Maggie Smith

March 7, 2013
Maggie Smith

For this reason among others, I offer up a Maggie Smith Paper Doll as today's feminist paper doll http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141241n

Willow Smith

March 5, 2013
Willow Smith

A dear friend asked me why Willow Smith.  My first response was this link, a Red Table talk between Jada Pinkett-Smith and Willow Smith. The conversation weaves through fame and priveldge and holding true to one's self and roots despite and because of fame.  Paying back to the the past and to the community and building up a better place than one was given.  Willow Smith seemed to "get" this.

My second response was her song I Am ME.  The music is not something I would listen to ( I prefer grungy blues stuff) BUT: the message of remaining one's self SHINES THROUGH in this song.  This girl loves herself and is letting other girls and boys know that that is okay. What a powerful thing.  Be yourself, be kind, and it's okay.

Third, I am curious as to what this young person will do given the power she possesses.  Where will she take  herself and her understanding of empowerment? 

Pussy Riot Grrrl

March 4, 2013
Pussy Riot Grrl

More Riot Grrrls will be added soon.  Although speaking out can definitely be done by just one person, more folks make for a riot, or change.  Stay tuned on this one!

Unity Dow

March 3, 2013
Unity Dow

Self portrait paper doll

Self-portrait of me in my work as "The Spaceship Lady." The blue hula hoop looking thing is a space ship, or what I use to teach early elementary children about personal space and consent. I have 30 of these things in the trunk of my car and I travel around to schools in Androscoggin County, Maine.

Didn't we already win this argument?

Raging Granny meets Suffragette

Last week or two ago, the Raging Grannies made a lovely little song stating their "love" (read: rage) at Todd Akin.  Every attack on feminist and humanist rights I feel lately is a backslide and quite frankly, I ain't going back.

Feminist Paper Dolls and Thinking about Harry Patch

Entourage (Or What Was Harry Patch Guarding?)
Mixed Media Collage on acetate

In March 2012, I dedicated a whole month to creating paper dolls of those folks that I though of as feminist role models.  Each person was a personal preference of my own- regardless of whether they self-identified as feminists (which I know, I know is problematic and somewhat dis-empowering...but)

March 2012 was a grueling month.  Making the dolls was a labor of love and I was very raw after doing it.  I didn't feel like it was complete when the month was over but I couldn't go on right then.

Now, I'd like to revisit those personal icons.

A few years ago I did an assemblage suite about war and the angel of death.  It was right around this time when Harry Patch died.  Mr. Patch was the last Tommy-Boy of World War I to die in 2009 (at the age of 111 and 38 days).  He was quiet and refused to speak publicly of his time in war until 1998 when BBC One approached him to do a documentary on WWI.  He revealed himself to be a furious pacifist and railed against the rationale for ANY WAR.  He talked about being afraid and wanting just to go home.  He begged to leaders to work at diplomacy.

"When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle – thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?" (Harry Patch)

This evening I will add a Harry Patch doll to the collection of folks I made in March 2012.  And I hope he would have been pleased.