Wordless Wednesday

Before.

Cool Exhibit Confuses Critics--Might be Feminist

Sesame, a gallery in Islington promotes "emerging artists," and presents "shows that reflect exciting new movements in contemporary art." This month they host "Wild Styles: Hot Craft," an exhibit that will feature people we know well, like Jenny Hart, and others working in "craft media."

I think Kate Westerholtz's cross-stitch is likeable, cute even, though I bet she doesn't want me to think so. (I prefer Homer Simpson's version, "I want to rock and roll all night, and part of every day.") But I'm a little tired of reviews like this one. "To prove it, Proud is curating Wild Styles: Hot Craft, an all-girl exhibition of craft stars who, arguably, represent the feminist backlash to the domestic-goddess ideal. " It's not your grandmother's cross stitch, so it must be feminist. My main thesis in response to this is "not quite." That's good and academic-like.

It's the same reply I have to this article which is more "it is your grandma's craft, but it's/I'm feminist because I say so." I've been thinking about writing a rejoinder--about showing how craft and feminism have always been linked, and indeed, always ambivalently--but it seems like it would be so complicated I'd need a whole book. I don't know if I have another book-length project in me. I think my brain has started to atrophy. And the actual research would kill me. But I did think of a title, which had the words "new" "domesticity" and "feminis*" in the title, but I've already forgotten it--I did check it on amazon, and it seems to be available. If I can't even keep a title in my head, how will I ever work out a whole argument?

I guess the world will just have to go on being confused about the craft movement and whether it is or isn't or might be feminist.

Hunh, I wouldn't think you did needlework.

Do you get that often?

"People" must just think that women who do needlework are . . .what? Quiet? Feminine? Domestic? Dull? Conservative? Certainly I'm none of these things. Loud. Feminist. Untamed. Liberal.

But when did feminine get to be the opposite of feminist? It's not easy to point to the 70s--some feminists did indeed go the "earth mother" route, which included embroidery, bread baking, motherhood. Needlework today isn't Jane Austen's needlework. Sure, some dumb-ass soldier sitting next to me in a plane might ask me to sew on a button (um, the needle is BLUNT!), but we don't do it anymore to prove we know the alphabet and can mark our family linens. We don't do it to prove we're women, even if that's what some people might think about it.

But there's no arguing about dull, is there? In a women's history class I took at Columbia we read Loom and Spindle: or, Life among the early mill girls. We were discussing how these women spent their days in the mill and then went home and did needlework. Ok, I brought it up since no one else had noticed they spent their days sewing and then went home to do more sewing. Everyone agreed that they must have had unbelievably tedious lives. As a stitcher, I disagreed that spending an evening stitching after a hard day sewing would be more of the same. I feel stresses leave my body even if I am hunched over a difficult project. It's another thing.