Cover Her Head

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Exploring the strength of women v vulnerability. I have difficulty expressing the Energy of power, I am trying to use more straight lines rather than curved Moving away from reality to express reality Francis Bacon

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Women with whom I have discussed my recent work have preferred the fat and happy pictures much more than the thin and angry, fat and threatening etc. I feel I should consider this, as I don’t want to reinforce the “victim” despairing female stereotype. But at the same time women have been culturally persuaded to expect the positive/pretty/acceptable self-image.
One of my ambitions is to express the strength of the female of the species, break out of the trap of feminisation.
I explored some of this in my dissertation. I looked at the hand stitched texts of Agnes Richter, Lorina Bulwer, Elizabeth Parker contrasted and compared to the blankets of Tracey Emin. My theme was how trauma could be the catalyst of innovative stitching, i.e. used but subverted the skills taught to women in making a sampler; largely to increase their marriageability. Perhaps noteworthy that none of these women married.
These sculptures by Xu Hongfei exhibited in Florence recently, inevitably make the viewer smile. Maybe women see them as carefree….but powerful. Matriarchal? as unthreatening, [unless one of the women sat on them], but in today’s culture the fat would be seen as unwholesome, unhealthy, self indulgent, unlike previous centuries where a well fed person was to be envied. A fat wife was a trophy to show how wealthy was her owner……life is complicated, subtlety is not my strong point but I aim for it.

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Judith Scott was an American artist [1943 – 2005). She was a deaf mute with Downs syndrome who became known for her creativity which was expressed in wrapped figures and forms.
I find her wrapped forms so expressive , tightly encased, trapped and yet bright and colourful. I envisage an army of wrapped female forms, each encased in the binds of expectations, consumerism, gender roles, all the cultural traditions that circle round and round. The expectations of feminism of the 70s reduced to pink princesses and side boobs. Low pay and temporary employment.

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Straight lines are male? curves are female…..each curve is made of straight lines….. Elizabeth Frink only made one female figure, she presumably felt she could express more with the power of her striding males. Alice Kettle’s figures are often powerful, male of female, they share the straight nose and square jaw, the uncompromising stance. They do not seem trapped by gender, they are figures of myth, not of this world. She stitches a lot on the reverse, ensures her work is not contained, trapped within the lines. My daughter bought me those colouring books for Xmas…..purportedly work done with Mindfulness. All I can think to do is chew them up and spit them out, I do not like working within the lines.

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Trying to express the quality of being trapped by culture, gender, expectations without being too literal. Wrapped figures, maybe an army of wrapped figures. Look at Egyptian mummies, wrapped in bandages. Wrapped in bandages suggests being healed, preserved, cared for but could be said to confine, trap, prevent the body moving….like swaddling clothes for a baby. To save from harm or prevent escape.