University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Spring 2014
Hey! Hey! What ever happened to the garden?
Rachel Lynn Livedalen
University of Iowa
Copyright 2014 Rachel Livedalen
This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4680
Recommended Citation
Livedalen, Rachel Lynn. "Hey! Hey! What ever happened to the garden?." MFA (Master of Fine Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, 2014.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4680.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the Art Practice Commons
HEY! HEY! WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE GARDEN?
by
Rachel Lynn Livedalen
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Master of
Fine Arts degree in Art
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2014
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Anita Jung
Copyright by
RACHEL LYNN LIVEDALEN
2014
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________
MASTER'S THESIS
_______________
This is to certify that the Master's thesis of
Rachel Lynn Livedalen
has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Master of Fine Arts
degree in Art at the May 2014 graduation.
Thesis Committee: ___________________________________
Anita Jung, Thesis Supervisor
___________________________________
Robert Glasgow
___________________________________
Sarah Kanouse
__________________________________
James Snitzer
To Tim.
ii
Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
Spice Girls
Wannabe
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................v
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................1
CHAPTER
1.
SOCIOLOGICAL HAUNTING .......................................................................2
2.
OTHERS, ARTISTS.........................................................................................6
3.
MYTHOLOGIES AND SYMBOLS ................................................................7
4.
MONUMENTS TO THE EVER VIRGIN .....................................................15
Virgin Mary Blue ............................................................................................15
Mary As Virgin ...............................................................................................16
Presence and Absence, Then And Now ..........................................................17
Collections, Taxonomies, Repetition, and Multiples......................................18
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................40
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
1.
Untitled, photolithograph and intaglio, 19” x 23”, 2013 ............................................3
2.
She Was A Collector, intaglio, 9” x 12”, 2013 ...........................................................4
3.
They Were Sisters and Spinsters, intaglio, 6” x 4.5”, 2013 ........................................5
4.
Make Do and Mend III, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013 ..............................9
5.
Make Do and Mend IV, archival pigment print, 30” x 20”, 2013 .............................10
6.
Make Do and Mend V, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013 ..............................11
7.
Make Do and Mend IX, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013 .............................12
8.
Make Do and Mend XI, archival pigment print, 30” x 20”, 2013 .............................13
9.
Behold, A Most Spectacular Spectre, performance with knit garment and
sound, 2013 ...............................................................................................................14
10.
Virgin Mary Blue Volume I, artist book, 7” x 5.5” x 1.25”, 2013 ............................20
11.
Virgin Mary Blue Volume II, artist book, 7” x 5.5” x 1”, 2013 ................................21
12.
Virgin Mary Blue Volume III, artist book, 7” x 5.5” x 1”, 2013 ...............................22
13.
Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014 ...........................................23
14.
Reverence At Rest, wallpaper adhered to laser cut board, wood, yarn, 75” x
90” x 20”, 2014 .........................................................................................................24
15.
Reverence At Rest (detail), 2014 ...............................................................................25
16.
Revere, screenprint on canvas, hoop earrings, 72” x 150”, 2014 .............................26
17.
Revere (detail), 2014 .................................................................................................27
18.
Crusades, lasercut plexi-glass, rope light, 48” x 24” x 24”, 2014, Wholesome
Girls Club, silkscreen, 34” x 23”, 2014 ....................................................................28
19.
Announcing the Annunciation, digitally designed and printed wallpaper
adhered to boards, wood, rope light, 84” x 72” x 10”, 2014 ....................................29
20.
Announcing the Annunciation (detail of wallpaper), 2014 .......................................30
21.
Not Sorry, plasma cut steel, 8” x 47”, 2014, The Fall of Eve, digitally
designed and printed canvas, acrylic paint, 58” x 36”, 2014 ....................................31
v
22.
Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view from outside of Art Building
West, 2014 ................................................................................................................32
23.
Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014 ...........................................33
24.
Monument to the Ever Virgin, digital print adhered to cardboard, 96” x 8” x
8”, 2013.....................................................................................................................34
25.
That Episode in Season 6 When Carrie Finds Her Necklace, digitally
designed and printed wallpaper adhered to boards, wood, clothesline, rope
light, 84” x 72” x 24”, 2014 ......................................................................................35
26.
That Episode in Season 6 When Carrie Finds Her Necklace (detail), 2014 ............36
27.
A Search for Virgin Mary Blue, wax, wood, 15” x 96” x 96”, 2014 ........................37
28.
A Search for Virgin Mary Blue (detail), 2014 ..........................................................38
29.
Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014 ...........................................39
vi
1 INTRODUCTION
Femininity, in its normative socially driven state, is not a natural trait but a ghost
that bears its past incarnations. I am interested in gender as a haunting social apparatus.
Gender roles and representations have shifted throughout history yet remain firmly
attached to their antecedents. My creative research focuses on femininity as set forth in
religion, social practices, and cultural phenomena and how these forces intersect at the
present moment to create a complicated relationship of gender identity and expectations.
2 CHAPTER 1
SOCIOLOGICAL HAUNTING
Gender roles are in a constant state of flux. Gendered identities, interactions, and
expectations are different from that of twenty-five years ago, and they continue to shift.
However, as western culture moves towards gender equality, there still linger ideas from
past years, decades, even centuries regarding gender within contemporary culture and
society. Some of these notions are easily spotted and addressed, while others are subtle
and not usually considered. Thus, culturally constructed and reinforced ideas
surrounding gender haunt our current relationship to our individual gender identity and
that of others. The concept of haunting can be applied to many aspects of our present
socio-cultural condition; however, it is most effective as an exploration of power
structures. Sociologist Avery Gordon describes haunting as:
“one way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known and their
impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done
with… or when their oppressive nature is denied… (Haunting) is an animated
state in which a repressed or unresolved social violence is making itself known,
sometimes very directly, sometimes more obliquely… (It) alters the experience of
being in time, the way we separate the past, the present, and the future.”1
My creative work seeks to embody the haunted nature of femininity and gender
identity, expectations, and familial roles. Often, I construct a hyperbolic femininity
through repetition, handicraft, and intricate detail. This self-constructed, overtly feminine
environment allows me to critique aspects of normative femininity, as well as social and
familial roles, that remain troublesome within a larger western power structure.
The found image, or found trope, is also an important aspect of my work. Often,
images and iconography are chosen because they exemplify a characteristic of
sociological haunting that I, as an artist, visually amplify. Through printmaking, I am
able to reproduce a particular image as well as incorporate additional visual language
1 Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota, 2008. XVI. 3 cues, to create a larger dialogue surrounding the original image. In the spring of 2013, I
created a small series of photographic prints that feature such a combination of marks.
Figures 1 – 3 feature Victorian era photographic imagery documenting women with long
hair. The shrouded female figure – the figure turned mound - is a reoccurring trope
within my graduate work. These photographs not only depict this action, but were
originally taken to document the feminine achievement of long hair growth. The hair
functions here as a feminine trophy, a celebrated hyper-femininity.
Figure 1. Untitled, photolithograph and intaglio, 19” x 23”, 2013
Figure 2. She Was A Collector, intaglio, 9” x 12”, 2013
4 Figure 3. They Were Sisters and Spinsters, intaglio, 6” x 4.5”, 2013
5 6 CHAPTER 2
OTHERS, ARTISTS
Feminist art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau applies Gordon’s idea of
sociological haunting to the work of Carrie Mae Weems in her essay “Taunting and
Haunting: Critical Tactics in a ‘Minor’ Mode.” In this essay, Solomon-Godeau defines
haunting as “the conjuring of historical absences and silences.”2 Arguing how Weems
employs both taunting and haunting in her photographic works, Solomon-Godeau
analyzes how racial and gender identities are discussed in a contemporary sense through
the lens of historical representations and associations. Additional artists who apply
tactics of taunting and haunting include Ellen Gallagher, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson,
Kara Walker, William Pope L, and Rashid Johnson. I find both creative and critical
inspiration from these artists of color.
Time and time again, I identify with work centered on racial identity, especially
that which overlaps racial and gender identity as present in the work of many of the
artists listed above. I am a woman and I am white. Yet, in my work I seek to exemplify
the same attitude that is present in the work of these artists, an attitude that is missing
from most contemporary feminist art. Walker, Pope L, Gallagher, and others taunt the
viewer through the use of carefully chosen and historically loaded symbols, without
being politically didactic. There is a critical space in the work that allows for a larger
conversation regarding history, race, gender, and contemporary culture. Subtle sociocultural areas of difference are brought to light, and contemporary silences are
illuminated through historical absence.
I seek to discuss gender in the same manner these artists discuss race.
2 Solomon-Godeau,
Abigail. “Taunting and Haunting: Critical Tactics in a “Minor” Mode.” Women Artists
at the Millennium. Ed. Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zagher. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. 373. 7 CHAPTER 3
MYTHOLOGIES AND SYMBOLS
My MA exhibition in 2013 was titled A Most Spectacular Spectre and featured a
performative hand knit garment that enshrouded my body. I documented its growth by
photographing myself wearing the garment at different stages in its making. These
photographs (Figs. 4-8) were titled Make Do and Mend I – XI and took place in both
domestic and natural settings. What emerged from these works was an assortment of
cultural mythologies and metaphors, some dichotomous in nature. The garment was
virginal veil and death shroud. I was both goddess and caged being. The shrouded
female form was pregnant with cultural associations, and these concepts linked to the
haunted nature of Femininity and its history.
It was unclear whether this garment was a form of entrapment or protection.
When wearing the piece, my individual identity was erased, and I became defined by my
physical appearance and gender. Also, as the garment grew in size my mobility
underneath it became limited. I was fixed to a particular spot. During the exhibition I
wore the garment for specific periods of time in the gallery (Fig. 9). There was also a
sound piece that was wired through the skirt of the garment. The sound piece featured
interwoven excerpts from etiquette guides written during different time periods from the
Victorian era to present day. The sound was played at a low volume, requiring gallery
viewers to kneel or lie on the knit garment and press their ears to the speakers. This
action resulted in connotations of maternity and worship.
Mythologies, narratives and associations arising from historical or fictitious
sources that make their way into common knowledge and/or culture, affect our identities
and how we relate to our environment and others. Mythologies and metaphors
surrounding femininity, girlhood, and womanhood are at the core of my creative
research. These ideas are present in my MA creative work, as well as my larger studio
practice. Overall, I am interested in how new symbols and connotations are created
8 through time, while others have staying power and reoccur throughout history, or even
those that never disappear from the cultural consciousness.
Social, familial, and gender norms are constantly changing, and therefore so are
the symbols and iconographies that represent them. Images of 1950s homemaking are
now kitsch and distant. There are new symbols and narratives for contemporary female
familial roles. Other symbols and tropes become culturally resurrected, and alternate
between emblems of power and oppression. Additionally, there are new markers for
contemporary sexuality and social etiquette, so what about the symbols and narratives
that we can’t shake off? How can an alternative dialogue be constructed around
something as primal as, say, the maternal body?
During my MA exhibition, as I wore the knit garment and people knelt by my
feet, comforted by a soft handcrafted object, I felt a particular type of power. Viewers
took a common worship pose in their interactions with me, yet I was veiled, obscured,
distanced. My thoughts drifted to female religious figures, their cultural representations,
and the roles they occupy- or have occupied. Ideal Christian womanhood is a trait that
has been historically celebrated for the past two millennia, yet differs significantly from
the womanhood embodied by Greco-Roman female Goddesses. As Christianity shaped
Western society and culture, it has also impacted familial and gendered roles and
expectations. Likewise, there is not a more complicated history of cultural representation
and accompanying hurdles for contemporary femininity and feminism than The Virgin
Mary.
Figure 4. Make Do and Mend III, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013
9 Figure 5. Make Do and Mend IV, archival pigment print, 30” x 20”, 2013
10 Figure 6. Make Do and Mend V, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013
11 12 Figure 7. Make Do and Mend IX, archival pigment print, 20” x 30”, 2013
Figure 8. Make Do and Mend XI, archival pigment print, 30” x 20”, 2013
13 14 Figure 9. Behold, A Most Spectacular Spectre, performance with knit garment and sound,
2013
15 CHAPTER 4
MONUMENTS TO THE EVER VIRGIN
Virgin Mary Blue
Virgin Mary Blue. A characteristic representation of the Virgin Mary that runs
the gamut from Renaissance painting to kitsch figurine from a flea market. But, there are
truths here - cultural mythologies turned truths. The Holy Virgin is to be reverenced, she
is divine, she is Queen of Heaven, she is holy mother of God, and she is cloaked in blue.
The later defines the former.
Porcelain Blue. A characteristic domestic, decorative motif that runs the gamut
from antique Chinese vases to teacups from Macys. But, again, there are truths here cultural mythologies turned truths. These porcelain pieces are to be reverenced, they are
beautiful, they contain, they are vessels, they are exquisite, and they are blue. The later
defines the former.
Light blue. Cobalt blue. Navy blue. Persian blue. Any blue.
These objects and this personage share a history of cultural representation. Their
popularities spread and their motifs became ingrained in the cultural consciousness.
They also share a functionality; they are vessels. The blue and white porcelain pieces are
vessels for various materials. The Virgin Mary, on the other hand, is the Holy Vessel for
Jesus Christ.
Throughout my exhibition there are a number of pieces that explore iconography
of the Virgin Mary and that of blue and white porcelain vessels. By combining these
representations, I am constructing a relationship between the two. Both symbols are
turned into taxonomies through the amassing of like images. Likewise, each marker, the
vessel and the Virgin, become a stand in for one another through this relationship.
16 Mary As Virgin
In her book Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary,
Marina Warner discusses the disparity between the limited number of references to the
Virgin Mary found within the Gospels of the New Testament and the abundance of
cultural images and narratives depicting and defining her role. Warner also discusses
how social and historical circumstances have shaped the shifting portrayal of Mary, and
how these interpretations have led to subsequent problems in female agency. In her
analysis of the Gospels and church doctrine, Warner describes, “the virgin birth as the
essential sign of godhead and virginity itself as the essential sign of goodness.”3 The
Virgin Mary is celebrated as Holy due to her status as Virgin. These ideas of pure
womanhood are then transferred onto successive generations of Christian women as the
ideal. Throughout history we encounter image after image depicting this idealized
womanhood. Representations of the maternal figure, of the pure virgin, and of the chaste
woman still hold a significant position within contemporary culture as signifiers of proper
femininity.
The cultural representations of the Virgin Mary throughout history and not the
Biblical narrative are the focus of this work. The debate over her virginity – the virgin
birth, the ever virgin, the perpetual virgin – has a deep history within church doctrine and
popular belief. It is not Mary who is significant but her virginity, her purity, her paradox
position of both virgin and mother as ideal. These associations of propriety and ideal
womanhood present an obstacle for contemporary feminism. While female sexuality is
celebrated in popular culture, her symbol still lingers and haunts the forward progression
of femininity, girlhood, and womanhood.
3 Warner, Marina. Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Vintage,
1983. 24. 17 Presence and Absence, Then And Now
In order to discuss Mary as the absence of sex, I have presented contemporary
symbols of female sexuality as markers of the presence of sex, or sexuality. Revere (Fig.
16) features a tiled screenprint on canvas with over 150 gold hoop earrings. These hoop
earrings connote a female sexuality or promiscuity, yet they are adornments that can be
put on or taken off. They lend their connotation to the wearer without defining the
wearer. Additionally, The Fall of Eve (Fig. 21) features a digitally designed fabric
featuring imagery of Eve from Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 1528 oil painting Adam and
Eve. On top of this fabric is painted “You A You A Stupid Hoe,” a line from Nicki
Manaj’s 2012 song Stupid Hoe. This derogatory text speaks to the cultural
representations of Eve (and ramifications towards representations of women) in relation
to her role and misconduct within the Judeo-Christian creation story. Additionally, as
Mary is viewed throughout various church doctrines as the second Eve, the sexualized
Eve is situated in opposition to the Virgin Mary.
Materials chosen for these works include digitally designed and printed
wallpaper, digitally designed and printed fabric, jewelry, rope lights, plasma cut steal,
laser cut wood and laser cut plexi-glass. These materials were chosen due to their
contemporary nature within the world of art and art production. I start the conversation
by analyzing historical representations of the Virgin Mary, but I direct the conversation
towards a contemporary discussion of feminine identity. For instance, Not Sorry (Fig.
21), installed in relation and proximity to The Fall of Eve, features the text
“#SorryNotSorry.” This social media phenomenon exemplifies the current trend towards
countering feminine passivity.
Sorry I’m not sorry. I’m sorry I’m not sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. Sorry,
but I am not sorry. I am not sorry.
18 Collections, Taxonomies, Repetition, and Multiples
The multiple is a conceptually important part of my studio practice. As a trained
printmaker working across artistic disciplines, I consistently explore the multiple and the
edition in different conceptual ways. Throughout my thesis exhibition, Monuments to the
Ever Virgin, multiples and collections (multiples of like objects and images) are
considered, as well as the consequent creation of taxonomies. Virgin Mary Blue Volumes
1-3 are a series of artist books made up of a collection of blue and white porcelain
vessels. While Volume 1 features a collection of images, Volume 2 highlights the
silhouettes of the same images, in the same pagination. Volume 3 denigrates this
taxonomy even more through a conversion of the original vessel into a black and white
low-fi image, overlaid with patterned text. Overall, these works are an uncanny
collection of like objects, in which the ideal is denied. Other collections include blue
wax vases, gold hoop earrings, images of the Virgin Mary from Annunciation paintings,
and laser cut objects that read, “Revere.”
Repetition is most present through the digitally designed wallpaper. This
wallpaper covers boards cut in the shape of mounds or arcs, which lean against the walls
of the gallery. These pieces maintain impermanence. They are displaced artifacts from
another space, a domestic or interior space.
The order implied by pattern and when that order begins to break down is an
overall concern throughout. The over-and-over quality of repetition, multiples, and
collections at a certain threshold breaks down and is made strange. Additionally in this
exhibition, collections of objects and images with specific symbolic values are gathered
together. Through that symbolism, virginity, femininity, sexuality, and the
representations of these ideas are collected and categorized. A taxonomy of femininity is
both assembled and contradicted.
19 CONCLUSION
I never found Virgin Mary Blue. Instead I found an anthem for the Virgin Mary
in the form of a Lady Gaga song.
Do what you want with my body.
Do what you want with my body.
Figure 10. Virgin Mary Blue: Volume 1, Artist Book, 7” x 5.5” x 1.25”, 2013
20 Figure 11. Virgin Mary Blue: Volume II, Artist Book, 7” x 5.5” x 1”, 2013
21 22 Figure 12. Virgin Mary Blue Volume: III, Artist Book, 7” x 5.5” x 1”, 2013
Figure 13. Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014
23 Figure 14. Reverence At Rest, wallpaper adhered to laser cut board, wood, yarn, 75” x
90” x 20”, 2014
24 Figure 15. Reverence At Rest (detail), 2014
25 Figure 16. Revere, screenprint on canvas, hoop earrings, 72” x 150”, 2014
26 Figure 17. Revere (detail), 2014
27 28 Figure 18. Crusades, lasercut plexi-glass, rope light, 48” x 24” x 24”, 2014, Wholesome
Girls Club, screenprint, 34” x 23”, 2014
Figure 19. Announcing the Annunciation, digitally designed and printed wallpaper
adhered to boards, wood, rope light, 84” x 72” x 10”, 2014
29 Figure 20. Announcing the Annunciation (detail of wallpaper), 2014
30 31 Figure 21. Not Sorry, plasma cut steel, 8” x 47”, 2014, The Fall of Eve, digitally designed
and printed canvas, acrylic paint, 58” x 36”, 2014
32 Figure 22. Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view from outside of Art Building
West, 2014
Figure 23. Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014
33 Figure 24. Monument to the Ever Virgin, digital print adhered to cardboard, 96” x 8” x
8”, 2013
34 35 Figure 25. The Episode in Season 6 When Carrie Finds Her Necklace, digitally designed
and printed wallpaper adhered to boards, wood, clothesline, rope lights, 84” x 72” x 24”,
2014
Figure 26. The Episode in Season 6 When Carrie Finds Her Necklace (detail), 2014
36 Figure 27. A Search for Virgin Mary Blue, wax, wood, 15” x 96” x 96”, 2014
37 Figure 28. A Search for Virgin Mary Blue (detail), 2014
38 Figure 29. Monuments to the Ever Virgin, installation view, 2014
39 40 REFERENCES
Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2008.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. “Taunting and Haunting: Critical Tactics in a “Minor”
Mode.” Women Artists at the Millennium. Ed. Carol Armstrong and Catherine de
Zagher. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
Warner, Marina. Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New
York: Vintage, 1983.