International Women's Day

 8 March is International Women's Day - first celebrated in 1911, the Day seeks to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It also marks a call to action to accelerate gender equality.

As we sit and watch a world, led mostly by middle-aged or old white men, take us to war in so many places, wreak havoc, and cause death, despair and destruction I wonder to myself - wouldn't women do it better? And I am mostly certainly sure that they would.

But here we are. 

In small ways we do what we can to promote women; to uphold and support women, and to cheer women on. To have their backs, to bolster and boost them and to promote their excellence. Go girls!!!

I make work about women, and I make work about women friends. I hope to do a much larger body of work about women friends mid year; but for today, I am sharing my feminist poster works and postcards.

I have loaded them into the online shop and for the next week, all women's work is 10% off.

A sample of them along with two of my Fragile Gains series.

One of my favourite A4 posters...

This one speaks to me so much of all that is held within the Epstein files - such depravity and abuse of power.

We are so tired of it all - we have had enough.

Women still struggle to be heard when they are talked over or mansplained to.

This should be the starting point in any claim of sexual assault. So awful that so many women have testified to assaults in the Epstein files, and still...no justice for them yet.

We are all so much more than this; and women are worthy of respect, empathy, and understanding even if they aren't your daughter.

A catch cry for women everywhere to keep on protesting, to keep on resisting, to keep on writing and calling their political representatives...

There is only one set of these seven postcards left...

And these fragile eggshells, speak so eloquently of the gains we have made, which we must protect. 

Trial and error it seems

 I wish that every time I posted there was something wonderful to share - some achievement, completion or brilliance. But of course that is not life.

Instead the blog is receptacle for, and record of, my thinking, my working, my testing and my process, and this is a classic example.

I am trying to sew a small linen pouch.

I decided I wanted to draw some threads on the front of it; and spent quite a while happily tugging and drawing and creating random 'stripes'. So far on track.

The sewing machine played up a bit as I sewed the seams - partly because the needle occasionally landed in one or more of these gaps and got a bit caught up and messy. I also decided that I wanted these seams to be really neat; so I was doing French seams which made me feel quite flash.

And then I got to the turnover and the channel for the drawstring, and I came seriously undone.

It intrigues me how hard it is for me to see far enough ahead with sewing to know what is needed and how to achieve the outcome I want. Being a bit kinder to myself, this tricky problem solving may have just been a bit too much for this overloaded brain right now.

I had elected a bunch of possible drawstrings, and assembled a bunch of drawstring pouches to see how to get what I wanted. I watched YouTube videos about sewing drawstring pouches, and still I couldn't sort it in my brain.

I sat and stared at it a lot.

The top bag is what I was trying to do; the bottom grey bag is what I managed.  I was trying to get that gap in the vertical seam as part of the drawstring channel. What I ended up with was a gap in the horizontal turnover sewing.

I thought I could work it out when I got there, but it appears I can't, so it will be back to the drawing board for me.

It may be trickier because I was doing French seams, and maybe the seam in the turnover needs to NOT be a French seam, just a plain, ironed flat seam. But I remain a bit bewildered and will let it sit and percolate for a bit and return soon with fresh eyes.

So apart the abject failure of this project to date; there is this. Our gardenias are in full magnificent bloom and these buds found their way into our rusty nest with blue glazed ceramic eggs and all is well once more.

And we had breakfast with a friend at the cafe this morning - the mountains are still there and I love them in their soft and moody greys...

Fragile Gains - complete

 The weekend has seen me finish my final piece for Vessel - the exhibition being held at the Old Ambo Gallery in Nambour in September.

I have absolutely loved the process and the wanderings that have taken place as I thought about these works and have tried to find responses to the theme that were me.

So Fragile Gains II is now packed and ready to be delivered.

Here is a glimpse of the what I hope will be the final presentation.

Fragile Gains II extends earlier work which examined gains made by women which I consider to be fragile: choices, feminism, education, leadership, equality, safety and liberation. 

 

Eggs are vessels emblematic of both vulnerability and protection; their role is to both protect and nurture. Laws, gains and progress also need to be protected and nurtured. We can never become complacent that the work is done. The work needs to keep being done.

 

The work is shown on a triangular bandage that has been cropped and placed over a perspex plinth. The bandage is gently gathered in places to allow the eggshells to nestle within it.  At the front, the title of the work appears in vintage white letraset.

The billowing softness of the fabric echoes nests and their fragility.

From above, and before I scattered some of the broken eggshells.

The focus of the work at the moment is the fragility of choices. The ability for women to choose who they have sex with; how they present themselves; whether or not they choose to use contraception; whether or not they can maintain a pregnancy... so many of these choices are under fire, under question and up for debate it seems. 

Any gains we have made seem to need to be fought for all over again.

But they all still seem so very fragile to me.

MEDIUM

Eggshells, paint, PVA, ink, vintage Letraset, bandage.

 

DIMENSIONS

40cm (l) x 40cm (w) x 8cm(h)

Fragile Gains again

 I am preparing work for the exhibition 'Vessel' to be held at the Old Ambo Gallery in Nambour in September and have two out of three works completed - the other is taking the time it takes.

There is also a bit of a shop at the exhibition - where artists can sell small items linked to the exhibition theme and/or their work.

My main Fragile Gains eggshell piece is pretty much there and I am just photographing and documenting it; but along the way I also thought to make some small pieces for the shop.

As you probably know from previous posts; this work is all about the gains women have made, that I think are very fragile including: choices, safety, education, feminism, equality, leadership and liberation. 

I spent most of Friday making the boxes by hand, having previously prepared the eggshells with their many layers.

And then it was down to getting the Letraset onto and inside them.

Each letter cut out of the sheet by hand and placed gingerly with tweezers and other tools; then held down delicately and firmly, yet gently, rubbed off. I hold my breath.

But I am very happy with how they worked out.

I look forward to having them in the shop at Nambour, but if you might be interested in having one now, please let me know and we can chat. 

Fragile Gains - still very fragile

Over the weekend we learned that the Supreme Court of the US had overturned the Roe v Wade decision. I was despairing and enraged. The consequences of this decision for so many women, in so many ways - it is not just about abortion - are immense. The surveilling of women's bodies and lives and decisions and choices is unconscionable. I wept silent tears, and felt heart-sick once more, for women and this world.

For the past few months I have been re-working my Fragile Gains work from 2014-2015, this time exploring it with the fragility of eggshells.

I started out with colour, and pondered how they should stand. I had originally been playing with words about eggs; but then it became clear that the fragility was once again, about women's rights and gains. 

And how sad I was when I realised just how relevant this one still was.

 So today, I completed the set of seven fragile gains. I am yet to finalise how they will be fully presented, but they will be teetering. As are we all.

And by the end of today I was playing with the notion of individual ones, in a wee box...

It is so hard to work out what the next steps can possibly be; but solidarity, protest and persisting will surely be at the heart of it.

Fragility

 I have been enjoying the beginning of the year and the chance I feel it gives me to play and explore.  Having gotten several commitments out the way; it now feels as if the next commitment is a fair way away so let's play!

For some reason I began to think about nests and eggs and birds and feathers again (I do circle back to them a fair bit).

Which made me think about the words I had written about eggs several years ago...which then made me wonder if I could add words to eggshells; which then made me wonder if I could add Letraset to eggshells and...

Luckily dinner required 4 eggs and a cake required 2, so they were used, then the shells rinsed and cleaned and left to dry.

I thought about how to colour the insides, and played around with some vivid alcohol-based inks.  

The way the alcohol-based gold splits and creates a whole galaxy was particularly pleasing.

Even using white and gold was lovely.

And then I started to try and add letters.

Inside and out.

The words I had written about eggs were:

ovoid solitude

vulnerable protection

time of slow waiting

I think I might be on to something.  The bright colours are beautiful and jewel-like in their own right; but perhaps they were not quite what I was thinking about to go with the words.

So I grabbed a couple of bottles of calligraphy ink and had another play. These colours are much more knocked back.

And once again could not resist the drop of alcohol-based gold in the bottom!

So...the play continues.

I am fairly sure this notion will sound counterintuitive and also polar opposite to what it could be; but I did begin to ponder whether I should try to pop into the schedule 1/2 day play each week?  Wondering what that might look like? Would it keep me committed to the notion of play? Would it feel so forced that it might not work?

It seems to me to be worth a try as I try to bring more play and experimentation into my daily arts life. I am aware that trying to build habits takes persistence and I value play more than I actually do it so...if I commit to some time doing it I wonder if I will?