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Sunday Feature- Jennifer McNichols

11/27/2011

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I had the pleasure of getting to know artist Jennifer McNichols online when we were both included in an exhibition called Mothers at the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.  Part of her series titled "Let Them Eat Cake" was included in the exhibition, and I had the pleasure of seeing it in person.  The series was inspired by her experiences with cesarean section birth and the emotional turmoil which followed.  Jennifer uses cake- a very traditional domestic item- to explore the complicated feelings which arose from her c-section.
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Self- Preservation 2008- 2010
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The work which I saw in person at the show in Chicago was called "Self- Preservation."  It is a series of four mason jars with slices of white cake in each one.  The jars are each labeled with different words- "Betrayed, Failure, Empty, Powerless."  The delivery of the message is interesting.  Canning and preserving are a typically female occupation, and a very traditional one.  There's something banal and simple about canned items which contrasts powerfully with the messages.  The use of jars also suggests that these feelings are literally bottled up.

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Carved 2008-2010
Several of her pieces employ the use of whole cakes as a metaphor for the human body.  Carved and Breached are two photographs which depict a cake which is carved or sectioned to mimic the actions on the human body in cesarean section.  There's a visceral quality to these works- the fondant icing mimics skin and there is a vulnerable quality to these cakes which cause one to almost identify with them as persons.  It's hard not to wince when looking at them, especially if you've experienced a c- section yourself.
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Breached 2008- 2010
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Mourned 2008- 2010
"From 2008 through 2010 I created and photographed a series of handmade and hand-decorated cakes and accompanying installation pieces exploring the feelings experienced by many women who suffer for the convenience of others through unnecessary and unplanned surgical childbirth. In so doing I hope to give form to the emotional landscape inhabited by many such women in solitude and silence while those around them celebrate, and to help those who have difficulty relating to post-Cesarean mothers explore the emotions felt by women they know and love.

The cakes, and the photographs of them, are intended to draw on a variety of touchpoints. There are their specific references, of course, to the restraints, drugs, and psychological aftereffects of unwanted Cesareans, but the medium is also the message. The white-fondant-covered cakes partake of both the white-tablecloth celebration and the funeral, highlighting the distance that can divide those with direct experience of trauma from the world around them despite what appear to be shared rituals. Their smooth surface but imperfect contours are suggestive of the vulnerable and naked human body, and their ghostly pallor hints at the inner corpus exposed under harsh lights in surgery. In the act of baking and decorating the cakes, I made and remade that captive flesh, building it up and staring it down through the lens of my camera." -Jennifer McNichols


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Cold Comfort 2008- 2010
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Sunday Feature- Bonnie Lynn Polnaszek

11/20/2011

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This week I'm just writing a quick little feature on some lovely baby items.  If you're looking for Christmas gifts for a baby, look no further than Bonnie Baby.  It's an etsy site of hand made items by Bonnie Lynn Polnaszek.  Why shop at big box stores when you can buy at the source?  
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Bedtime song for my daughter

11/17/2011

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My Pigeon House

My pigeon house I open wide
and I set all my pigeons free
They fly all around
and up and down
and they sit on the highest tree

and when they return from their merry merry flight
they close their eyes and they say goodnight
Carroo carroo carroo carroo carroo carroo carooo
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Sunday Feature- Rachel Epp Buller

11/13/2011

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Rachel Epp Buller is a feminist art historian, a print maker and a mother of three.  Her series "The Identity Series" are a beautiful, intricate series of prints based on the motif of a fingerprint.  Fingerprints figure very largely in the life of a mother- finger prints on the walls, on the windows and on mirrors become a part of our visual landscape.  If you were to look at our bodies with forensic dust under black light we would probably be covered with the imprints of our children.  I read somewhere that a small amount of our children's cells remain with us long after they're born and have grown.  We're forever imprinted.  

This series calls to light the identity of a mother as it's combined with and altered by the personalities of her children.  It's a complex portrait of what it means to be a mother- the occasional loss of self, but the gain of a bright new and complex self in relation to our children.

Twist, in 3 Parts, 2009
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"The Identity Series marks the changes, overlaps, and transformations of identity that occur in the life of the family. Initially conceived as a grouping of representational portraits, the series later morphed into an abstracted idea of portraiture, taking as its formal basis one fingerprint of each member of our family. Printed individually, the fingerprints highlight unique genetic qualities; when layered, they can speak to the temporary masking of identity that occurs in the position of motherhood. In hand-stitched print blankets, issues of genetic difference overlap, literally and metaphorically, with larger implications of family position—individuality alongside and within familial identity. The most recent print “quilts” combine the fingerprints with fragments of the representational portraits, further playing on issues of identity and likeness. These visual memoirs of motherhood use traditional patchwork quilting patterns to draw on a lengthy history of women’s artistic creativity and on my own Mennonite cultural heritage."
 -Rachel Epp Buller

Youngest Four- Patch, 2009
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Buller references her own Mennonite background by using familiar quilt patterns to combine the elements of finger prints and portraits.  The quilt aesthetic draws us in to the comfort of the familiar, and makes reference to family and home.  Within the pattern we also see objects, outlines and forms- portraits of individuals mixed together.  I feel that the fingerprint outlines make some allusion to science and DNA while the quilt pattern speaks more of tradition.  I love the idea of a portrait combining different elements of one's family.  I feel it's true that we are all a pattern involving those who matter to us, and who influence our lives.  

Firstborn Shirting Quilt, 2009
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Sunday Feature- Kate Wilhelm

11/6/2011

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Honestly.  Roller derby, motherhood, feminism... how could you possibly go wrong?  I saw Kate Wilhelm's portfolio and I was instantly drawn to it.  Obviously the photographs attract me partly because they reflect my own life and my own interests.  Each photograph depicts a woman decked in derby gear but set in her own home environment.  
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Baroness Von Spike
I love the contrast of the derby women with their domestic scenes.  I love the juxtapostion of the derby gear with the softer qualities of home life.  I think these are actually a fascinating exploration of women- the complexity of what makes us female.  The most classic is the one below, which mimics the classic Madonna and Child theme but with derby gear and skates.  I love the contrast of hard and soft- the hard gear with soft breasts and soft babies.  I think it says a lot about who we are as women, the different aspects and contradictions of what makes us female.
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Blister Sister and Scarlet
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Teargas Tamara with Jala, Eshe, Marco and Kez
These two remind me of classic family portrait paintings, especially the one below.  The family is pictured in their environment, stoic looks on their faces, and the incongruity of derby skates and coloured, dreaded hair.  I think it's wonderful.
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Inna'Goddess Da-Vida with Simon, Bert and Levi
"Derby throws any notions of femininity in your face.  Yet many derby girls are mothers, (perhaps the ultimate "feminine" vocation), and the bouts are extremely family friendly.  Immediately I wanted to get to know more about the women behind the derby personas.  So, I invited myself into their homes, their private domestic spaces, the arena that is historically and culturally seen as women's space.  I want the apparent incongruity of a derby girl in a domestic setting to cause the viewer to think about that incongruity and wonder if it is perhaps nothing more than a construct." -Kate Wilhelm
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Spunky Rooster and Jamie
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    A blog on art, roller derby and life.

    Kate Hansen

    I'm an artist and mother of two  in Courtenay, BC.  I've completed a project called the "Madonna and Child Project," and I'm now working on a series of roller derby inspired drawings. In my spare time I play roller derby with the Brick House Betties.  

    Kate Hansen

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