Opening Night at the 25 and Counting exhibition

Wednesday 5th July 2017 and it's the opening night of the 25 and Counting exhibition at the Panacea Museum in Bedford...

At the #25andcounting exhibition!

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Yes, this is the 'woman' exhibition I've been mentioning for the past 6 months or so! The name has been changed to reflect the twenty-five plus women who are now contributing.

The exhibition is mostly on the top floor of this beautiful Victorian building, which was part of a religious community until just a few years ago.

Beautiful garden at The Panacea Museum #25andcounting

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The aim of the exhibition is to make women's art more visible. This seems a noble enough aim, but once I found out just how little women's work appears in galleries around the world... well, I was shocked.

'Work by women artists makes up only 3–5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe,  and 34% in Australian state museums.'  - nmwa.org/advocate/get-facts

To attempt to redress this balance, women are putting on their own exhibitions. And that is the goal of Ana Ortega and Sophie Atkins of NOHATcollective, who organised 25 and Counting.

I've written in previous posts about how I found this subject hard. It was so broad yet at the same time so personal. And for me, 'broad yet personal' describes the exhibition, too. Each piece tells something about an individual's experience of being a woman, whether that's her personal story...

Nike, goddess of victory at #25andcounting exhibition by Wendy Watmough

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Wendy Matmough discovered Nike the goddess of victory was the symbol of her own home town, which resonated with her own experience of overcoming a difficult marriage.

...or an experience shared by almost all women around the world...

Our Labour of Love celebrating women around the world who cook every day by Jackie Hodgson #25andcounting

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... or more political  statements about about how women's rights are in danger of being eroded (One of the Monkeys on The Back of Womankind by Helen Jones - I didn't manage to get a photo of this one).

Each one is like a window into someone else's world.

Here's mine, it still seems surreal to see my own work hanging on a wall at an art exhibition!

Thank you and congratulations to Ana and Sophie.

The exhibition is open at The Panacea Museum in Bedford until 12th August.

Just an average human? My latest piece is finished!

It seems a very long time since I agreed to take part in this summers' Woman exhibition but my work is done and the official hand-in date is tomorrow!

Here it is:

It's acrylic on canvas and the brief is here. 

The theme of women and identity was so incredibly broad that I found this really tough. Lack of experience was also a challenge for me, I had some ideas that looked great in my mind but I didn't have the skills or experience to go ahead and create them! Eventually I decided to pick one idea and dive in; I'd learn what I needed to know as I went along. 

If you're wondering what my painting is all about here's the statement that I'm submitting alongside it...

What is it about me that makes me a woman? What is my identity as a woman? And how do I feel about it?

As I explored what this might mean I found nothing really resonated with me. I didn’t understand why until I realised I was digging down through clichés and stereotypes of what a woman should be.  Underneath it all I found that I just wanted to be a human being.

I also discovered that being able to feel this way is a privilege, because many women do need a strong female identity to stand up for their rights. I don’t feel the need for this and I’m very grateful to the people who came before me who made this possible.

My piece is a collection of objects around me in my everyday life. What can you tell about me from them? How are they different from the objects a man might have? And how are they different from what a woman may have had a hundred or even a thousand years ago? 

The exhibition is from 5th July to 12th August at the Panacea Museum in Bedford. I'll post more about that here on my blog and on Instagram nearer the time. 

A new art exhibition in Bedford: Woman & Identity

Good news! We had such a great time with Weaving Narratives that we're doing it again!

There are few changes, though. This new exhibition is not connected with the Bedfordshire Archives, but it is being arranged by two of the contributors to Weaving Narratives, Sophie Atkins and Ana Gonzalez Ortiz. Many of the Weaving Narratives contributors are taking part but there are lots of other artists involved, too.

Here's the brief:

"There is a wealth of female artists working in and around the Bedford area. But where
are they? What issues are they concerned with? We want to create an opportunity to
make these artists and the issues addressed in their art visible to the community in
which they live and work. And so was born our project: Woman - a pop-up multi-
disciplinary exhibition featuring work by female artists in the centre of Bedford.

The ethos of this exhibition is positive exposure. It will provide a fantastic opportunity
for participating artists to gain exposure for their work. But more than that, it will be a
positive force for the community; offering opportunity for a wider and more diverse
participation in the arts in Bedford, bringing the art to the people and also
encouraging an exciting dialogue with the community around art and the issues central
to the work of the female artists. It will be rebellious, fun, thought provoking and
ambitious.

The theme of the exhibition will be ‘Identity’. You may interpret that however you like.
We do not wish to limit ourselves in any way to conventions surrounding womanhood,
as we are all of course so much more than just a gender. You may also like to consider
ideas surrounding the visibility vs. invisibility of women."

The exhibition will open on 5th July at the Panacea Museum in Bedford and run until early or mid-August.

I got hold of a copy of the brief in November 2016 and I've changed direction so many times since then! Women and identity are such broad themes that it's been really hard to nail down one idea that I could make into a piece of artwork.

Initially I wanted to show that many of the creative women I know and who taught me wouldn't consider themselves to be artists at all. Instead, they were sewing, crocheting, making-do-and-mending and all the time supporting one another with a good natter, tea and cake. I had an idea that I'd make a fabric collage expressing these ideas and using these techniques. Here are some examples of the fabric 'patches' I made:

I started working on a new project that will hopefully be in an exhibition later this year. The theme is about women and art, so I needle-felted tea and cake. It'll make sense later on, honest. #needlefelting #cake #wool #tea #needlefelt #textileart #fiberart

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Experimenting with sewing over my writing. #sewing #embroidery #textileart #fiberart

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I've been #needlefelting this evening.

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This was interesting, but it didn't feel right. It felt like an extension of the Weaving Narratives project I did last year. I was ready to move on and try something new.

I'd been practicing my drawing for six months or so, and I wanted to so something with what I'd learned. But I also wanted to use strong colours, so that would mean I'd need to go beyond just the pencil and fine-liner I'd been using up until then.

The trouble was that I hadn't painted anything since I was at school, so that would be another learning curve. Good fun, but had I bitten off more than I could reasonably chew before the deadline? Here are a couple of my experiments with pastels and acrylics. (Oil pastels because I love the bright colours and I happened to have a pack lying around. Acrylics because Mr Google said it was the easiest way to get started with painting - and again, I love the bright colours).

I'm not sure I can #needlefelt a big version of the photo posted before this one so I've been practicing with oil pastels to see if they might be a possibility instead. Much easier on the hand and elbow so far! 😀 #oilpastels

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Experimenting with faces again, this time acrylic paint and fineliner. #acrylicpainting #face #fineliner

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So I was learning loads but still not much closer to what to make for the Woman exhibition.

I looked to female artists for inspiration and although - again - I learned loads, none of it was close to the way I felt about my identity as a woman. In many ways that was a good thing because so much of women's art seemed to be about oppression and suffering. I totally understand why women have felt the need to express themselves in this way and I feel very fortunate that I don't need to. I'm not especially political, either. I admire women who are, but it's not me. So what was I going to do?

Watch out for the next post and I'll let you know...