Women's work has always been an important part of their Identity as careers, mothers, sisters, daughters and wives.
Traditionally based at home they build a domestic realm.
‘The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660’. Rijksmuseum, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-2344.
Emily is a young english woman from London, her project examining the physical relationships between the women and plants, against the natural and unnatural, is a good counter point for my maternal and domestic lore exploration.
We have both touched upon the subject of equality, and what is expected of women both historically and currently. We are interested in the way female virtue and expertise are judged within our own similar cultures and the other domains, and cultures we have explored. The use of plants both nutritionally, and medically within the home haves been viewed as woman's work' beneath that of the professional male preserve of medicine or culinary fine dining. With this in mind we created a hanging, highlighting flora and women's work of decoration, and sewing. We drank tea, stopped for chats about what we were doing, not unlike women working together weaving and making as they have for millennia. It was a very instinctive process and we laughed and mused at every knot and seam, swapped advice and information and generally shared a congenial afternoon and evening.
within the hanging, I included Lilith, the scorned and little talked about first wife of Adam, who left the garden of eden to escape his domination. Lilith believed she was equal and refused to lie beneath Adam. Emily found a rather erotic and sensual orchid painting and wove it in. I matched it with a Lilith Lilly print and tied my final piece with gold thread to elevate its status. Eventually we had added enough pieces of fabric, paper, and canvas to cover a window sized surface.
This size felt appropriate and we discussed where we might go from here. We both agreed this could be developed further to include other female tasks and highlight both ancient and modern expectations of womanly skills. Maybe a four panelled enclosure or shelter. We thought about creating a zine using the paper we had made, the idea would be to impregnate it with seeds and information... to literally sow a seed.
The resulting page could be sent as a letter or bound into a zine to be planted , either whole or torn it could grow and 'become' a tree of knowledge? This double use to read then plant and watch it grow, fits in with my research on learning and synergy. It would be a great project for learning about plants but would end up hidden on a shelf if not planted and we wondered if this might just be taken as a cute idea.
We decided to concentrate on creating a place, a place to be as "The synergistic sisters of serendipity" using my method of allowing information and subject matter to surface though our research as we made each connection in our final piece.
Women's hands from the past 40,000 years ago. Expressing their intellectual thoughts or just decorating their cave?
This was a line of research that was beginning to attract my interest: Equality within Knowledge and the Arts.
Sources
Emily's website -https://emilymwenman4.wixsite.com/mysite
Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. ‘Cueva de Las Manos, RÃo Pinturas’. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/936/.
‘Buy Online Eco-Friendly, Unique Plantable Greeting Cards & Stationery’. The Seed Card Company, https://www.theseedcardcompany.com/