I make art about the insidious nature of misogyny in daily life. So much harm happens during the millions of small moments at home, even among well-meaning family. Gender constructs are fostered, roles cast, attention centered on some rather than others. I base this work on a short stack of family photographs from the 1960s, images that could have cast a halo of sentimental nostalgia. But do not.
Using printmaking and collage to create mixed media works, I re-construct what I learned from seeing the photographs fresh after 50 years.
Gingham pattern, made from hundreds or thousands of individually cut and collaged squares per artwork, harkens to quaint family activities like picnics. I chose gingham for its hominess and also for its physical quality of combining a dark, medium and light shade in a repeating pattern. It’s symbolic of a continuum of gender, of familial combining of one parent and another, and also of the past, future and all that connects in-between.