To dovetail with Lindsay Arnold’s feminist exhibit at the Humboldt and District Gallery, she organized a workshop that included a talk on female artists and an art project for the gallery’s first Women’s Art Night.
“We knew Lindsay’s art had a lot of feminist overtones, and played a lot with the idea of femininity and what women were, so we thought, ‘What better way to explore that a little more in the community than have a women’s art night?’” said organizer Jean Price.
Arnold began with a slideshow of female artists, none of whom were familiar to attendees until she got closer to the present with Frida Kahlo and Emily Carr.
“Does anyone know who this is?” she asked at one point. When everyone remained silent, she added, “Of course not, it’s a female artist!”
She emphasized ways in which being an artist was more difficult for the women than for men. One painting she showed was a self-portrait of a woman smiling and holding a baby. Arnold said the painting was a bit scandalous for the day, and asked attendees if they could figure out why. It turns out that it was controversial to be portrayed smiling with your teeth showing.
“To us now, it seems silly to think a woman would be scorned for painting herself with her teeth showing, but we realize just what kind of things are we doing these days where 200 years from now, people will think is very silly?” Arnold said. “It’s important to step out of the box and not be afraid to step out of the box.”
She began the workshop with a quote from Virginia Woolf: “A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life.” Arnold emphasized the importance of being real and – as implicitly stated in her exhibit, Garden Immaculate – to not strive for an unsustainable perfection.
“I really like the idea of women to be empowered to tell the truth about their lives,” she said. “I think the more you speak out about something that is true for you, even though you think you may be the only person going through it, you speak out and say ‘This is how I think’ or ‘This is how I feel.’ It gives other people the courage to do the same thing.”
Garden Immaculate was based on women’s advertising from the past, so the art project Arnold chose used those advertisements. Women at the workshop took the picture of their choice, put it facedown on a plate, dabbed it with acetone, and lifted the paper to reveal the image transferred onto the plate – harder than it seems.
“Sometimes when you throw a technique that maybe seems a little scary or you’re not going to get a perfect result first time every time, people are not sure what to do with that,” Arnold said. “I really like that after people had a chance to try it and one person had a success and that boosts everybody else’s confidence and they’re willing to kind of go with the flow. I enjoyed it.”
Price said that if the gallery gets another exhibit that fits the theme, there will be another women’s art night, though there aren’t any concrete plans right now.
“Obviously women aren’t our only constituents so we don’t want to limit it too much, but it is nice for women to have this space to have a chat and do a project together,” she said.
