Mrs. X

i'm still working with ideas of anonymity and social expectations. i've been thinking about the little we know about the lives of women historically. when reading history, i'm always struck by the fact that the lives of women are spoken about with sweeping generalities, as if each woman lived the same life (with differences depending on class).

we can assume that Mrs. X cleaned the house, cooked the food, raised the children, made clothing, knitted blankets, and decorated the home.... but what else? unless i get my hands on a sordid tell-all memoir, i'll never know what life was like for women in passed eras.

i only recently found out that my grandmother sold pies to help supplement the family income. as legend has it, people came from miles around to get one of her delicious apple pies. when my mother told me this story, i was so proud. In addition to maintaining the home and raising 5 children, she did what she could to help financially.

My own mother worked two jobs for the majority of my sister and i's upbringing and still found time to cook dinner and do the laundry.... and stayed up all night sewing our Halloween costumes or making us dresses.

i started thinking about crafting as being very much like the landscape... they both hide their history. just as it is impossible to know what atrocities had happened on a battlefield simply by looking at it, it is equally as impossible to look at a sweater or table-runner your mother made and know what stress or hardship was sitting in her hands while she stitched those beautiful objects together.

anyone who knows how to crochet (or knit, sew, cross stitch, etc), knows what a time-consuming process it is. it isn't mere hours that are spent; it is days or weeks until a project reaches completion. while working on this project, i wondered what worries were going through the minds of our mothers and grandmothers while they stayed awake at night making clothes for their children? what if those worries were apparent in the items they crafted? it would be a sweater few would wear.

so, the woman in this portrait is as anonymous as the crocheted boarder that frames her. their histories are hidden, they are made beautiful for display, perfectly put together.

thankfully, this is not the case anymore. the history of women is now being recorded... if not for the struggles of the passed generations of women. this piece is not based in nostalgia. i used an oval canvas, sepia tones and gold paint, and an ornate, black frame (rendered in crochet) to reference a bygone era. i painted it with respect, and in sadness, for all the women i'll never read about, with gratitude for those Halloween costumes my mom made for me, and for the identity-struggle that is still going on today. even now, many women find it hard to talk about certain things, or in a certain way, in the company of men for fear of being labeled a nag or bitch, or worse... a feminist. we continue to over-edit our speech and discredit our emotions in front of the opposite sex. in short, we hide our identities. we are very much like that landscape... by just looking, no one sees the battle.