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by Sally Willowbee
In
the process of my emergence as an artist, (a sometimes gray haired
artist in her late 50's), I was inspired last summer to have
my own art show. Over the last few years, I have been creating
illuminated
sculptures from old aluminum kitchenware and junk jewelry. I
decided the perfect venue for my work would be a thrift store
(one of the many venues from which my materials are often acquired).
A display of these sculptures adorned the storefront window.
Lights glimmered and shadows danced out onto the street enticing
passersby to stop and look and smile. The store's contents of
used clothing and household goods provided a busy and humorous
back up.
The series entitled Turned on Women celebrates
and honors the lives of women, both our ordinary and our extraordinary
(s)heros. The materials used to create these
sculptures - once the ordinary kitchenware of our mothers and
their mothers before them and recycled junk jewelry - tell many
stories. The aluminum pots and pans tell many stories of the
family kitchen, a prison for some women, an outlet or canvas
for others. The jewelry tells its own stories of status and worth,
consumerism and societal expectations. These Turned on Women bring the old stories out into the light and illuminate the changes
in womenís lives.
Creating these Turned on Women takes
me to my child within, a place of dreaming, fantasy, and humor.
Dressing them like I used to dress my dolls, they become cowgirls
and belly dancers and goddesses and old women. Some are named:
Patty Smith, Cleopatra, Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), Madonna, Julia
Childs, Code Pink, Moon Goddess. These
illuminated sculptures celebrate the contribution
women have made to art, music, culture, and peace, and they
express and honor those parts in myself. I was once a cowgirl,
a belly
dancer, a peace activist. I am a lesbian, a feminist, an adventurer
in the process of becoming an artist and an old woman; an old
woman who wears purple and wants to dance at the revolution,
of course. My stories and memories and dreams blend with the
old as I dress and adorn these doll-sized statues.
I laugh as I adorn my beauties in
aluminum and junk jewelry. Chains and beads shine and shimmer
dangling from their coffee percolator or
spaghetti strainer skirts. Tresses of beads adorn their tea
ball heads
bedecked with elegant hats made from kitchen drain strainers.
Jewelry slippers or Barbie's boots, always with high heels
of course, outline the feet. I amuse myself as I dress Madonna in
her safety pin skirt. I tickle my fancy as a pair of ruby
red shoes inspires me to style Dorothy's ponytails
from brown beads. I am astonished by the variety of intricate
and unique
shapes of the electric mixer beaters I attach as fringe to
Julia of the Kitchen's spaghetti strainer skirt.
I ponder aging and lifeís up and downs
as I add some silver chains to Patty
Smith's hair of long black chain to honor her as she is
today. I muse quietly as I enjoy the delightful memories over
the years spent with my friends Amy and Alice and add a few
white beads to their coiffures as they too begin the process
of becoming older women. The first lines in Jenny Joseph's
poem Warning ("When I am an old woman I shall wear
purple with a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me")
inspired me to pay homage to growing old with another Turned
on Woman.
I dream of a better and brighter future as I drill the holes
to create the peace symbols to honor Code Pink, a women's peace
organization. I chuckle as I adorn this sculpture with pink
pearls, reclaiming the color pink from my own and my feminist
sisters' previous rejection of this color that represented
"sugar and spice and everything nice."
I now wear sensible shoes. I don't
own a skirt and I forget to wear jewelry. Since menopause and
its ensuing hot flashes, avoiding feelings of extreme desperation
and anxiety depends on how easy it is to get clothes off. For
that reason, not to make a fashion statement or for the layered
look, I have returned to the flannel shirt and jean jacket look
of my 20's. Constructing these Turned on Women is my
expression of that primal urge to adorn and decorate the body.
It seems
to be bursting out in a new form in this phase of my life. My
grandmother hormones are raging...so
I fashion and adorn these shining, luminescent sculptures as expressions
of my inner light and my adventures in life.
Sally:
1.v. To rush or leap forth suddenly.
2. n. A quick witticism or bantering
remark.
3. n. An adventure, usually off the
beaten path.
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