I am happy with the final product as i think it does overall what i wanted it to. The girly symbols are the main focus of the piece and yet are offset by the bright red bed and bath filled with red liquid. I added sticky gems onto the piece to add to the overwhelmingly girliness of the piece and stuck them on haphazardly in the vein of Sebastian Masuda's messily childlike compositions, which evoke youth and therefore 'girlhood' in the way that a child may put things together. Overall this makes the piece look more handmade almost and like it could've really been used by girls. This makes the piece hit home a little more as by making it look as though it was made by girls, the theme of the piece, it evokes more emotion in the viewer as the implied child is inflicted by the darker meanings behind the pice.
I finished the painting of the house overall. The top 'floor' does look darker in comparison to the middle and bottom floors, but when looking at the piece overally it was barely noticable. If i could've redone this piece, i would've make the top floor have smaller more intricate patterns, similar to the rest of the house, as the broad strokes of the top floor do look a little left out overall.
I was greatly inspired by Yayoi Kusama's 'Obliteration Room' when creating my sticker wall. Kusama has said of her dots that she sees them in her hallucinations due to her mental illness, and so the purpose of her art is to represent and express her own psyche. Using sticker dots within a room allowed the dots to become overwhelming and busy as it must have felt in her head. In the same way, the stickers in my room were meant to make the viewer feel overwhelmed by the kitsch 'dress up' stickers, as a way to represent how much importance society places on a woman's outside appearance. I imagine a girls' psyche to be obliterated with these messages, and the walls of the dollhouse represents this.
I completed the bottom floor of my dollhouse today. I realised later that the colour palette was a little more pastel than the middle floor, but when looked at as one it was hard to tell the difference so i was still happy with it. I continued to include girly symbols such as hearts, swirls, kitchy patterns and elements of nature in the work and the repetition of the same symbols gives the overly girly effect that i want to create.
While there are isolated cases of reverence for menstruation, many societies impose a strict set of rules about the visualization of menstru
Gendered Blood-Representing Menstrual Blood in Art History.
This essay by Ruth Green-Cole, featured in 'The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies' on pages 787-801 examines the representation and symbolism of period blood through the course of the art world. Investigating this issue has inspired my practice in terms of the ways i want to represent menstrual blood in my dollhouse.
The notion of ‘gendered blood’ (Lupton 1993, 3) is a concept that struggles against patriarchal traditions, which traditionally denigrate and suppress images of menstruation, while European and American art valorize women’s bodies as vehicles for male scopic desire. Biologically, blood may not be gendered, but society’s values transform it into female, dirty, discharge, abject, shame. 'Paul Gauguin’s ‘grotesque exotic’ Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil), an oil on canvas painted in 1892, shows a young Tahitian woman standing naked amidst a tropical garden in front of a masked she-devil. Her posture is that of a woman fallen from grace as she covers her genitals with a white cloth, a symbol of purity. At the feet of the disgraced Eve is a brilliant pink field, encircled by vine roots that are reminiscent of writhing serpents, “leading us to the banks of vermillion flowers that reinforce associations of blood—perhaps menstrual, perhaps that of a passage that has just occurred from virginity into the status of a ‘fallen’ Eve” (Childs 2003, 178). The painting is an example of menstrual blood in art history carrying a shameful connotation. The blood is even too shameful to be accurately depicted; the vermillion flowers hold the metaphor of period blood. The essay also states that 'The iconography of blood on white fabric recalls an old trope that has become synonymous with ‘menstrual shame.’ ... nothing stands out more than the sight of a bloodstain on white cloth'. The shame surrounding menstrual blood was a trope to be explored in later decades.
The Feminist Art Movement of the 60's and 70's countered representations of menstrual blood; Judy Chicago's 1971 piece 'red flag' aimed to represent her experiences as a woman, use of tampons being one of them. The piece therefore challenged society's tendencies to place shame and secrecy on the flow of menstrual blood, and represented it as a matter-of-fact reality of a woman's life. The work was among many at the time that candidly explored and represented the female genitalia, Carolee Schleeman's 'Interior Scroll' and Shigego Kubuto's 'Vagina Painting' come to mind. Drawn into the spotlight only in the late '70's, Frida Kahlo's frank depictions of vaginal blood in her works 'My Birth' and 'Henry Ford Hospital' also depict the realities of the female body, one that bleeds.
'All three artists deliberately use menstrual blood to represent pain and shame. Whether as an honest expression of the most intimate pain, or as a contemporary feminist protest against social and religion beliefs, blood cannot escape the burden of suffering, embarrassment and even disgust.' It can be said that the work of the Feminist Art movement was continued in the work of YBA artists Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas, who both used period blood in their own work. Most recently, 'The young Czech artist Vendula Virago adopts menstruation as her inspiration. To be more precise, she explores the creative potential of conflicting ideas about menstruation. For her, menstrual blood is not only a symbol of suffering and weakness, or a source of shame and pain for the woman. It also represents a purification of negative emotions, a will to live, and a selfish enjoyment of one's own regeneration. Virago confesses her leading principle, "I see the blood and I say to myself, 'I am still alive!'" It is an overwhelming expression of contentment and triumph.'
My findings here have prompted me to represent menstrual blood in my dollhouse piece, as a way to foreshadow the omens of womenhood onto the girl's psyche. I am planning to utilise dollhouse furniture i aquired when i bought the house i am painting, and plan to use the bed and the bath due to their significance as places the body rests and symbols of sexuality. I will paint the bed red as the bed can be seen as representative of sex and birth, and having the bed be red will mark it as a sign of danger, especially juxtaposed against the candy pinkness of the dollhouse. In the bath i intend to fill it with a red liquid symbolising period blood, which i believe will evoke the emotions a girl has of excitement to get her period as a sign of 'becoming a woman' or coming of age. However the 'blood' in such large quantities can be seen as unsettling, which therefore serves as a reminder of the inherent dangers that come with womanhood in a patriarcal society; 'menstrual shame', sexual violence, and the socialisation of being 'second best' to the man. Turning menstrual blood into a scary omen in this context represents the disturbances created in a girls psyche by being socialised as frivolous, obsessed with looks and, even in girlhood, limited.
do artist research on power of memorabilia and celebration of childhood, to justify the painting and collage sticker aspect, what it can represent and how your childhood and social conditioning affects your thoughts and your place in the world
In order to further my theme of girlhood and culture, i bought some girls magazines and collaged images from them onto the dollshouse. I think it worked pretty well and i am happy with the outcome as it can help the viewer to more easily interpret the girlhood aspect of the piece, as opposed to just a girly patterns on the house. i cut out any princess faces in order to represent the beauty standard created for girls and the idols girls are given to look up to.
To further develop the underlying theme of feminine pain in the work, i added red crosses over the eyes of the girls, which i think will add a further sense of uncanny to the piece, in that the pretty colours and collage make the piece seem like a celebration of the culture i grew up in, but adding crosses slashed across the face of the magazine characters makes the piece feel like something is not quite right, and that the overall meaning of piece isnt as idealistic as it may appear. i think it is a good representation of the rejection of the standard thrust upon girls to be beautiful, passive and conforming. the red of the crosses will also tie into the bed and bath which will strikingly be red, and the ribbons i plan on using to further the message of the piece.
i have painted most of the second floor of my dollhouse now, and can say that i like the progress i have made thus far. I do plan to also do the sides and finishing touches so its still a working progress but i am happy with the composition and layout that i chose. I ended up working quite intuitively when creating the patterns and chose a certain colour or certain patch more by how it felt than how it feels to work from a sketch. One thing i didnt expect is how bright the dollhouse is already starting to look. For this reason i am concerned about how the red pieces of furniture i plan to bring in will work with the piece. In order to make it stand out more, i may work with certain finishes and varnishes, as a glossy object may stand out more against the matte painted house.
Colors of women's clothes on 'The Handmaid's Tale' have hidden meanings.
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian television series, first airing in 2017, that explores the socio-political place of women in the present day by exaggerating the dark themes of our current political climate into the 'what-if' society of Gilead, where have little to no freedom.
What i found most striking about the Handmaid's tale was the symbolic costume design. The handmaids in the show wear red;
''Former lead costume designer Ane Crabtree told Vulture that the color of the handmaids' garments was meant to symbolize "lifeblood," because the handmaids' main duty was to function as reproductive organs.'
This has further affirmed for me the understanding of using red to symbolise feminine pain.
Louise Bourgeois was an American-French artist who often dealt with themes of domesticity and a women's role, as well as the psyche and confessional art. In this article examining one of her fabric sculptures, Rosika Parker is quoted, giving me an insight into the significance of womens craft and craft techniques in the fine art space. She argues that 'it both enforced domestic roles and accepted definitions of femininity, but also simultaneously provided an artistic and discursive space within which women might take the opportunity to express themselves.'
My idea of using ribbons to represent blood in my dollhouse could be further developed by experimenting with other craft materials like stich and fabric. Reams of red ribbons could stream out of the bed in my dollhouse through a bedcover i could create.
The controversial British artist turned her dirty sheets and empty vodka bottles into a radically confessional artwork.
Emin's work 'My Bed' was a landmark in confessional art, and due to her gender, feminist art by extension. The litter of condoms, vodka bottles and 'period stained clothing' offer insight into the feminine experience the way no other piece of art had done before. The most interesting part of the article for me was this quote :
“What’s interesting is that the bed is a stage for birth, depressive isolation, and death,” Pih said. “It’s a powerful symbolism found in literature and art, in the work of Edvard Munch and William Blake, for example.” Emin’s bed, however, offers a particularly feminine angle on those motifs; her work elevates the anxieties of life as a woman to monumental status."
This made me think of the symbolic nature of the bed as an item, and helped to fuel my ideas for what to use the bed for in my dollhouse project. The bed has perhaps even more significance from a woman's perspective than a man's. Patriarchy marks sex as a woman's purpose in a marriage and the 'marital bed' is where a woman will traditionally be impregnated. Sexual violence against women also often happens in a marital bed, with (27%) of women aged 15-49 who have been in a relationship reporting that they have been subjected to some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.
The bed can also be associated with mothering and childcare, traditionally the woman's role. I can personally remember sitting with my nan in bed in the mornings when i spent the night at her house as a child, and it was key bonding time in our relationship.
For these reasons i want to make the 'bed' furniture that came with the dollhouse a key part of my piece.
Womanhouse was a feminist space founded in 1972 by the two prolific figures, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, that featured various programs dedicated to women.
I like the idea of referencing Womanhouse in my work. The piece is an iconic piece of feminist art, and considering i’m doing a dollhouse it harkens back to womanhouse simply because both pieces take the form of a house. The house has historically been known as a woman’s place and is the centre of the domestic sphere. Therefore using a house to raise womens issues has a level of sarcasm and further references the gender inequality. Inside ‘Womanhouse’, the ‘menstruation bathroom’ exists. As the name suggests, the room proudly displays representations of period blood on sanitary towels, as well as a littering of period products above on the shelf. This brought the undeservingly taboo topic of womens periods into the forefront of conversation, making it a fiercely bold statement at the time. In my own practice, i have been thinking of using blood in my dollhouse in order to represent the ‘coming of age’ that having your period brings, and itd be a good juxtaposition between the kitschy colour palettes and motifs and the sacrifice of women in our patriarchal society. Having blood come from the bath would harken back to womanhouse and the menstruation bathroom.
Further thinking of the idea of having blood pouring from the bath, i could evoke this with black and red ribbons, ties them in strange ways, hook them around onto the ceiling and make it a real character in the house. They could be tightly wound to represent frustration and ironically tied into bows, even fraying at the edges to represent the undoing of a person
This video is an example of my research into Yayoi Kusama. Kusama's 'Infinity Rooms' were intended to represent the hallucinations she struggled with because of her mental illnesses. Her hallucinations took the form of many dots clouding her vision, and it seems painting and recreating the 'infinity nets' and creating 'infinity rooms' that she became known for was a form of therapy for Kusama. I am most interested in the way Kusama so clearly deals with the psyche and the 'minds eye' in her work, and the way she often uses a room to represent this. Using a room and often mirrors in the way that she does, Kusama engulfs the viewer into her vision, and the optical illusion the dots make mean the space tends to look depthless and endless. Moreover Kusama pulls the viewer in to her own minds eye, and due to the interactive notion of the art being the room we walk in, we experience her hallucinations as she does.
Kusuma's 'obliteration rooms' invites thousands of viewers to stick multicoloured dot stickers all over the originally white room before them, obliterating the room until it becomes saturated with multicolour stickers. The end result is intensely colourful, overbearing and even suffocating to look at. It can be said that is Kusama's intention, as the end result is likely to best fit the way her hallucinations and trauma make her feel.
When making my dollhouse i am inspired to cover every inch of it in my motifs in order to evoke the suffocated feeling. I also want to experiement in doing this with girly stickers and gems.
i thought i could use the props and accessories that came with the dollhouse to add further meaning to the piece. Both these pieces could apply meaning to the feminine body, as both are places for the body to rest. therefore i think adding extra symbolism to these pieces would be significant and imply harm to the feminine body. i thought of filling the bath with fake blood to represent feminine pain. blood can be associated with the end of girlhood, since during puberty a girl gets her period and ‘ becomes a woman’. A girl might think this is a thing to be celebrated, but it can be seen as a looming omen of the pressures upon women in adulthood, including physical and mental domestic abuse from men, and a systemic acceptance of womens pain.
Jasmine Forrest @jasmineforrestsartdoings - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
