Artist Statement for Pink Dress Wishes

Pink Dress Wishes – Artist Statement

The inspiration for this body of work stems from a poem written by my daughter, Maddie, when she was eight years old. We were working on all types of poetry at the time and spending a week writing “Wish Poems”. When Maddie read her poem aloud it touched me, and a flood of imagery immediately rushed into my head. I soon created a stone lithograph to start this exploration of work.

The more I read her poem and thought about it, the more symbolic it became for me.  Pink is a color very symbolic of femininity. Little girls wear a lot of pink, but it doesn’t seem to be a color commonly worn by grown women. At the time I don’t think I had one article of pink clothing. I wondered why? Why don’t I wear anything pink? As it had for many women, Pink had become a color of weakness for me … too frilly, too pretty, too feminine. Too feminine? At some point, pink and femininity were both unjustly associated with being weak, meek and dependent. The color pink has been stolen from our palette of choices in our constant struggle to rectify the false equivocation of weakness and femininity.

Feminine: 1) of women or girls; 2) having qualities characteristic of a woman; 3) womanly

At what point did I view it weak to be feminine? I think perhaps there are mixed messages we grow up with in this post-feminist world. We (women) are told at a very young age that we can be anything we want to be. We can accomplish anything. We need to be strong and independent. STRONG. Is pink a strong color? Pink wasn’t (for me) a color of strength. Pink was for pretty little girls. Not for strong, independent women!

I have struggled with the conflict of being raised “to do anything” with the fact that I have chosen to be an at-home mother. Choosing to bow out of a full-time career and choosing to step out of the business world can cause much self-doubt in a career-driven world. For years I have had people ask, “What do you do?” to which I reply, “I’m home with my kids.”  This was not always met with approval. In many cultures the matriarchal role is revered as the ultimate of femininity, strength and love. Why is the ultimate feminine role so threatening in the Western culture? The motherhood/career struggle in many ways reflects the conflict I have had with the color pink.

I want to celebrate being a woman: a strong woman, a business woman, a mother, and artist. I want to celebrate pink. I want to celebrate every woman’s choice she makes in this world.
Let them wear pink! (Or not!)

The works in Pink Dress Wishes seeks to add a color back to our palette of choices and celebrate our femininity.