Shapes in the Mirror

I am working on a new set of tapestries about Body Dysmorphia. I have suffered from BDD since I was a teenager.  Part of the mental problem is that you worry about how your body appears to others but in reality, you are judging yourself in a way that others never see.

It occurred to me that if I could look in the mirror and see my body as just geometric shapes maybe it wouldn’t bother me as much.  And as we age those shapes get longer or wider but they are still recognizable as our own body.

This series of three tapestries is the progression of my body shapes with the hope that other sufferers might see their body as just shapes in the mirror.

DESIGN FOR SHAPES IN THE MIRROR TAPESTRY TRIPTYCH

Equestrian Fall

I took a commission to create a tapestry to hang at the entrance of a log cabin on a horse farm in Kentucky. The cabin will be a vacation rental for the family. I was enspired by the rectangular shapes of the cabin and the fencing of the horse farm. The owner wanted a warm fall palette for the piece. I used a lot of different wool yarns. Some handspun, some naturally dyed, some with texture. Then I added texture by using different weaving techniques. Here it is in situ.

The Arts Port Royal

I haven’t written in so long that I have made another move since my last post. I am now at The Arts Port Royal with my own studio. I love the location right in the middle of old Port Royal. I have a big window and two other artists with whom I can commune.

Holy City 2040 Finished!

I just completed my latest tapestry entitled “Holy City 2040” It’s 36” x 30”, wool warp and cotton weft. It took me 5 months of not working on it to complete. Sooooo, much going on in my life keeping from my passion for weaving.

HC 2040 is about the rising seas and our coastal cities being endangered because of flooding. I live on the east coast, Beaufort, so I experience the increased flooding myself. Experts believe that these cities, like Miami, New York and Charleston (the Holy City) will be flooded 180 days per year by 2040. That is so soon it’s scary.

MOVING!

I am moving back to my home studio for a bit. Since I purchased the Gobelin High Loom, I now don’t have room for my Schacht 45”, 8 shaft, double back beam cherry high castle loom. I am selling it for $3000 OBE. My husband and I can deliver within 200 miles of Beaufort. Here are pictures.

Virtual Exhibit - Women's Equity Tapestry Series

Since many of my followers cannot attend my exhibit in person, I’ve attached each of the tapestry photos and my artist statements with each.

“Enduring Change” Handwoven Tapestry, 15” x 12”. I continue to be amazed at how many people recognize and love Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I began weaving this tapestry after her death in 2020 as I was isolating on my boat in Florida, and it was a labor of love for myself as well. I used her famous Justice photo wearing her dissent collar and stayed as true to it as I could. I just love that she is wearing the bright green earrings in the photo, for me they represent her elegance. I used grey scale in this tapestry instead of color to represent that justice is not black and white, it is many shades of grey.

I named this piece “Enduring Change” after my favorite of her many famous quotes, “Real change, enduring change happens one step at a time”. I wove her image not only as a tribute to all she did for women, but also as a reminder that we have to continue working for enduring change to improve the lives of women and girls.

“It’s My Body”, Handwoven Tapestry, 19” x 26”. The subject of this piece, Women’s Health, is one of the hardest of all to represent with a tapestry. I didn’t want ot make it all about abortion and I didn’t want to back off too much either. What I tried to capture is how archaic it is that laws written by mostly men are still determining what we can do with our bodies. The issues are many: ability to procure contraceptives, menopause, violence against women, female genital mutilation, higher rate of dementia and abortion.

That is why I chose to use as my model for this tapestry a painting by Titian, “Danae”, painted in the 1560’s. The use of birth control and abortion has a long history, as well as a long history of being contentious. The idea that pregnancies can be prevented or stopped has raised ethical and moral issues, and, like today in the Middle Ages you will find many opinions about what should or shouldn’t be done.

The recent decision by the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade has made me very sad. I believe we should trust women and their doctors to make the right decision for themselves.

Pregnancy and childbirth still carry health risks to the mother. High blood pressure and preeclampsia, diabetes and hperemesis gravidarum are not uncommon during pregnancy. And maternal mortality is still a risk in the U.S. especially in many southern states, including South Carolina a, where the death rate is higher than the national average.

The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the arty shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.?

It is my opinion that forcing a woman to carry a child for nine months and labor through its birth against her will is the very definition of involuntary servitude and should be against the thirteenth amendment.

“With sorrow - for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection - we dissent,” Justices Breyer, Sotomayer and Kagan on the reversal of Roe v. Wade, June 24, 2022

“Peaceful Protest”, Handwoven Tapestry, 15” x 17”. I attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. on January 21, 2017, as my first ever march. I was able to march with my three daughters-in-law and their mothers. I used a photograph that I captured as the basis of my tapestry design. I wanted the tapestry to have the feeling of coldness and oppression at the top where downtown D.D. is and the warmth and color for hope at the bottom represented by all the hats, including the famous “pussy “ hat.

The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017 the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president. It was prompted by several of Trump’s statements being considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive to women. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.

The Washington March drew over 470,000 people. Between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people participated in the marches in the U.S., approximately 1.0 to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population. Worldwide participation has been estimated at over seven million. At least 408 marches were reported to have been planned in the U.S. and 168 in 81 other countries. After the marches, organizers reported that around 673 marches took place worldwide, on all seven continents, 29 in Canada, 20 in Mexico and 1 in Antarctica. The crowds were peaceful: no arrests were made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City or Seattle, where a combined total of about two million people marched.

“Get Over ‘Em”, Handwoven Tapestry, 15” x 15”. This tapestry is representative of my experience of sexual harassment. It is a serious subject, and I don’t mean to make light of it with this piece. My experiences are very mild compared to some. I mainly experienced it as a hostile environment with certain individual managers and not a pervasive culture.

From the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.

It’s very difficult to determine how common sexual harassment really is but the recent #MeToo movement has brought it out in the open for discussion. Perhaps future studies will tell us more about the frequency and types, so that we can understand it better and work to remove sexual harassment from the workplace.

“STEM Strong”, Hanwoven Tapestry, 18.5” x 17.5”. As a retired aerospace engineer, I wanted my first tapestry in the series to be Rosie the Riveter to represent women in STEM careers. STEM industries have the lowest gender pay gap and often outstanding benefits and salary. Yet women are still wildly underrepresented. Statistics show that in the U.S. less than 30% of working engineers and computer systems designers are women.

While women during World War II worked in a variety of positions previously closed to them, the aviation industry saw the greatest increase in female workers. More than 310, 000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, making up 675% of the industry’s total workforce (compared to just 1 percent in the pre-war years). The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as illustrated by the U.S. government’s Rosie the Riveter propaganda campaign.

Though women who entered the workforce during World War II were crucial to the war effort, their pay continued to lag far behind their male counterparts: Female workers rarely earned more than 50% of male wages.

“Sojourner Truth”, Handwoven Tapestry, 15” X 12”. The U.S. movement for women’s suffrage started in the early 19th century during the campaign against slavery. Women, such as Lucretia Mott, showed a keen interest in the antislavery movement and proved to be admirable public speakers. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton joined the antislavery forces, she and Mott agreed that the rights of women as well as those of enslaved persons needed to be addressed.

Sojourner Truth, born Isabella Baumfree in 1797, wan an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

I chose to weave Sojourner because there were many strong African American women in the suffrage movement, but few are remembered.

She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside “testifying the hope that was in her.” Her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title “Ain’t I a Woman?” During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army, after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for formerly enslave d people (summarized as the promise of “forty acres and a mule”). She continued to fight on behalf of women and African Americans until her death.

After rejecting ratification of the 19th Amendment (“Women’s Suffrage) in January of 1920, the SC legislature finally ratified on July 1, 1969, nearly 50 years later. BUT, the ratification was not officially “certified” until August of 1973.

“Women Work”, Handwoven Tapestry, 14” x 20”. This tapestry is entitled “women Work” because the equity issue is about work and being paid equally. The gender pay gap is REAL. Women are still paid roughly 80 cents for every $1 a man receives for the same work. And that’s the average, it’s much worse for African American and Hispanic women.

My tapestry uses a Leonardo DaVinci sketch of a woman’s hands as the basis. I’ve added the indigo blue yarn between her fingers because I want to depict her working. She is warping a loom, which is something that women did in Leonardo’s day as well as today. It represents the lack of progress in the pay gap. It has taken 25 years for us to make 8 cents worth of progress. At that rate it will be in the 2080’s before we make the same wage for the same work. I don’t know about you but that is TOO LONG!

But fixing the problem isn’t easy. We could keep men from getting raises while women increase their pay, or we could lay off a few men so women can get their raises. Neither of those ideas seem appealing. How about shareholders take less of a payout so management can give women bigger raises than their male counterparts? That will never happen. I think our big name Business Schools need to make this their number one priority to solve!

“ERA NOW”, Handwoven Tapestry, 17” diam. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is 24 words: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

The ERA is about equality in Constitutional law or “strict scrutiny”. 94% of adults believe in equal rights. 80% of Americans think the Constitution guarantees them. It does not.

In 1923, a young suffragist by the name of Alice Paul proposed the Equal Rights Amendment. While the 19th amendment had been ratified just three years earlier, she realized “the vote” just wasn’t enough. It did not give women “equal justice under law”. The ERA was written to do just that.

The ERA has been proposed into every Federal legislative session since, and in 1940, the Republican party became the first major political party to include it in their election platform. But it wasn’t until 1972 that Congress finally passed it (by over 90%) and sent it to the states for ratification. The vote of 3/4ths of state legislatures (38) is required to make an amendment into law.

Within the first five years, 35 state legislatures ratified. But by then a strong and well organized opposition took hold, and even though the 7-year deadline was extended to 10 years, on June 30, 1982 - when extension expired - the ERA fell three states short of ratification. South Carolina was one of the states that voted against ratifying.

Why should states ratify? There are many reasons. Ratification of the ERA is supported by the American Bar Association as a dimension of equality that is “a fundamental tenet of our society”.

Women's Equity Tapestry Series - July

I am having an exhibit at my gallery for the month of July of my eight Women’s Equity tapestries. I am really excited to see all of my women’s tapestries in the gallery. All are welcome to attend. My reception is Friday, July 1 from 5:00 - 8:00.

"KINGSTON CREW TRIBUTE"

I recently completed a tapestry that I worked on during a Weave Along class with Kathe Todd-Hooker. The tapestry is the first of my new series about the environment. It is inspired by a tragedy for which I have a personal connection.

In 2008 the Kingston Fossil Fuel Plant in Kingston, TN had an accident that spilled over 1 billion gallons of fly ash, the nasty by product of coal burning, into the Clinch and Emory rivers. I owned a lot on the Emory river upstream of the plant. The spill was bad for homes on the water and killed wildlife in the area. We were told not to swim or boat in the rivers until after the clean up. The crews started the cleanup but had to halt within a year.

The company doing the cleanup tried to move the fly ash to Alabama, but Alabama tested it and found two times the allowable radiation levels. They investigated and found barrels of Cesium 137 (Cs) in the river. They had been deposited as output from the Oak Ridge Nuclear Plant nearby. Because of the Cesium, 40 crew members died and over 250 others were made very ill.

In my tapestry the red columns are the smoke towers of the Kingston Plant skyline. The green things are the dead fish and wildlife from the rivers. And the grey tones represent the fly ash.

“KINGSTON CREW TRIBUTE”, handwoven tapestry in wool on cotton

"IT'S MY BODY"

I have nearly completed my Women’s Health tapestry which is the seventh in my series. I am naming it “It’s My Body”. It was fun to see the doctor come alive. I used double warp pick and pick in the gavel. Soon my Ruth Bader Ginsburg tapestry will return and I’ll be working on my Women’s Equity show for July. Here’s a view of the almost finished tapestry.

“IT’S MY BODY’, Handwoven tapestry wool and cotton

Women's Health Tapestry

I am working on the seventh tapestry in my Women’s Equity series. I used to say it was the last in the series, but I don’t know if this series will ever be complete. The subject, Women’s Health, is one of the hardest of all to represent with a tapestry. I didn’t want to make it all about abortion and I didn’t want to back off too much either. What I tried to capture is how archaic it is that laws written by mostly men are still determining what we can do with our bodies. That is why I chose to make my model for this tapestry a painting by Titian done in the 16th century. In fact, there was a “don’t ask - don’t tell” policy about abortion in the 16th century. I fear that soon we will be worse off than Titian’s model was with her choices.

NEWEST LANDSCAPE TAPESTRY

I am getting close to finishing my latest landscape tapestry. It will be the largest tapestry I’ve completed so far at 12” x 18”. I am not going to frame this one as it is large enough to hang on it’s own. It will be my first time to line the back of a tapestry and prepare it for hanging.

I really enjoyed making the water and waves with this one. I used a lot of eccentric weft but managed to keep the selvedges straight. My hope is that it doesn’t curl up on me when I take it off tension! I’ve included a photo here of my inspiration. I took the picture in San Francisco during the America’s Cup in 2013 right before I retired. I know this wasn’t one of the competition boats but it still makes me think of racing.

San Francisco 2013

STARBOARD TACK

Women Work

I just finished my latest tapestry from my Women’s Equity Series. That means it’s time to start coming up with a title for the work. I am thinking of calling it “Women Work” (not Women’s Work), because the equity issue is about work and being paid equally. The gender pay gap is REAL thing. Women are still paid roughly 80 cents for every $1 a man receives for the same work. And that’s the average, it’s much worse for African American and Hispanic women.

My tapestry uses a Leonardo sketch of a woman’s hands as the basis. I’ve added the indigo blue yarn between her fingers because I want to depict her working. She is warping a loom but this is something that women did in Leonardo’s day as well as today. It represents the lack of progress in the pay gap. It has taken 25 years for us to make 8 cents worth of progress. At that rate it will be in the 2080’s before we make the same wage for the same work. I don’t know about you but that is TOO LONG!

But fixing the problem isn’t easy. We could keep men from getting raises while women increase their pay, or we could lay off a few men so women can get their raises. Neither of those ideas seem appealing. How about shareholders take less of a payout, so management can give women bigger raises than their counterpart men? That will never happen. I think our big name Business Schools need to make this their number one priority to solve and make it happen now!

WOMEN WORK

Artist’s Statements

An artist statement is an artist’s written description of their work. This brief text is in support of their artwork to give the viewer an understanding and to connect with the context of the piece. Most juried exhibitions request an artist statement when you submit your work. As my piece on Rosie the Riveter was my first piece in my “Women’s Equity” series, it is also the first Artist Statement I am posting on my blog. I have entered it in the Artist Collective of Spartanburg, SC juried exhibition. I’ll be notified about whether it has been accepted August 21. Here’s hoping!

ARTIST STATEMENT FOR “STEM STRONG”

I have begun working on a series of tapestries focused on gender equity and women’s rights. I discovered weaving tapestry, rather than cloth, better expresses my emotions about the inequalities for women around the world. I have seen these inequities myself in the workplace and have many stories from friends as well. 

As a retired aerospace engineer, I wanted my first tapestry in the series to be Rosie the Riveter to represent women in STEM careers. STEM industries have the lowest gender pay gap and often outstanding benefits and salary. Yet women are still wildly underrepresented. Statistics show that in the US less than 20% of working engineers are women. 

STEM STRONG

Busy Weaving and Dyeing

I’ve been totally busy lately weaving and dyeing. I am half way through weaving a landscape that will be 24” x 12”. Then I started another Women’s Equity tapestry to represent the Gender Pay Gap Issue that I call Women’s Work. It is based upon a sketch of a woman’s hands by Da Vinci. And my final weaving project is a postcard tapestry that I’m weaving for the American Tapestry Association Postcard Exchange. Photos of all to follow.

Believe it or not, I’ve found time to take a class on Heat Press Dyeing from Jane Dunewold. I bought a 20” x 16” platten Heat Press and I’m learning what it can do for my Botanical Printing process. It can do a single press in 4 minutes instead of the usual 1 - 2 hours in a steamer. The results have been good. I am making hand stitched, naturally dyed, leather bound journals with this process. They will also be for sale in my studio, but I’ve already started writing in one of them myself.

Notecards for Sale

I decided to make notecards of my tapestry pieces and sell them in packs of five. I have put together five of my Women’s Equity works and five of my Landscape tapestries. They are selling very well at my studio, had to do something to pay the rent while waiting for my tapestry to be discovered.

ENDURING CHANGE TAPESTRY HONORS

My tapestry “Enduring Change” has been given two honors. I entered her in the Palmetto Hands Exhibit in North Charleston and won an Honorable Mention shown in the photo below. Then RBG was accepted in the Handweavers Guild of America “Small Expressions 2021 Exhibit”. It will tour the United States along with 35 other fiber art pieces. Tour dates are:

June 30 - Aug 22, 2021 - Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, WA

Sept. 1 - Sept. 30, 2021 - HeART Gallery in Toledo, OH

Oct. 15 - Dec. 16, 2021 - Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN

Jan. 28 - April 7, 2022 - Gallery at 48 Natoma in Folsom, CA

May 2 - June 9, 2022 - Thousand Islands Arts Center in Clayton, NY

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Tapestry Completed

I finished weaving my RBG tapestry earlier this month, but as usual I’ve been so busy I forgot to post it. I added the beaded jabot that I created by stringing beads onto beading thread in a net pattern and then sewing it to the tapestry. She’s framed and on display in my studio in Beaufort. I named it Enduring Change as one of her famous quotes is, “Real change, enduring change happens one step at a time.” I wove her image not only as a tribute to all she did for women, but also as a reminder that we have to continue working for enduring change to improve the lives of women and girls.

I’ve entered the tapestry in three different exhibitions and I hope to have it accepted in one or more. In the meantime, I’m still weaving.

Weaving on the Dream Weaver

Ten years ago when we bought our first bought, it was our dream to spend nights and eventually months living on our boat and exploring new places. My husband came up with the boat name, Dream Weaver. Today we are once again spending the winter living on our boat in Florida. I have set up my loom in the cockpit when the weather is nice and in the dinette when it isn’t. It’s so much fun to weave outside and talk to my fellow boaters in the marina and bird watch. Tons of birds come to visit us.

Inauguration and Ruth

Today I feel a great sense of relief that the four years are over and the Inauguration occurred as it always has in peace. I watched the broadcast of the celebration while I was weaving Ruth. I didn’t plan it this way, but I’m very happy that I finished Ruth’s image today while watching Joe Biden become president. It somehow seemed fitting.

I did some crazy grey hair streaks using pick and pick and eccentric weaving. I used soumac for her glasses so they would really pop out. I wanted to show her style and elegance by using silk handspun green yarns for her earrings.

Obviously she is missing her famous beaded jabot. I initially looked at weaving the necklace but I thought it would be much better to give the tapestry more texture by adding the necklace over her robe. So I learned how to make a beaded net necklace with very tiny pearl and crystal beads. I will stitch the necklace over her robe after I finish the tapestry..

RUTH BADER GINSBURG - 1933 - 2020

I was so upset when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this year. This has been such a difficult year for everyone in so many ways and we needed Ruth more than every. She will be the second of my powerful women series. This time not chronological but timing is everything. I chose her iconic photograph in her SCJ robes with her “dissent” necklace as my image. But I realized from the beginning that I couldn’t weaver her necklace and do it justice (pun intended) I decided to weave her black robe and then crochet the neclace and stitch it carefully on top of the tapestry. I am going to do it in greyscale again, this is becoming one of my favorite things to do. BUT I’m going to weave her green earrings in color. I just love the idea of those big green circles popping out of the tapestry. She’s going to have some bling!