Robin Ward
Photographer
Fine Art Instructor
I made and bound a journal to document the collaboration. The pages are vellum. Vellum was used to represent the intertwining conversations. Actual handwritten letters and notes are sewn onto the vellum pages; ideas are sketched onto pages.
Ms. Molly's Prize Purse is painting with water color.
I made and bound a journal to document the collaboration. The pages are vellum. Vellum was used to represent the intertwining conversations. Actual handwritten letters and notes are sewn onto the vellum pages; ideas are sketched onto pages.
Artist Statement
Prize Purses
Historically women have used what was meant to inculcate or disenfranchise them, as a voice of empowerment. I explore these places of disenfranchisement, often seen as empty spaces, they are imbued with deep meaning and can be considered full. This fullness gives new life and recovery after divorce. What began as a personal series of photographed empty evening purses has grown into a collaborative political statement. Collaboration with members of EX-POSE, ex-partners of service members for equality, gives a voice to the inequities occurring in military divorces, the economic status of women, and the building of a new life. Participating members wrote their story and loaned or photographed personal objects which contained significant meaning. Each object holds for its owner a personal story of healing and recovery after divorce. It is their Prize Purse.
A military divorce is different than a civilian divorce. Military spouses often give up their careers as they follow their spouses throughout the world. They serve as both mother and father during their spouses deployment, taking on full responsibility for the running of their household and family. They live in a community of support and camaraderie. The military community is their family. Once divorced, this is severed, the loss is immense; a family is split, the community gone and they are alone, and often struggling financially. These personal objects transform personal meaning into a political statement and bring to the forefront the struggles of an ex-military spouse. Fabric, objects and images are used expressively to give material form to these ineffable experiences.
Needlework and fabric are often used by women for empowerment. The draped, layered white bridal satin and black velvet signifies the purity in trusting of oneself to another, the black to the deep dark places of pain and brokeness. Images transferred onto colored satin mimic the linings of a evening purse. Hand sewing the satin images to the black velvet meet my need for physical and historical connections to my aesthetic and femininity. These connections appropriate the idea of neo-craft as a researched based art form creating a link to contemporary art.
Black velvet is hung as banners. Banner is a word derived from the Latin bandum meaning an organized military troop, a rallying point, a call to gather, a guide in battle, a way to announce victories, and to keep a purpose before us.