“Women's Work: From Feminine Arts to Feminist Art” with Ferren Gipson
AWITA Online Book Club
By Anya Nikolaeva
Ferren is the author of The Ultimate Art Museum and Women’s Work, hosts the Art Matters podcast, and is a doctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London.
Ferren is a researcher and advocate for art education. Her research areas include modern Chinese art history and topics exploring the crossover between pop culture and art. Ferren has worked in the art and design sector since 2009, giving talks with wonderful brands and institutions including Tate and Esquire Magazine, and writing for The Financial Times and WePresent.
Introduction
Ferren Gibson started this book club session from highlighting what an exciting time it is for women artists right now. Considering how difficult it has always been for textile artists to get their work to be taken seriously, they are finally gaining the well-deserved recognition now.
In the research for her book that focuses specifically on women artists working with mediums of textile and ceramics, she foud that many are surprised that artists gain recognition for making art in those mediums, and almost ‘getting away with doing it’. She is hoping to illuminate the new narrative that has emerged and shed light on these wonderful women artists who have often been overlooked by the traditional art history and art market.
“In writing this book it was very important for me to look at different perspectives in terms of cultural background, identities, approaches and subject matter in their work, and really just the diverse view of the artist working in that space.”
Ferren refers to the book itself as being almost “like a quilt” in itself, as it shows “a cross section of this field”. She explores cultural examples where women would do textile and ceramics works, however, wouldn’t be taken seriously in the fine art capacity. This separation between craft and fine art, which compares the functional object with the objects of beauty, has been informing our understanding of arts for quite some time. However, more and more artists are now taking up these mediums and engaging with topics relating to womanhood, femininity, and many other. She highlights a quote from one of the artists in the book:
“For thousands of years weaving, ceramics, sewing were believed to be what untutored women made with our hands, but that was out art.” (Miryam Shapiro)
The increased use and recognition of these mediums is a very powerful way to engage with issues of womanhood.
Artist Spotlight: Mrinalini Mukherjee
Ferren then continued to explore an artist Mrinalini Mukherjee in detail. She was an Indian artist at the time when India just gained independence from Britain. it was a very interesting period in Indian society, asking questions like ‘what does modern India look like?’, ‘what does modern Indian art look like?’, ‘how do we express ourselves?’ & ‘how do we do that in a distinctly Indian way?’
All of this led Mrinalini to tap into Indian traditions and materials, with some experimentation in non-traditional materials too.
Her works were very sculptural from the beginning, starting form wall-based pieces that gradually came off the walls and became freestanding sculptures, often quite large-scale. That is what often happens with artists who are working with weaving, they always ask the question of ‘how can I pull this away from the wall?’.
Over time, her works became more figurative, they started including religious imagery with a distinctly Indian iconography. Even though she did not depict real religious figures, the figures had a thoroughly religious-esque outlook.
At one point in her career, her access to her usual material became very limited and she started working with ceramics. At one point she even went to Britain, where she had access to a bigger kiln, hence, allowing her to make larger works.
Hence becoming prominent in both mediums, clay and textiles, showcasing a great investigation of the relationship between the two.
Discussion
The discussion started off with the recognising how unapologetic the works are. They have a great, stealthy power that is not as poignant in other mediums.
Ferren emphasised that there are many artists who have come to their practice through relationships with their mothers or other family members. She ‘actually learnt to quilt while writing this book’ which allowed her to engage with these works on a new level, to understand these women and processes better. One of the first examples of quilts were created by Gee’s Bend which illuminate the beauty and heartbreak of how and why the quilts were initially created.
The discussion wrapped up by discussing the list of artists from the book and how some of them people would not immediately associate with the mediums of textile and ceramics. Attendees discussed the way we should go around grouping these artists together. Ferren shared that the connections she found between the artists have come as a surprise even to her, seeing as she initially started her investigation as a sole interest in the mediums and what the individual stories of the artists are, without necessarily trying to create a thread initially.
Ferren’s book “Women's Work: From Feminine Arts to Feminist Art.” (2022, Frances Lincoln) is available in Waterstones and on Amazon.