This work was presented in the exhibition “courage within WOMEN without shelter” at the Monterey Museum of Art. This exhibition was the culmination of a long-term social action project working with over 50 local women without shelter. The project was designed to use the transformative power of art to reach this vulnerable population and to bring more attention to this issue in my Monterey Bay, California community.
I created this body of work in response to my journey meeting and working with these formidable women. I chose to focus my work on the immense physical labor at the core of women without shelter’s daily experience and existence. I also explore the difficulty these women face in maintaining their identities and sense of self, and the central role belongings, their things, play in reinforcing these.
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
“Unheld” is composed of over 500 etchings of socks. The printed socks are hung using tent thread, suspended from a rebar grid, held in place with a bobby pin and anchored to the ground with scotch tape. They sway in place, precariously suspended, much like these women’s lives. The prints are fragile in appearance, yet the thin paper is exceptionally strong.
Each “sock” represents one of the over 500 women without shelter living on the Monterey Peninsula. Purposeful use of materials is central to all of my work. In this case, I chose to use everyday materials to speak to the women’s reality of making do with what they have. Thread used for mending tents that are invariably damaged, bobby pins to speak to the women’s desire to hold on to their femininity and the importance of appearance on identity, Scotch tape, for what it takes to literally and figurative hold a life together on the streets. The use of industrial construction materials (rebar hanging structure) speaks to the structural insufficiencies and gaps in support available to unaccompanied women without shelter.
The women’s lives are in constant motion, walking day in and day out, and never quite at rest. The importance of a simple item such as comfortable socks is undeniable. Worn and threadbare, socks become a material manifestation of the wear and tear this way of life imposes on the body. I used socks to represent each woman because they are the most requested item at the local women’s day shelter, as well as at shelters nation wide. Socks also fit in with my greater interest in clothing as a vehicle for both maintaining our identity and projecting it onto the world.
Central to “Unheld” and “Burdens” (concrete sculpture seen in background of image) is the immense physical labor at the core of women without shelter’s daily experience and existence. I chose to work with laborious, heavy, repetitive processes in order to impose this labor on my own body through the course of creation. Soft ground etching is by nature a slow process and it took many full days of repeating the same steps over and over again to print the full editions, creating a connection with the women’s exhausting daily routines.
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022
500+ copper etchings on mulberry paper, tent thread, bobby pins, rebar, Scotch tape
8x17x7 ft. (HxWxD)
2022