Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Buyssens, Ryan

Area of Concentration

Art

Abstract

Through a series of crocheted and forged sculptural objects, I recount personal experiences and observations of how the feminine is interacted with, portrayed, and lived. I examine my own ambivalence towards the feminine within my work, my enjoyment of producing for others, and the burden of what the product truly represents. Metal and string form both a material and gendered tension, expressing my own knotted relationship to the production of objects for consumption by others. The stories my pieces tell represent everyday conflicts and internal discomfort, they are not intended to take a revolutionary stance. They embody the comforts and confines of domesticity in the context of feminine expectations, as well as the pressure to abandon such expectations. Femininity is a warm blanket and an inescapable cage, and my work frees myself and viewers from choosing a singular, incomplete truth. Therefore love and the iconography of the culturally feminine––soft colors, organic forms, sentimental symbols, and “domestic” craft––are threaded throughout my works.

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