A WOMAN'S PLACE?

TREES HOUSE Photo-Etching on Zinc, 2013

"Home is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse." George Bernard Shaw 1903

A WOMAN'S PLACE?

A few months ago I was invited to take part in Espacio Gallery's exhibition Time=Change, a show designed to mark Women's History month. I decided to use the opportunity to explore contemporary relationships to the home. Home as the antithesis of World is in it's nature a predictable place, inhabited by the timid, the self-sacrificing, the weak, the 'feminine'. Conversely the World is unpredictable, it's big, it's wide, inhabited by the fearless, the 'masculine', the wise. Yet I keep encountering people, both men and women, who have an intense connection to Home, whether they see it as a physical place or something they carry within themselves. It seems to me that it's time to challenge these fundamentally sexist associations! So I devised a questionnaire:

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1. What does the word home mean to you?
2.What are your earliest memories of home? 
3.What do you find in your home that is unique?
4. Are you ever not 'at home' in your own home?
5. If you were to build a home where would it be, what materials would you use and why?

“Perhaps home is not 
a place but simply an 
irrevocable condition?”
            James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

The questionnaire was filled in by both men and women. Some experience Home as invaded by modern technology to a point when they find themselves struggling for privacy (or indeed permission to be private). Others find themselves overwhelmed by stuff - the chaotic, ever-growing piles of possessions that must be maintained, organised and stored. 
On the whole these people feel better outside! By far the majority, however, see Home as central to their well-being. The idea of Home as a place to re-balance and renew comes up repeatedly.

CAN'T GET DISCONNECTED Photo-Etching on Zinc 14mmx16mm, 2014

Most striking is the fact that almost everyone who filled in the form associates home with nature. Being 'at home' next to water, or in a forest, or on paths under open skies. One person wrote that if they could build a home it must have three views, one of mountains, another of a forest, the third of a city. The work I am doing in response to A WOMAN'S PLACE?  is coming along. I have made several etchings and I am also working in oils. It's been a while since I used this medium. I am absolutely loving combining thin, coloured glazes with thick, impasto paint strokes. Some canvases have reached a point where I feel they are in charge of what to do next. Times like these, I feel very much at home!

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