#needleworkmonday | International Women's Day - women, art and sewing

in #needleworkmonday5 years ago (edited)

Last Friday was International Women's Day*, marked in the UK and around the globe with celebrations and acts of resistance.

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Source "Between the Two My Heart is Balanced" Lubaina Himid, 1991

The Tate Gallery UK is teaming up with the National Museum of Women in the Arts during March as they champion women artists across the globe. The Tate has announced five major exhibitions by women artists in 2020-2021 and put together a virtual exhibition celebrating Women and Art.

60 Years, a new curated display, will tell the story of British art from 1960 through women artists, and is part of Tate’s ongoing commitment to increasing the representation of women artists across its galleries.

Source Hannah Hill and Kate Rolison talk about embroidery and mental health.

The Tate virtual exhibition includes a personality quiz where you can find out which pioneering woman artist will inspire you today. My inspiration was Claude Cahun, an artist I hadn't come across before.
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Source "I Extend My Arms" Claude Cahun, 1931 or 1932

Recently, I discovered Sonya Philip and her website 100 Acts of Sewing which includes a statement about what she is (we are) doing when we sew our own clothes. Sonya writes:

What began as a personal challenge to make 100 dresses in a year, has developed into a larger exploration ... to also expose the process. ... This exposure acts as an impetus, allowing people to recognize that they can sew clothes, an awareness that simultaneously creates conscious consumers, offers a connection to the past, and provides a means of reclaiming personal style.

All aspects of creating clothing require skill ... these are skills our society has largely lost or pushed offshore ... We do not see nor often think of the real cost our clothing consumption has for the laborers or the environment. When we know how to sew with our own hands, we can make and remake and make well. ... When we possess this skill, when we realize the time and physical labor that goes into making a garment from start-to-finish, we are more thoughtful about what we purchase, ... and we are ultimately less driven by the forces of consumption and accumulation.

Making clothing is a conscious choice; it is an investment of time over convenience. The creation of a functional garment, engenders self-sufficiency and happiness. ... it is the work itself, and the recognition of flaws and gradual achievement of better skills as part of that work, that produces satisfaction. It is traditionally a woman's craft and is associated with the domestic sphere. The practice is a continuation of a millennium’s-long lineage, one that creates an interdependence between seasoned practitioners and new enthusiasts, with room for celebrating each act of making from simple to complex.

Clothing is an elemental part of day-to-day life ... It is also bound up with ideas of culture and the body. Alternately encouraged by and excoriated by the media, women in the US forge a deep discontent with their bodies that leads many on a constant search for clothes that alter appearance. ... Sewing is a way to return to a more primary mode of expression, which a person can choose to follow or create their own style. ... Handmade has an authenticity, where each choice is deliberate, from how cloth is cut to the color of thread.

Sewing clothes creates value through the appreciation of skill, the awareness of tradition, and the creation of agency.

For me, #needleworkmonday brings together a connectedness with art and creativity, skill and learning, accepting our frailty, flaws and uniqueness and understanding our relationship with women, society, politics and ecology. Thank you to the women and men who join us every Monday with your posts and comments, and to @crosheille, @muscara and @marblely for their support for the @needleworkmonday community.

Enjoy!

*International Men's Day is on Tuesday 19 November 2019

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Without doubt alot of work goes into making clothes maybe people have forgotten this fact but it is indeed a great skill to have.

I like the slowness of it, especially knitting 😊

It would be great to see more modern women artists getting mainstream recognition! It always kind-of sucks that artists have to be dead to really get noticed.
Cool info, thanks for sharing! I can't imagine a goal of making 100 dresses in a year!

I'm realising that I need to organise more leisure trips to London, I'm falling behind with the exhibitions! I like when the galleries organise these special displays, it introduces me to new artists that I wouldn't come across otherwise.
100 garments are quite a lot, even if each one is only four seams and a hem. There's a lot of decisions to be made!

interesting! I have never heard of such a holiday. it is truly an art and everyone can express themselves in it. wonderful post !!!!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it 😊

Thanks, @shanibeer. Friday was a normal day for me over here ...

That was a very interesting video, I was particularly interested in the artist Kate Rolison's mention of disability art and how it would be good if more disabled artists went into art galleries (that must be to exhibit of course). As many disabilities are not visible some may already be there though perhaps they are less keen on flying their flag and because they want to avoid the Children in Need syndrome, ie help a disabled person today, but ignore them for the rest of the year :D

It was a normal day for me, too, working and then collecting a friend from the station :)
There is always a difficulty, isn't there, about recognising something for one day and then what happens the rest of the year (although it was my birthday last week and I stretched it out over as many days as I could). I think women artists still only make up about 27% of public collections.

Happy belated birthday, @shanibeer ! Hope you had a good week - yes, we need more representation as 'active agents' rather than than as the 'passive sitters' :D

que vivan todas las mujeres del mundo. Dios las bendiga.

Thank you for all this amazing resources... I could not resist and directly made the test and found out that Vanessa Bell (who I also didn’t know before) is my soul artist :-D I guess that was a hint that I should start to drink, have promiscuous relations and read more philosophy 😂
ANd with the act of sewing 100 garments in a year.... We will see. I currently have a cyst (ahhhhh) on a finger joint and cannot/should not knit or crochet. So, I started to replace my beloved knitting with sewing. It is not an adequate replacement, but perhaps this will lead to 100 garments (ok, 20 in a year is more realistic for me 😂 )
Although I am at the moment more at ‚recognising flaws‘ stage with my sewing.
Thank you for this wonderful ideas on women‘s day

Ah, Vanessa Bell - interesting :) I know of her and the Bloomsbury group of artists and writers around her, but not a great deal about her painting or thinking. Sorry to hear about your finger, I hope it is not painful. Will it recover? But a good impulse to extend your creativity to sewing :) I used to sew as a teenager and I would guess I made about one garment a week, but two is quite something. I believe Sonya was doing it as part of her art practice, so her work, rather than as an additional thing to work/family/home etc. I've come to love flaws ... they are the humanity :)
I'm glad you enjoyed the post :)

With the finger.... no idea if it will go away. I have had something similar on my wrist, perhaps of all the dancing and teaching and the strain/weight on the joint. It lasted for years. Today it is gone, but I barley do things like handstand or the like anymore.
The finger joint hurts sometimes, but not every time, which makes it hard to not knit 😂 (I did it yesterday...)
I find Sonyas approach very inspiring. And 50 garments a week is also very impressive!!! I think I envy you your sewing experience

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