MY RIGHTS
The base of this piece is a petticoat, a feminine garment that is at once pretty but prickly and uncomfortable to wear, confining and outdated. It represents an under-garment worn by nearly all American and European women in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including women protesting for women's voting rights and equal rights. After years of protests, voting rights were ratified as the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. But progress in equal rights has been glacial and not nearly completed.
"MY RIGHTS" commemorates some of the struggles and and triumphs that have advanced women's rights in the United States. By documenting them here, I wanted to show that progress is not a straight line, and we must continue to struggle for equal rights. The opening of the petticoat is sewn tightly closed because we must resist going back to the past.
Material:
Petticoat
19th Amendment Centennial Pin - gave voting rights to women
Alice Paul Hunger Strike Pin - Alice Paul engaged in hunger strikes while she was jailed for protesting for equal rights
International Ladies Garment Workers Union Pin - strikes after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire led to changes in labor law
Wire Coat Hanger Pro Choice Pin
Title IX 50th Anniversary Pin - protect against sex discrimination in sports and education
Association of Flight Attendants CWA Union Pin - union formed by flight attendants for better pay and working conditions
Equal Rights Amendment Pin - end legal distinctions between men and women related to divorce, property,, employment
National Organization for Women Pin - protect the equal rights of all women and girls in social, political, and economic life
Biden-Harris Campaign Pin
Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House Pin
Hillary Clinton Pin
Wonder Woman Pin - empowering women and girls around the world
Unionize patch - advocating for workers to negotiate for wages, benefits and other work-related issues.
Ribbons
"MY RIGHTS" commemorates some of the struggles and and triumphs that have advanced women's rights in the United States. By documenting them here, I wanted to show that progress is not a straight line, and we must continue to struggle for equal rights. The opening of the petticoat is sewn tightly closed because we must resist going back to the past.
Material:
Petticoat
19th Amendment Centennial Pin - gave voting rights to women
Alice Paul Hunger Strike Pin - Alice Paul engaged in hunger strikes while she was jailed for protesting for equal rights
International Ladies Garment Workers Union Pin - strikes after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire led to changes in labor law
Wire Coat Hanger Pro Choice Pin
Title IX 50th Anniversary Pin - protect against sex discrimination in sports and education
Association of Flight Attendants CWA Union Pin - union formed by flight attendants for better pay and working conditions
Equal Rights Amendment Pin - end legal distinctions between men and women related to divorce, property,, employment
National Organization for Women Pin - protect the equal rights of all women and girls in social, political, and economic life
Biden-Harris Campaign Pin
Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House Pin
Hillary Clinton Pin
Wonder Woman Pin - empowering women and girls around the world
Unionize patch - advocating for workers to negotiate for wages, benefits and other work-related issues.
Ribbons
Fiber Art, 3 feet diameter, 2024
19 + Me
I counted 19 female-identifying artists who have collaborated with me in creating feminist art exhibitions that enabled hundreds of artists to have their artwork seen in venues around the world. These fiber art figures represent me and my curatorial collaborators, some who continue to work with me, some who have gone on to produce their own exhibitions, and some who have passed away. Our faces are somewhat obscured to represent our mostly anonymous presence while we do unpaid exhibition labor behind the scenes. Our bodies are made of denim, the universal fabric of labor, youth and rebellion. We have proven that even without a prestigious venue such as a white walls gallery or museum, we can produce exciting, socially relevant exhibitions that bring a full-house audience. We are ambitious. We are women friends.
Here are my collaborators: Laura Abrams, Elizabeth Addison, Salma Arastu, Tanya Augsburg, Amanda Chaudhary, Sherri Cornett, Karen Gutfreund, Kelly Hammargren, Jaimianne Jacobin, Judy Johnson-Williams, Mido Lee, Hye-Seong Tak Lee, Sandra Mueller, Avinger Nelson, Patricia Rodriguez, Sawyer Rose, Na Omi Judy Shintani, Tamiko Sidore, and Tanya Wilkinson. Priscilla Otani.
Here are my collaborators: Laura Abrams, Elizabeth Addison, Salma Arastu, Tanya Augsburg, Amanda Chaudhary, Sherri Cornett, Karen Gutfreund, Kelly Hammargren, Jaimianne Jacobin, Judy Johnson-Williams, Mido Lee, Hye-Seong Tak Lee, Sandra Mueller, Avinger Nelson, Patricia Rodriguez, Sawyer Rose, Na Omi Judy Shintani, Tamiko Sidore, and Tanya Wilkinson. Priscilla Otani.
Fiber Art, 4 feet diameter, 2022
MY BODY
MY BODY is a hand-stitched pamphlet book made with reproductive medical information sheets (MIS). These MIS covered prescription drugs for birth control, morning after, chemical abortion, male sexual dysfunction, menstruation, infertility, and menopause. I sought these sheets by advertising widely among friends, physicians, Facebook, Craigslist, NextDoor and even at swanky dinner parties where men of a certain age preside. In all cases, those willing to give me their MIS wanted to be anonymous and I went on a scavenger hunt all over my neighborhood, picking up MIS in mailboxes, digging them out of watering cans left on top of stairs, pulling them out from behind screen doors, etc. Once the sheets were collected and bound, I painted female torsos and limbs with black gouache and rubber-stamped sperm on each page. The female bodies are depicted in wild abandon, sometimes pregnant, sometimes not. Their bodies express sexual and reproductive freedom that medical science affords. Tiny spermatozoa swim around the bodies, looking for a way in. On June 24, 2022 they breached the fortress, depriving many women the right to end pregnancy. Women cannot be complacent with their hard-won rights and freedoms. Everyone must exercise their right to vote and to protest.
2022, pamphlet-stitched book
Tammy Duckworth: American Woman
Ladda Tammy Duckworth, Senator from Illinois, is one of my heroes. She has had a challenging life: claiming her identity as a mixed race person, growing up in poverty, at one point living on government assistance, being severely wounded as a helicopter pilot, going through a brutal rehabilitation regimen, confronting racism while running for national office, dealing with infertility and giving birth to two babies through in-vitro fertilization at age 47 and 50, and continuing to work as a Senator while nursing a baby. These struggles have not turned her inward and bitter but outward and determined. In each of her struggles, she has both accepted help and found ways to pay back by helping others in similar situations. Duckworth represents the demographics of what our country is becoming today: mixed race, non-Caucasian, beneficiary of government assistance and realizing her American Dream because of it, hard-working and determined to work through Congress to better the lives of military veterans, working mothers, victims of gun violence, and transgender people, among other things. She is what America already is and continues to become: a representative of the demographic that puts fear into the hearts of politicians like Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and Donald J. Trump.
2020, painted braille book, 10 x 10 inches, 20 pages including covers
Tammy's Crown
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2020, sculpture, 33.5 x 11x 10.5 inches
shedding femininity
"Shedding Femininity" is a rude response to the fetishization of women's bodies. Despite the #MeToo movement and woman after woman testifying in court and in congress, there are too few victories in reclaiming our bodies. Time after time women continue to be toyed with or violated, in the name of religion, job promotion or physical health. "Shedding Femininity" is an allegorical strip tease, the unzipped ass and cunt left behind by women who've had enough.
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2016, sculpture, rubber bands and gel medium
Agency: Feminist Art and Power YouTube Artist Talk, March 6, 2022
Pussy Grabs Back
Sailor Moon girl heroes wearing pink pussy hats claw back at misogyny and sexual harrassment.
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2017. collage: cut up Sailor Moon girl hero posters and glossy pink paper. 18" x 24" framed.
she bleeds garnets and rubies
These works are in response to Donald Trump’s judgement of women as either beautiful pieces of ass or ugly sows leaking menstrual blood and breast milk. ‘Shedding Femininity’ is an allegorical strip tease, the unzipped ass and cunt left behind by a Miss Universe contestant. ‘She Bleeds Garnets and Rubies’ is the Holy Trinity of Megyn Kelly’s menstrual blood transformed into sacred jewels by Trump’s petulant curse, ‘You could see there was blood…coming out of her wherever…’
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2016. mIxed media: panty liners, embroidery, beads, silkworm cocoons, ink paper doilies, triptych 11x33 inches
