If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause
and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition) featured several
of the above artists in an article about this
museum and menstruation in 2003. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine Dishy (Turkey) showed some of
the artists in 2005 in articles about this museum.
 
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The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
"Riding The Cotton Pony"
Copyright Marisa Frye 2005
Marisa Frye, 25, San Diego, California
See her second shoe.
Marisa Frye writes,
Shoes symbolically describe a person's status in society. We gain control
of how society judges us by projecting an image of how we wish to be seen.
Since our innate fear of rejection keeps us on guard from revealing too
much personal information to the public, we try to cover up as much as
we can. But what if the "personal information" being hidden isn't
anything extraordinary, but rather ordinary? What if the secret is merely
being kept a secret because it challenges predetermined comfort levels
set within society? A universal truth thriving on a force based solely
on society's fear of becoming familiar with the adverse side of that which
is commonly associated with gratification: a woman's sexuality. For one
week out of every month, and for a large percentage of her life, a woman
in menses struggles to maintain her pleasure role. Cleanliness outweighs
sexual desire. She stuffs herself full of tampons. And undue exposure sets
the stage for rejection and shame. In today's hedonistic society we continue
to veil the intrinsic "unclean" part of a woman's sexuality.
It is as though a woman's body is shamed for menstruating, yet celebrated
for the times when she's not. My piece confronts this issue - the side
of sex no one wants to look at. The unobjectified version of a woman. My
shoe forces the public to see the secret women hide so well regardless
of whether or not it is considered sexy.
One's eyes cannot quite believe what they are seeing until they make
the connection between the menstrual euphemisms written on the arch of
the shoe to the red cotton masses that wrap around its perimeter. It then
becomes obvious that they are tampons and that the tampons are real and
so is the blood. Well, all but one. The tampon in the middle front of the
shoe is the only fake, and is the only replicated tampon I made before
my concept was clear to me. I chose to incorporate the fake tampon because
I wanted to show my natural inclination to unconsciously cover up the reality
of my own menstruation and contrast that with my willingness to reveal
it through the real tampons. Although it is offensive, you now know it
initially it wasn't meant to be.
I chose to stitch the tampons onto my paper shoe structure representing
the creative technique traditionally practiced by women. I wanted to use
stitching to draw a parallel to the idea of how women sustain certain traditions
in society, even those that place them in restrictive roles. The gnarled
thread on the sides of the shoes is tangled in a gesture of defiance to
the manner women are suppose to sew in and at the same time expected to
behave, neat and straight. Thread bobbins stack to form the heel of the
high heel (the thread being a reference to seam stressing and the high
heel - pain and awkwardness of appeal.) The shoe is placed on top of a
menstrual pad, an analogy to the euphemism "Riding The Cotton Pony."
My piece has many different meanings. It's up to the viewer to interpret.
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NEXT artist: Julie
Gaw
See all the artists in the links in the left-hand
column.
If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and
are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
See
also Bea Nettles' art The Moonsisters
© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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