The artist, Nikoline Calcaterra
Introduction
Presently, I am working as both a multi-media artist and as the Program
Coordinator at White Mountain Academy of the Arts, in Elliot Lake, Ontario.
Throughout my life, art has been a source of comfort, insight and beauty,
from literature to music to visual art.
It brings tears to my eyes to remember waking up in the middle of the
night as a young girl, to the sound of my mother's typewriter as she vigorously
released her response from the day past. This was the only spare time she
could find, after her role as mother and wife. Today, she has fulfilled
her dream.
As an adult, I still get chills when I hear Mozart and Bach. It reminds
me of our old upright piano and takes me back to a time when things were
straightforward, to a time when all of life's questions were answered by
a simple emotional response. If reading "Anne of Green Gables"
or listening to Mozart made me cry, I did not question why, I simply accepted
the sadness as my response to the art.
This concept of the emotional response has become my main inspiration
behind my present body of work. The work is an emotional response to both
my conscious and subconscious observations as a lesbian woman. Although
my work is supported by research, the root of my observation is gathered
following the works creation. Some believe that this method is backwards
in its execution, but I believe that by working from the emotional response,
I am maintaining the purity of the thought, with few outside influences.
Artist's Statement
My inspiration stems from being woman and needing to release my emotional
response to all that I observe in this form and on this Earthwalk.
I fail to understand this worlds inability to see things for what they
are. Therefore, I feel the need to create discussions that often go unexpressed.
Woman bleeds. Blood is life. Life is beyond control.
I am inspired by life, and the emotions involved in holding the position
of woman. I am inspired by love and the emotions invested in loving another
called "woman." I am inspired by women and the emotions generated
when circles are formed. I am inspired by the Great Mother and the emotions
surrounding her creation and destruction.
The work I create reflects emotions involving gender identity related
to woman and her journey, from birth to her passage through the veil, and
beyond.
"Creation Circuit"
I entered into a discussion with a friend about the possibility of having
a child with my current partner. I mentioned that we were considering a
few options, including finding a suitable sperm donor. She looked at me
with confusion and said, "Why do you need a sperm donor? Why can't
the two of you have a baby?" I gave her a minute to process what she
had just said, and then the light came on. "Oh my Goddess! I had never
thought about the fact that you are both women!" This conversation
inspired me to make Creation Circuit.
Creation Circuit is a three piece steal gate that attaches to
a tall blood red picket fence. The two outer gate pieces, each 5.5' x 2.5',
are bent into the vague silhouettes of women facing into each other. The
centre gate piece that acts as the door is a 4.75' x 2.5' rounded rectangle.
The centre of each piece contains a series of brushed steel circular vines
that indicate a spiral growth pattern, moving in and out of each piece.
In the centre of the door piece is a stone that appears to be the source
of the surrounding growth. In all three pieces there is a series of 1/2"
round bar painted blood red that on either end piece, joins up to an oval
stone. When all three gate pieces are lined up, the spiral growth, the red
round bar and the stones inside the gate frame become a large image of what
I imagine procreation by two females would look like. The red round bar
forms the vagina, cervix and uterus in the door piece, and the fallopian
tubes in the two outside pieces. The oval stones in the two outside pieces
are the ovaries, and the stone in the door piece is the egg having been
fertilized and is beginning its growth. I have always pictured the chemistry
of the first moments of a fertilized egg to be like fireworks, an explosion
of hormones and DNA.
Although it is fully functional outside, it is meant to be installed
in a gallery so that the red picket fence follows along the walls of the
entire gallery space and the gate is the means of entrance into the exhibition
space.
Creation Circuit is about menstruation, procreation, sexuality,
life, etc., and is meant to look at why our society finds it so hard to
accept that those who bleed and give life, can also love and nurture and
provide for that life together.
"Padded" - (Images 1 to 4)
"Padded" was inspired, in part by my recent introduction to
homemade, terry cloth menstrual nappies, and in part by Gloria Steinem's
essay entitled, If Men Could Menstruate.
"Padded" was created by covering a XL fleece vest with clean,
fresh, whiter-than-white menstrual pads in a pattern that mimicked a quilted
down ski vest sized to fit a large male. The tampons were added as decoration,
loosely referring to the North American native cultures that would honour
woman during her moon-time by isolating her in a menstrual hut where she
could be with her powerful energy.
The inside lining of the vest is made of red broadcloth, which represents
the blood being contained inside the body instead of being aloud to run
out from the body. It also refers to the disconnection women have with their
blood now that disposable menstrual products have replaced the reusable,
re-washable pad. Women no longer have to look, touch or smell their power.
They simple contain, dispose and ignore the gift that separates and honours
them as women.
The vest hangs in a steel cage, 70 x 70 x 90 cm, much like a bird cage
only bottomless. This refers to women as beings caged by patriarchy for
their "bloody inconvenience", but continue to repress themselves
by refusing to escape from the cage walls. Tampons, although dangerous and
unnatural, are very convenient and allow women to ignore their moon-time
and move forward in the male-dominated work world, becoming much like man,
obsessed with time, money and convenience. The result is a new generation
of woman who are disconnected from the rituals of blood that define them
as strong, powerful, givers of life, who instead view blood as a dirty curse
that causes discomfort and inconvenience each month, beginning at puberty
and ending with menopause.
The vest is fitted for a large male frame, and is meant to be worn by
a model as a format for exhibition. This is a commentary on Gloria Steinem's
essay, If Men Could Menstruate:
...the characteristics of the powerful, whatever they may be, are thought
to be better than the characteristics of the powerless - and logic has
nothing to do with it. What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically,
men could menstruate and women could not? The answer is clear - menstruation
would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event. [Read the whole
essay here.]
It is with the above in mind, that I challenge the male ego to step up
and wear this vest in honour of all the women in their lives who have had
to face the stigma of being the gender that bleeds and therefore gives life
to this world.
Menses: Maiden, Mother, Crone Series
(images 5 - 8)
The Menses series was inspired mainly by a birthing retreat I
attended with my partner and seven other women, two of whom were lesbians,
four sexual abuse victims, four retired nurses, two healing artists, two
visual artists and five Crones. Among many other incredible discussions
that went on during this weekend, was one regarding the story of our first
menses. What came out of this recollection, this deep soul searching, was
a flush of emotion; laughter, tears, anger, hysteria, embarrassment, . .
. laughter, and what we began to realize, was how little attention we had
aloud to this moment, how little attention the world allows to this moment.
For the women, the experience of our first menses was not too far gone,
but for the Crones, this memory was stored, and in most cases hidden behind
40 or 50 years of memories. We discussed blood, mothers, cramps, fathers,
secrets, embarrassing moments, misunderstandings, tampons, terry cloth nappies
and menstrual pad belts! Throughout the weekend, we as women honoured each
stage of the female life, from Maiden to Woman to Crone, and aloud each
moment the attention that it deserved. From this experience comes the Menses
series.
Menses: Maiden, Mother, Crone all begin with the same imprinted
background of blood red disposable pads and the same foreground image of
an entanglement of tubes in the top right hand corner, with a detail of
those same tubes spanning the length of the paper. These tubes represent
the inner workings of the female body during so many moments in our lives,
from the umbilical cord to the birth canal to the fallopian tubes.
Menses: Maiden has white Japanese rice paper chinchölé
on the right third of the image. This is to symbolize the portion of purity
a Maiden still holds prior to her first menses. On the bottom centre of
the image, the famous "Tampax Insertion Instructions" have been
transferred onto the same white rice paper. This image describes the anxiety
and confusion that so many Maidens go through prior to bleeding. "They
want me to stick what into where?!" In the top left hand corner, there
is the same white rice paper cut into the shape of a pad with the following
words written by Eve Ensler:
"Second grade, seven years old, my brother was talking about periods.
I didn't like the way he was laughing. I went to my mother. 'What's a period?'
I said. 'It's punctuation,' she said. 'You put it at the end of a sentence.'
My father brought me a card: 'To my little girl who isn't so little anymore.'
I was terrified. My mother showed me the thick sanitary napkins. I was
to bring the used ones to the can under the sink. I remember being one
fo the last. I was thirteen. We all wanted it to come. I was afraid. I
started putting the used pads in brown paper bags in the dark storage places
under the roof."
-The Vagina Monologues
On the far left hand side of the image, on the edge of the white chinchölé,
is a pink ribbon that is laced to the paper with pink embroidery floss in
the style that corsets were laced. In many rituals, ribbons are given to
women as a way to mark certain moments in their lives. Pink represents the
Maiden and the lacing describes the repression young Maidens experience
by being kept silent about one of the most precious moments of their lives
Menses: Mother has red hand-watercoloured Japanese rice paper
chinchölé on the right third of the image. This represents the
blood of a Woman. The blood of the menses, the blood of the broken hymen
and the blood spilled during childbirth. On the bottom centre of the image
is a transfer on the same red watercoloured rice paper, of a Maltese statue
symbolizing the birthing process. Her vulva is swollen and open and her
legs are held high and wide. On her back are nine lines that represent the
nine months of carrying the child in her womb. On the top left hand corner
of the image is a disposable menstrual pad with the following words written
by Jamie Sams:
"The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers decided to forge the bonds
of sisterhood that would unite all women as one. This Sisterhood was based
on a bond of blood that marked the cycles of fertility in women. These
cycles of fertility are based on moon cycles of twenty-eight days between
bleeding. To this day, women who live, dream, or pray together will have
their Moontimes or menstrual cycles at the same time so that their wombs
are open simultaneously, allowing the dreams of humankind to be planted
inside and then nurtured as a group."
-The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers
On the far left hand side of the image, on the edge of the red watercoloured
rice paper, is a red ribbon laced on to the paper with red embroidery floss
in the style that corsets were laced. In many rituals, women are given red
ribbons when they begin their menses. The lacing represents the repression
and embarrassment that women are made to feel about their moontimes and
all that is involved with this process.
Menses: Crone has cream coloured Japanese rice paper chinchölé
on the right third of the image. This represents the memory of blood, the
shadow. On the bottom centre of the image is a transfer on the same cream
coloured rice paper of sage bundles. Sage is thought to hold the power of
immortality, longevity and wisdom, much like a crone. On the top right corner
is the shadow of a menstrual pad with the following words written by Kelly
Rose Mason:
"She whispers "Remember", and the blood song of my ancestors
stirs in my heart as I awaken to myself.
Remember, as my granddaughter, how I took your slender hand
and led you to the soft moss to bleed upon for the first time?
Remember, as lovers, how we danced and celebrated the secrets of
our womb, our hair and hips and skirts whirling to the beat
of the Mother Drum?
Remember, as my daughter, how you sat at my feet and honored my
wisdom as I do for you now?"
On the far left hand side of the image, on the edge of the cream coloured
rice paper, is a purple ribbon laced on to the paper with purple embroidery
floss in the style that corsets were laced. In many rituals, women are given
purple ribbons when they stop flowing. It is a way to honour the Crone for
her wisdom and knowledge. This lacing represents the repression and embarrassment
that Crones are made to feel about aging and losing their ability to create
life.
The Menses series is in response to the ongoing battle women face
because they do in fact bleed. |