How do I continue to evolve my art practice and address issues that affect women? I’ve explored misogyny, violence against women, depression and discrimination in the medical profession in my second year and I now turn to the Menopause and the way it is experienced, perceived and how antiquated views can be. There are plenty of positives but they are not always shared. What does it mean to be an older-women, she/her, in 2022? To what extent does Misogyny also play out in this post-menopausal theme and how may this flow into my Dominic Raab work? Let me outline where my focus will be for this semester.

There are four strands to my art practice this academic year:
1. Continuation of ‘The Education of Dominic Raab’ from second year which will take the form of 5 interventions (art pieces) sent to DR with a letter. I’ll also send letters to other folk. These are likely quicker pieces so will need to be planned out in advance.
2. Extraordinary Women (it may not end up being called this, I started with ‘Women Like Me’ but it seemed a bit arrogant as I don’t mean women that look like me which is how it possibly would be interrupted) – continuing my exploration of issues that affect women in the context of Misogyny, now turning to the menopause. It is something that I have direct experience of and not too many artists have represented it. During the summer I read ‘In Defense of Witches’ (Chollet, 2022) if I had lived during the witch-hunts I would have been burned as a witch 4 times over:
I have a mole on my face (sure sign of a witch); I’m happy to express my point of view; I’m post-menopausal aka old and I have scars on my belly (witch pickers always look out for these). Prejudice against older women continues unabated just in other forms e.g., in the medical profession (Jackson, 2019)
3. Design for Living: The Domestic Object which will be annotated in another Reflective Journal however it is worth noting that violence against women will be the subtext to the development of this work – domestic violence happens in the home and often domestic objects are used to perpetrate the crime.
4. Mokulito. Japanese Lithography – Let’s call this my side line. I took a course for this print process in the summer and I really enjoyed it and the outcome. I want to explore more so I’ve signed up for a course with DCA from the end of October for 4 weeks. I’m treating this as a developmental part of my practice as initially the outcomes will be patterned/abstract based rather than developed on a specific theme. It may emerge to support my wider practice but there is something about doing something for fun i.e., to play that is a release from the seriousness of my main practice.

Interpretation – Using the work of others to illuminate – What is important, relevant, interesting, useful? How is it similar to or different from others? How can it be explored, explained using contemporary theories? Outcome – What have I learnt from this?

Extraordinary Women
Extract from Year 2 ,Semester 2, Reflective Journal – to add context The seed was sewn before and immediately after my surgery in April 2022. It is worth noting that with all my work I am incubating ideas well in advance of the practical execution of the art. It comes from a key strength of mine, to approach life strategically (you can take the girl out of corporate but you can’t take corporate out of the girl! LOL

Interpretation – Using the work of others to illuminate & influence future work – What is important, relevant, interesting, useful? How is it similar to or different from others? How can it be explored, explained using contemporary theories?

I went to the Cooper Gallery on Tuesday to see the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2021, Exhibition to kick start my re-emergence into the creative world, to think about how I would present a piece if I was submitting it to the competition myself. In light of my recent surgery, I was drawn to these medical pieces. The lightening was not the best for photography but here we see work by Euen Gray, Fourteen Expressions of Pain or Partner with Tethered Spinal Cord Syndrome, 2020 with one close up. Pencil on Coloured Paper. What I like about this work it is not your typical fare. You do not often see such graphic images of pain in real people.

The next image is by Frances Aviva Blane, which is very different stylistically. It’s a Portrait 2021 in Acrylic, Charcoal and Fabriano. There’s a sort of madness about this portrait, I get a sense of being unsettled, unhappy. The style of drawing is very different, one precise the other not. It would be interesting, to try different styles with the same image so I have decided to take the image of me pre surgery, as seen in my week 20 write up, and to develop the concept over the summer. Who knows I might even enter the competition next year J They may also provide some base designs for further screen printing and a poster?

A few other thoughts for the week. On Sunday night I went to see Moonage Daydream (Moonage Daydream, 2022) the Biopic about David Bowie. It had a profound impact on me, so much so that I went to see it gain on Wednesday evening (I’ve never done that before). I was in a weird place at the back end of the summer my mental health has not been great and I’ve been in a fug. The film seemed to jolt me out of lethargy and helped me to focus on what’s important.

Finally, and linked to my DB reflections, I am currently reading Hagitude (Blackie, 2022) a book about reimagining the second half of life (more on that in 2023) and in it I found this reference to a poem called ‘I will Not Die an Unlived Life’ by Dawna Markova (Markova, 2000):