Studio Kit

This piece is a response to the ongoing efforts by the state to legislate women’s bodies.

As I read about the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, forced trans-vaginal examinations for women seeking certain services (including rape victims who wish to terminate a resulting pregnancy); employers being given the power to decide whether or not a woman should use birth control, Sandra Fluke being called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh for daring to claim her sexuality, and Lisa Brown's speaking privileges revoked for using the word "vagina"; this image formed in my head of a man, standing on a heaped pile of naked women’s bodies, with a big ol' flag, saying "I claim this land in the name of..."

I thought about the names that women are called that infantilize us, demean us, shame us; words that cast women as unequal, inhuman or inanimate; words that reduce women to their sex, sexuality, or sex organs; and how these words are reinforced not only by socialization, the media and pop culture, but by the institutionalized enforcement of gender stereotypes.

I thought about how that legislation (current and under review), is being used to claim and commodify women’s bodies as “talking points” in politicians’ public debates; making our most private parts public, yet denying us the right to attempt re-claim them by dignifying them with their proper names.

I chose a “pin-up girl” to represent this commodified woman, crucified on their political platforms; and I stitched on her body the names of the two women who have most recently been egregiously, publicly reduced in the defence of women’s bodies and their right to have autonomy over them; along with some of the words used to describe us, that are impressed upon us like markings, like tattoos…

…all words that are Written On The Body.

Saved this post for hump day...

I started with my usual (for the Whitewashed series, anyway) background of "bricks".

I explained what the bricks meant quite some time ago - but for those of you who missed it, (I noticed my followers rate fluctuates up and down a lot!) - the bricks form a wall - each individual brick is metaphorically composed of the things that make the wall with respect to whatever each piece's topic is.

The fabrics I use for those bricks has meaning - the first two pieces were red, white and blue - or at least were meant to read that way - to represent the "America Now" component of the two pieces.

In this case, all of these floral fabrics and pastel "girly" colour have multi-layered meanings - foremost among them, gender stereotypes.

And the whitewashing - done with a thinned out version of Golden Acrylic's Titanium White I(after a first layer of gesso) - is meant to represent the ways that we all conspire to ignore what's going on in front of us, either out of apathy, or hope that "someone else" will take care of the problem.

Finished piece on Friday - fair warning - it may push some buttons; but either way, I'm looking forward to seeing what your reactions will be!

My next piece in the Whitewashed series is about what's happening in the US right now with respect to the legislation of womens' bodies. It came about because The International Quilt Challenge's theme was "land/marks".

Because of the reading I had been doing with respect to the de-funding of Planned Parenthood; forced trans-vaginal examinations for women seeking certain services (including rape victims who wish to terminate a resulting pregnancy); employers being given the power to decide whether or not a woman should use birth control, Lisa Brown's speaking privileges revoked for using the word "vagina", and on and on...

So, as soon as I saw the challenge, I had this image in my head of a man, standing on a pile of women's naked bodies, with a big ol' flag, saying "I claim this land in the name of..."

I wasn't going to do that exact image, but it's what inspired the piece as a whole.

I knew that I needed a woman's body to represent all women - a woman who was the embodiment of iconic female sexuality- curvy, lush, sexually available.

I started out with my lutradur background, and picked the above three colours for her initial skin colour.

Having learned from my mistakes I knew I needed to build up the colour, so once her base colour was dry, I added water and more red and yellow ochre to make washes to give her skin a lovely multi-toned effect.

For part of the background, I also needed brown fabric in a certain colourway - and not having it in my stash, I turned to my needle felter and roving in the above shades - and laid 'em all out on an old chocolate brown pillowcase piece.

It looked like this before the actual needle felting, pinned and ready to go - you'll also note that I pulled some bits of thread out of my thread catcher to add to the mix. I hadn't done it before but assumed it would work out!

When it was felted, it looked like this - so I pulled some threads to stitch it all down.

And when I was done that it looked like this! I didn't do a great job taking a picture of it, but this fabric is really luscious in person - soft, rich looking, delicious (even if I do say so myself!) and and a much darker brown.

Come back on Wednesday for the next instalment in the progress - and on Friday for the big finish! See you then!

Almost forgot!!! If you live in or near Marion, IN, my piece America Now: Walking While Black, will be hanging in THE QUILTERS HALL OF FAME - for their Celebration 2012 event this weekend as part of the Fiber Artists for Hope exhibition

All done!

So when I left you last, I had pieced together my red silk and the pieces of old silk kimono and had begun to apply my leftover bits of black fused fabric.

After I'd laid them all out, fused them down and quilted the piece, I began to think that I had named it incorrectly. I mean, it was the flotsam from my "Walking While Black" attempts, and it was meeting the Japanese kimonos...

...but perhaps I should have called it "Creature Feature"!

There was something vaguely alligator-ish, something that looked a bit like an antelope...

... a fun monster-guy,

a horse, a snake, an eye (actually, there are two or three eyes in this piece)...

a werewolf-ish strongman type guy,

and of course, The Blob.

What was fun about finding these "people" is that they weren't cut on purpose - there they were, in the bits.

This piece has been very popular ever since I finished it. BSP and my boys have been arguing over who gets to have it, and a co-worker wanted to buy it (but not at the price I was selling it). And the Drunken Quilters loved it as well.

Hope you like it too!

See you on Monday with the beginnings of something new.

P.S. - Joining in with Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday. Check out what other folks have been up to!

Remember when I did a million experiments on how to make Trayon Martin's face?

Well, before Jennie told/taught me about Lutradur, I had tried cutting a pattern out of different fused black fabrics - and all of the off cuts made really interesting shapes.

I have made a habit of saving all of my fused leftover bits - they usually come in handy - but in this particular case, the shapes were so interesting, I knew that if I put them on an equally interesting background, they could be an art piece in themselves.