Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Menacing Mothers

Lately many of my art teachers have been assigning prompts either in a collaborated way, or about something that "matters to you". For instance, in painting, I'm supposed to be designing an image that deals with some sort of problem that you feel needs to be addressed. Mine was originally inspired by the "We Can Do It!" poster from the '40s. Using a classic painting of a woman holding flowers with her young daughter at her side for reference, I replaced the bundle of flowers with a hammer as a sort of feminist statement. Unfortunately, as I was working on it yesterday, many people began interpreting the image as domestic violence....


Oops. 
 I will continue to work with the piece. Perhaps I can make the hammer a little less menacing by, well, actually painting it in. 

1 comment:

  1. I like it
    You have done a good job with the wall paper and the figures are coming along nicely.
    The hammer actually is great ...it moves the viewer to ask "why is she holding a hammer?" and that begins a thousand different stories ..... it begins a narrative. Its not important to have the answer ...just the question implied by a mystery.

    Ray Caesar

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