Cover her Head, Part two, 2016 -17

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I think as well as exploring the metaphorical armour that women might need in a patriarchal society I am beginning to think more deeply into female vulnerability; I don’t want to present a female version of machismo. Is vulnerability a positive ……to be valued
So I blagged some zinc off cuts from a kind colleague and started making a corset….as armour. thinking about the need to comply to fashion, possibly more a female wish than male currently, but by achieving the hour glass figure approved of as sexually alluring it emphasises the female role. I am experimenting with binding it on in various ways and also re-learned to drill holes so I can link the parts.

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I have had some comments as to whether I, as an atheist anglo saxon, [possibly of viking genes as I have that blood group] should be nailing a muslim veil on a naked female figure. Is this reference to covering her face a step too far re others sensitivities.
Would I be “criticising” someone else’s cultural practices. I am believe it is a cultural rather than a religious practice for Muslim women to be head covered/veiled.
I had considered this previously as the figure that started out as Mre Darth Vader somehow gained a charcoal sketched veil along with her helmet. I was thinking of armour and drifting towards the clothes that women wear, for what purpose and how I can express the cultural pressures on all women.
Answers wide and various.
I can remember women having to cover their heads in church in my youth. Orthodox Jewish practice still requires women to wear wigs to cover their own hair.
I had been given an authentic Egyptian veil in the past, and when I thought to add it, the idea of nailing it on was illuminating to me.
It suggests pressure on females to conform, which men do not experience to the same intensity, but also at the same time, choice as some Muslim women prefer to be veiled and have to fight for the choice to wear a burka, in France for instance. Political police beat muslim women who do not cover their heads in public in Middle Eastern countries.
So on reflection I think this piece is thoughtful and valid, an enquiry into the controls that women have to cope with, and may fight against when they feel they might have been internalised…….it is part of the human condition to reflect on what and why we do what we do. Art can explore this in visual form to be interpreted by the viewer on whatever level appeals.

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I am now in my last part time year of a Fine Arts degree. Last year I wrote the dissertation, for which I got a First! which was such a reward for sweating blood, but also made a mark for my nineteenth century women who used stitched words, so many words, to express themselves, in a medium which the rest of the “world of patriarchy” would not notice, as it was women’s’ work, domestic, craft!.
Thankyou Lorina Bulwer, Elizabeth Parker and Agnes Richter for all you achieved, for your stubborn need to be seen/heard and to Tracey Emin for insisting on the same, via her stitched text blankets.
To gain control.
I feel the same need to make my mark, not to sell for money, not to perfect my craft, just to make a mark. Gather together the molecules of space and time and connect them, stitch them down.
The pieces fill my mind, gather together all the frantic panic and direct me to make piece that speaks for itself, but also for me.
The painting of Mrs Darth Raider has come off the wall and been stitched into 3D. She is still unsteady on her feet but she has solidity, she exists.
She is soft but defies being dismissed.
With help from another Student I have been bashing metal to use a fabric [zinc roofing! beggars can’t be choosers] that has more resilience, but can still be bashed into shape like the corset I hope it will refer to. The unyielding shaper, the pressure for women to maintain the required shape, in body, mind and acquiescence.