in 18th-century court paintings attributed to Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shinin). Castiglione, a favored court painter, was known for combining realistic European techniques with traditional Chinese aesthetics.

05/07/2026

New design: "Delusions of Adequacy" - links in captions

DESIGN INSPIRATION
I enjoy merging modern, sarcastic, facetious and/or sardonic content with art and historical elements to celebrate unruly women – playfully but intentionally upending the historically male gaze-centered preference for meek, subservient (and ideally, silent) models of demurity.

It's therefore sadly unsurprising that many archival images and paintings featuring Black women in the sixteenth through nineteenth-century Europe (locations and times I often find feminist inspiration in), depict them as slaves, sexualized nudes, or bare-breasted ethnographic curiosities. Images such as this one represent a demographic largely uncelebrated in the so-called fashionable salons of the period. Luckily for future generations, ongoing archival scholarship and women's history research is helping to slowly reintroduce these singular women's voices to the evolving narratives of history.

The 1891 photo featured in this design is of equestrian performer, Selika Lazevski. She was a horsewoman who rode haute école—the most impressive and prestigious style for a female performer—at the fashionable Nouveau Cirque on the rue Saint-Honoré. Little else is known about this commandingly enigmatic woman beyond the six extant photographs of her (including this one), taken at the Parisian studio of photographer Paul Nadar. The studio was known for its cartes de visite (cabinet cards) of local Parisian celebrities. The image is layered over a customized background incorporating Victorian-era structural design.

05/07/2026

"Smile, Sweetheart" -
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCheekyShedonist?search_query=Smile

DESIGN INSPIRATION
"Portrait of an Indian Lady (also called the Bibi of John Wombwell)" was painted by Arthur William Devis about 1786 in Lucknow, India. The sitter for this portrait was either the mistress or wife of the British East India Company's Mr. Wombwell, as cited in its descriptive title. While her given name is not so clearly recorded as his (sigh), her sumptuous clothing and jewelry and relaxed pose indicate that she was likely a high-ranking (and possibly even royal) woman from northern India.

Born into an artistic English family, Arthur William Devis (1762–1822) was best known for his historical scenes, the most prominent of which was his depiction of General Horatio Nelson's death. It was created using sketches Devis made during his circumstantial presence at the autopsy of the brilliant British vice admiral aboard the HMS Victory just following the Battle of Trafalgar. In later life Devis was well regarded for portraits and pastoral scenes created during his time working and traveling through India, of which the painting featured in this design is one example.

05/06/2026

These feisty and beautiful journals focusing on women in art history make great gifts for all the unruly women out there!

05/05/2026

"Delusions of Adequacy" -
https://thecheekyshedonist.etsy.com/listing/4492557263

DESIGN INSPIRATION
I enjoy merging modern, sarcastic, facetious and/or sardonic content with art and historical elements to celebrate unruly women – playfully but intentionally upending the historically male gaze-centered preference for meek, subservient (and ideally, silent) models of demurity.

It's therefore sadly unsurprising that many archival images and paintings featuring Black women in the sixteenth through nineteenth-century Europe (locations and times I often find feminist inspiration in), depict them as slaves, sexualized nudes, or bare-breasted ethnographic curiosities. Images such as this one represent a demographic largely uncelebrated in the so-called fashionable salons of the period. Luckily for future generations, ongoing archival scholarship and women's history research is helping to slowly reintroduce these singular women's voices to the evolving narratives of history.

The 1891 photo featured in this design is of equestrian performer, Selika Lazevski. She was a horsewoman who rode haute école—the most impressive and prestigious style for a female performer—at the fashionable Nouveau Cirque on the rue Saint-Honoré. Little else is known about this commandingly enigmatic woman beyond the six extant photographs of her (including this one), taken at the Parisian studio of photographer Paul Nadar. The studio was known for its cartes de visite (cabinet cards) of local Parisian celebrities. The image is layered over a customized background incorporating Victorian-era structural design.

05/04/2026

05/04/2026

Lots of new BIWOC designs dropping this spring! Here's the first: "Smudge the Planet"... Links in captions.

DESIGN INSPIRATION
I enjoy merging modern, sarcastic, facetious and/or sardonic content with art and historical elements to celebrate unruly women – playfully but intentionally upending the historically male gaze-centered preference for meek, subservient (and ideally, silent) models of demurity.

It's therefore sadly unsurprising that many archival images and paintings featuring non-European women in the sixteenth through nineteenth-century Europe (locations and times I often find feminist inspiration in), depict them as slaves, sexualized nudes, or bare-breasted ethnographic curiosities. Images such as the one featured in this design represent a demographic largely uncelebrated in the so-called fashionable salons of the period. Luckily for future generations, ongoing archival scholarship and women's history research is helping to slowly reintroduce these singular women's voices to the evolving narratives of history.

This design features a daguerreotype-style image of a Lakota Sioux woman. I've added a custom tinted detail of a hide painting with its distinctly Lakota design known as the Black War Bonnet. The Lakota Sioux, also known as Teton Sioux, are an Indigenous American nation historically based in the Great Plains, particularly South Dakota. The Lakota people were nomadic, following the buffalo herds across the plains. They were known as master horsemen and fierce warriors, rebuffing the colonization efforts of European settlers and later, fighting against the American government's eradication of indigenous tribal lands and culture.

Lakota traditions hold a deep spiritual belief in Wakan Tanka (the Great Mystery), and that all natural entities—animals, rocks, rivers, trees—possess a spirit. The Lakota use sage, known as the sacred plant, Pejí Hóta (gray grass), for spiritual, medicinal, and ceremonial purposes for purification, protection, and healing.

04/10/2026

Good introductory article about pioneering abstract and surrealist artist, Hilma af Klint, one of the many underestimated female artists featured in my shop.

https://share.google/rXjfJHcsWx7Pbk27l

Klint's "Altarpiece, Group X, No. 1" graces this reinforced phone case for iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S models:

https://thecheekyshedonist.etsy.com/listing/1697780914

Swedish artist, now regarded as predecessor to Kandinsky and Mondrian, died thinking world was not ready for her work

03/17/2026

Scorpionfish phone case

https://thecheekyshedonist.etsy.com/listing/1711980969