Sneek peek/also, tardy to the party

When the "memory" challenge was announced I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Ever since my mother passed away in March, I had this piece in mind.  Thirty-five years ago, I wrote a play called "The Chair By The Window", the titular chair representing the complex mix of love, loss, and betrayal that comprised my relationship with my mother.  The play won an award, and was mounted by the Sears Festival, [does the Sears Festival even exist anymore or was it a local thing?]).

Twenty years ago, I found myself writing the piece again - oddly, and against my will - from my mother's perspective in the form of an unpublished novel, also called The Chair By The Window.

After the intial weeks of shock and numbness wore off, I felt a strong need talk about my mother's and my relationship again, through cloth.  I had intended to make a physical representation of that chair, and since the call was announced, have made sketches, written notes, gathered inspirational images, and created it in my mind again and again. 

But it seems, I don't yet have the emotional distance from her death that I need to bring it to life at the moment.

I have had in mind another piece, which wasn't meant for this challenge, but will serve just as well.  This one has been percolating for at least a year and it's about an aspect of my relationship with my father. 

It involves a man's dress shirt - and really - that's the image I've been carrying in my head for this last year or so - just that image of a man's dress shirt - the kind your kindergarten teacher asks your mother for, so that you can wear it in art class to protect you your clothes.

The other night, it all came together for me and I'll be starting construction this weekend.  But it will take me a couple of weeks to make it, I think, so I won't have my "memory" piece ready until the middle of the month.

Hope that's okay - and I look forward to seeing what the rest of you create.

Thanks,

Kit

America Now - Written On The Body

Hi all, new member here (in case you didn't see on the FB page). I'm Kit Lang, I blog at Kit Lang Fiber Art and I'm glad to be here!

When I read "land/marks" what immediately popped into my head was "I claim this land in the name of..." 

As I tried to suss out that meaning over the next couple of weeks, concurrently, I thought about how men are dictating women's rights in the United States - how they've claimed women's bodies and legislated them, and how women's rights are being eroded as a result. 

I thought about all the ways that popular culture and media stereotypes enforce and contribute to the apparent apathy regarding that erosion. (We Canadians are similarly apathetic unfortunately.)

And I thought about how the words used to describe us, the institutionalized enforcement of gender stereotypes, the laws, and societal "rules" that are impressed upon us like markings, like tattoos - like they're written on these bodies that are claimed by men and legislated against by men. 

I thought of these nameless legislators standing on a pile of naked bodies of women with their flag, claiming them as their property to do with what they will  - and that is how this 'land/marks" piece came about.

This piece is part of my Whitewashed series, and so the background is constructed of pieced bricks in "girly" fabrics, quilted and then whitewashed with acrylic paint.  

The cross is made of needle felted roving on a poly cotton background...

which I then stitched to death with several different coloured threads

and the woman - an iconic "woman" with large breasts and exaggerated curves, was made from painted lutradur with stitched tattoos on her body - the names we are called, that turn us into objects, or animalize or otherwise reduce us - 

...along with the names of women who have most recently been egregiously, publicly reduced in the defence of our bodies, as well as some of the items that are on those bills in various states

America Now - Written On The Body, is 55 x 31" (140 cm x 79 cm). 

Thanks, Felicity for an inspiring theme! And thanks for having me in your group. 

Kit