Women’s Work, Women’s Art
Originally posted at The New Agenda.
Yakama two-hide dress, ca. 1890. Washington. Hide, pony beads, faceted Russian glass beads, fire-polished glass beads, cut glass beads, seed beads, sinew. From the online NMAI exhibit 'Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses.'
In many cultures around the world, probably most, the making of clothing is traditionally the province of women. From sewing hides to weaving fine cloth, textile work has been women’s work for thousands of years. Women invented these technologies, just as they probably invented pottery and agriculture. (For an up-to-date look at the research, check out The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory.) But women didn’t just create functional garments and the tools to make them: they created art. It is striking to survey world cultures and see how often clothing is the site of brilliant artistic expression.
A wonderful book about this from the Western perspective is Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. Elizabeth Wayland Barber traces the development of textiles in the Near East and Europe, from the first string skirts to the fine linens of Egypt, from the earliest wool garments to the incredible explosion of textile art in ancient Crete. For Minoan women, and for their Mycenaean and Greek descendants, textiles were both a personal art form and a means of expressing important cultural values (for example, the funeral cloth that Penelope was weaving and secretly unraveling for years in the Odyssey would have been a tapestry “story cloth” about her family’s deeds.) Many of the symbols and motifs developed thousands of years ago are still being woven and embroidered by women in the Balkans today.
I thought of that rich history as I was enjoying the current online exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian: Identity by Design: Tradition, Change and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses. This beautifully curated exhibit focuses on the evolution of Plains dresses from the 19th century to the modern powwow era. From the introduction:
For generations, Native women from the Plains, Plateau, and Great Basin regions of the United States and Canada have designed dresses renowned for their beauty. But each dress has the ability to tell its own story. They speak of an individual designer’s artistic vision; a family’s status; tribal values; and social and cultural change.
The stories of the dresses in this exhibition are revealed through the words, insights, and memories of contemporary Native women designers. For these artists, dresses are more than simple articles of clothing. They are evidence of a proud and unbroken tradition, links to the generations of women who have gone before them, and bridges to the future.
The mastery and sheer exuberance of these artists is stunning, and the high-quality photographs on the exhibit website are a joy:
Crow elk tooth cloth dress, ca. 1890. Montana. Red and green wool, imitation elk teeth (bone), seed beads, muslin, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit 'Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses.'
Nez Perce two-hide pattern dress with fully beaded yoke, ca. 1920. Idaho. Hide, canvas, cut glass beads, sinew, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit 'Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses.'
Cheyenne three-hide dress, ca. 1995. Made by Rebecca Brady (Cheyenne/Sac and Fox/Pawnee/Oto, b. 1969) and Jon Brady (Arikara, b. 1976). Oklahoma. Commercial hide, cut glass beads, rainbow-list white wool, ribbons, cowrie shells, hairpipes, fire-polished glass beads, rhinestones, horsehair, cotton, paint, canvas, rawhide, thread. From the online NMAI exhibit 'Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses.'
This is women’s history in tangible form: art as life, life as art, a thread of meaning and beauty that stretches from generation to generation.
“The making of these Crow traditional dresses was passed on by my mother. She learned it from her mother. Now I’m teaching my daughters how to make these dresses–to try to follow the original pattern. These traditional dresses identify you as being a woman and being able to take care of your children.”
– Gladys Jefferson (Crow), 2005, quoted in online NMAI exhibit “Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses.”
As a feminist, I’ve always been both forward- and backward-looking. I have no interest in being confined to traditional gender roles, and I look forward to a day when women and men are both free to take on any job or position in society. (I’m still waiting for the first woman President!) But at the same time, I cherish women’s history. I honor the work and art of our foremothers, and I marvel at the incredible beauty they created, often under extremely adverse conditions. It fills me with joy to study the wonderful traditions women have created and continue to develop.
March is Women’s History Month. While we’re honoring the brave women who fought for our political rights, let’s also remember the countless generations of women who fed, clothed, and sheltered the human race, and poured their genius into beautiful but unsigned works of art.
8 Responses to “Women’s Work, Women’s Art”
-
yttik says:
Oh how wonderful, Violet!
I’ve really come to appreciate women’s art lately, the kind that is usually born of poverty and invention. I’ve been into admiring things transformed from something ugly, something generally thrown away. Just recently this woman made a gorgeous hand bag out of crocheted plastic fred meyer bags. But you wouldn’t know it, because it’s just stunning. There are a couple of women here who make wonderful rag rugs out of old polyester clothing. I’ve had a couple of them for 20 years and they never wear out, you can even wash them.
March 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm EST -
Jean Louise says:
Thanks for the gorgeous art show, Violet.
-
quixote says:
Beautiful. Eye-opening. Thanks for that and the links to find more.
-
purplefinn says:
Beautiful, inspiring. Makes me want to visit the exhibit.
Love this quote:
“………These traditional dresses identify you as being a woman and being able to take care of your children.”
– Gladys Jefferson (Crow) -
Sis says:
Beautiful. I’ve been on that site for hours and hours.
-
TheOtherDelphyne says:
These are so gorgeous – it made me think of the Navajo Beauty Way. Women creating these works of art and utility and walking the Beauty Path.
These dresses are more substantial and have more meaning to them than any of the items that many of our First Ladies have worn. These are dresses of Power and Beauty, which is a huge element of Power.
The Navajo Beauty Way Ceremony
In beauty may I walk
All day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons may I walk
Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk
With dew about my feet may I walk
With beauty may I walk
With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beautyAnonymous (Navajo)
-
k.a.m. says:
Thank You for posting this wonderful array of talent.
It is truly amazing to me the painstaking beadwork these women monotonously worked their fingers to the bone to achieve. Bob Mackie, the fashion designer, got nothing on these very colorful creative women.
These artifacts were probably considered the Quilting Bees of the red sand and red colored women that were here before the Quilting Bee-ers.
They were busy bees back then.
***I personally like the “ching a ling” dresses of the fancy dancers made out of old chewing tobacco can lids the native women make NOW. You got to see them to believe them. They’re gorgeous.
Yeah, they may be “poor” but they have found very creative ways to make something outta nothing. And that is the key to any woman who’s ever lived ideology. How to make something outta nothing.
-
Sis says:
I love this post.
