Subversive Stitches

detail from: The Living Earth: Healing Dark/Nuclear Light, Flip Doll, Soft sculpture, sculptural needle felted and mixed media, 45 x 19 x 12, Nuclear Light side. 2020

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Hello and thank you to my readers...
​I have to be honest. It has been tough in the last few months to get to words. My communications have been mostly visual, through making dolls in my studio and working into my intuitive journals. Both of these practices always help me to process difficult feelings and emotions. But lately, words have been coming to the surface and in this blog post, I share some recent thoughts. And I am grateful that you are reading what I write here. Because of course, art-making is a conversation. It doesn't really feel like I am fully expressing myself if there is no conversation with my viewers, my audience I guess you can call it. I will try to write again soon,  but I am not promising anything. But I do promise that I will try. 

Using the "Domestic Arts" as a Tool of Subversion
I remember watching a 2014 Spanish movie, "The Time In Between," that tells of a dressmaker who by stitching morse code into dresses, and selling them as high couture to Nazi wives, manages to covertly communicate messages to the British. She has to work closely with and spend time with people who she despises and whose values she abhors. Yet in her way,  she is able to help save some lives and this makes a difference. Later I discovered that in other parts of Europe, women used knitting as a means of covert communication, using the knit and purl language of knitting to spell out morse code and send messages beyond enemy lines. Apparently they would sit on railway platforms knitting. They would knit morse code symbols into their knitting, thereby communicating with passing soldiers or others who were helped by their messages. These stories may be apocryphal but there is a power in them. Who would ever suspect women who are engaging in the "lowly" domestic arts to be working as spies? 

A pattern of those who are oppressed being able to use their invisibility as a means of subversive communication
How often do/did those who are oppressed find ways to communicate and make statements that would be understood by others within their group, in a way that was invisible to their oppressors? And why didn't these oppressors see what was happening in plain (yet hidden) sight? Is it that they don’t value those who they perceive as “under” them, don’t see them as intelligent. Or is it that they don’t understand the context, history, meaning of the messages being communicated? Probably it is some of each. This kind of subversive communication can happen on a variety of levels, from the less risky to a life-threatening level of risk. I am in awe of those who were courageous enough to take part in these forms of resistance. 

Subversive stitching in ancient Greek history...(graphic content warning for this paragraph)
In Ovid's Metamorphosis, the story of Philomena is told. She is abducted and raped by her sister's husband. After this abuse he tears out her tongue so that she cannot communicate what has been done to her. But she finds a way.  She stitches her story into a tapestry and tell the story of her violation, even though she isn't able to speak. What courage and resourcefulness this must have taken. Below is an image of her story. In my Mother, Maiden, Crone, Death class, we spoke of Philomena's story an example of one of the many ways in which women were forced to submit, were repressed and worse. The aim in retelling these stories was to bring them to light and to transform them into stories of courage and strength. 

"The Rape of Philomela by Tereus", book 6, plate 59. Engraved by Johann Wilhelm Baur for a 1703 edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses

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Fictional Examples of using Cronehood as a form of Subversion
Moving from the graphic to the pastoral, I love heroines such as Jane Marple in Agatha Christie's mystery series, who lives in the tiny English village of St. Mary Mead, where on the surface, nothing much happens and all is calm. To all appearances Ms. Marple is an innocuous kindly old woman, harmless and invisible. And yet, she is able to harness that invisibility to dig under the picture-perfect surface of her small town, to reveal the evil underneath. Kindly and hidden in the background, she manages to outwit the perpetrators of crimes. They would never imagine that this smiling woman, knitting or gossiping with other villagers, would be clever enough to discover their crimes.  

These examples are heartening to me in these times of confusion and chaos (especially, living as I do in the heart of Washington DC.) It is so easy to feel powerless (and I am outing my political leanings here, can't help it) in the current climate of bumbling, "bull in a china shop" patriarchy that we find ourselves in. It gives me some clues as to what we as women, as crones, as makers who use fabric, stitching, knitting needles, can do. We can speak out in our art, in a dramatic way, following the lead of artists such as Jenny Holzer or Judy Chicago. Or, just by quietly expressing what is deep in our hearts, we can serve as a conduit for what others might struggle to express. Our work can be a quiet witness or a forceful beacon of hope. 

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Subversive messaging in Doll making
The image at the top of this post is a detail from a flip doll, The Living Earth: Healing Dark/Nuclear Light,  that I made a while back.  In this doll, I tried to work through my feelings of despair about the state of the earth.  In the detail above, if you look closely, you can see the lone polar bear on her shrinking ice floe. You can see burning and decimated forests and overheated oceans. However, it can also be read as aesthetically pleasing patterns and colors. It takes looking closely to see the message being conveyed. To see more about this doll, click on the image above. This side of the doll, the light side, or "Nuclear Light" depicts the damage that overheating and too much light can do to our earth. On the flip side of the doll, one can see the benevolent effects of "Healing Darkness." 

Messages in some of my most recent dolls:
All my dolls tell stories. It's just that sometimes I don't know the stories yet. In the above images, you can see a smaller doll, "Coco," made of cloth over a stick armature. Her story is below. 

"Coco" wears simple clothes and a necklace of skulls. 
She can appear scary if you don’t know her, but
If you know her, you understand that she is 
Fierce and loyal. A protective spirit, she will guard 
the edges of your life, the places where your fears 
call to you and she will bring you the courage
that comes from ancient wisdom. 

When I first made the doll, (see image on the left) I considered leaving her without a head. But after consideration, the doll let me know that she wanted a head. She also holds a small basket which could contain additional messages and secret surprises. 

"Wild Spirit/Fox Woman"
The message of this recent doll taps into a fierce and wild life-force as well as the ability of women to shape-shift throughout their lives.  
Here is her story:

The "Wild Spirit Fox/Woman" will not
Ever let go of her fierce love and
Her passionate belief in being alive. 
She harnesses the wildness of the 
Fox in the service of helping you to live
A life full of passion, creativity and  
Magic!

​My dolls speak to me in a subtle, you could say subversive way. I usually don't know what they will be about once I start to make them. I enjoy allowing them to speak to me, and hopefully to the viewer, using their own language and metaphor. Sometimes it can take me a long time, a year or even longer to truly hear their messages. I am grateful that they have allowed me to share some of their stories here with you. And I am so greatful to be able to have this way to express what is inside. It is a true balm for me and my wish is that in reading about them and hearing their stories, you can receive this balm as well. At least that is my hope. Thanks for reading. 

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