Women Create
“Women know intuitively when they are being devalued." ~ Robyn Silverman
"Artists and religionists are never far apart, they go to the sources of revelation for what they choose to experience and what they report is the degree of their experiences. Intellect wishes to arrange - intuition wishes to accept." ~ Georgia O'Keefe
"Life is better with beautiful art." Kathryn Markel
I didn't start off choosing to decorate the Summer Serenity Cottage with art by women. But after I saw that my women's art project started itself, I embraced and furthered it! Or, you might say my intuition chose this project from the start, and when I tuned in and listened more closely, I got excited!
I've been a champion for women my entire life -- that came about naturally too, connected to a natural love of fairness -- so it isn't surprising that when I began my summer project of contemplation, relaxation, and decoration, I ultimately championed women artists, too.
For example, when I was 8 or so years old, I read an article that said women were paid around 70 cents for every dollar a man was paid, in the same job. I asked my mother if this were a typo. She said no. I asked if she were paid less in her job as a psychologist (later she worked as a Chicago Public School teacher, as she had done before) than a man would be. She said probably; she thought so. I was angry. My parents had divorced, and my dad took all the money (it was the '70s and they could do that; yet who made it possible for my dad to have any money to take: my mom, by working as a schoolteacher to put him through law school and by taking care of us kids!), sending my mom and my siblings and me from rich to poor. And now I found out we were even poorer, with 30% less money for food or clothes than if she'd been a man? Oh was I angry.
All my life, I've tried to transmute my anger at harm toward women and children into positive action. As a child, I talked with other kids about the Equal Rights Amendment and the importance of making sure moms and kids had enough food and clothing and were treated fairly. As an adult, I became an entrepreneur (Chicago Chocolate Tours video!) in part out of disgust at seeing men paid more than women at the law firm where I was a young lawyer (more on that in this post in another blog of mine, Diary of My Disastrous Law Career, which I always say read at your own risk; on the fun side this post also has a picture of my parents and vintage photos of me, too!). As an entrepreneur, I paid men and women the same.
As an art shopper for my summer project, why not spotlight woman artists whose work I love, just as in the current iteration of my business, Chocolate Uplift -- craft chocolate sales, distribution, consulting, and speaking -- I spotlight woman chocolate makers whose work I love (such as Belu Cacao and 9th & Larkin, here)?
Here we go on a tour of art by women at the Summer Serenity Cottage!
I chose these Chicago and Great Lakes pieces by artist Jenny Beorkrem of Chicago-based Ork Posters for a wall in the cottage's living room, to "anchor" my Great Lakes nautical concept as well as my blue-and-white color scheme. I have several of her pieces at my regular place and, as a map lover, always admired her straightforward yet uniquely creative graphic approach:
I fell in love with the vibrant, colorful, and balanced compositions by Blanche Eden on Instagram, bought two of her original pieces for another wall in the living room, and framed them myself -- I love framing, and I've actually re-framed them back at my regular place; scroll down to see them next to the Ork Posters on a women's art wall I've set up at home! -- :
I had some of my own Lake Michigan photos framed by Keepsake Frames; this was an inexpensive yet professional way to add polished lake style to my cottage, and sweet Jorji the cat seems to approve of all of the art too, doesn't she:
On a roll, when I came across Adrianne Hawthorne aka Ponno Pozz's cheerful shop featuring her bright and dynamic work I came out with 3 prints which I hung in the dining room (click for more photos of these zingy works), a pillow I placed in the guest room, and 2 sheets of reversible paper, 1 of which (in olive and aqua) went under a print in the dining room, and the other of which went onto the wall in the cat room (every room is the cat room of course, but I named one that anyway); dining room first below, then cat room, then guest room:
I stopped at woman-owned Stella Lilly art truck when I happened by the Andersonville Sidewalk Sale, and came away with this charming expressionist-style work by Anastasia Mak, which I hung in the kitchen unframed and then framed later at my regular place:
I ordered these charming little prints by Shann Spishak on Etsy; they're definitely more Palm Beach than Great Lakes but why not adopt their kicky-classy vibe into the mix, I said to myself, especially as they remind me of my winter-trips-to-Miami-Beach days! Plus, I placed into my cottage bedroom a Keepsake-framed photo of myself taken in Miami 5 years ago; tip: have a photo of yourself that you love framed and close at hand, for a boost if ever you need one!
I experimented but didn't find the right framing elements for these little prints in time at the cottage, but bought a frame (from Blick, along with one for the above piece), discovered that some reversible paper I'd bought from Ponno Pozz and was using the reverse of in another application would be the perfect mat, and framed them at my regular place:
Walking back from a yard sale I didn't know I'd find, I stopped by a farmers market and found art I didn't know I'd find, by young newsprint-collage artist Catherine Elizabeth, and then found her art again on purpose at a classical music festival later in the summer, where I also picked up handmade malachite and turquoise bracelets by Suzanne Miranda of Nomadic Ant, which you can see below on the second print. I placed the first print into the guest room, on the end table I bought at the serendipitous yard sale I just mentioned, and the second print into my bathroom; the representations of blue-and-white vases harmonized with my blue-and-white vases at the cottage, and the prints worked with my overall color scheme:
I brought from my regular place a superhero spider drawing by Sarah Kariko, a woman scientist-artist I went to college with, and added it to the guest room for some layering in this space where I released the somewhat minimalist calm I maintained in other spaces; I am more of a maximalist at heart:
How's that for our tour of woman-made art at the Summer Serenity Cottage!
Here are two more notes before a few photos of how I've re-situated this art at my regular place --
~ 1) Feminine rising, no matter what. Today was the day I found out that the now infamous Summer Serenity Cottage landlord evidently broke into the cottage -- again! -- and stole my dining room chairs, or did they float away like summer? I updated my Packing and Dancing post to add this story of the missing chairs at the end. I am now out of the cottage for good, and this should be the end of my experience of the misogynistic peeper-creeper and other doings of that landlord.
[Update: my local friend who refers to the landlord as "pantsless" says he has now told her he will give back my 4 "missing" dining room chairs. This sounds like he is admitting trespassing, breaking and entering, and theft, doesn't it? On the one hand: good, I'll be glad to have the chairs back, or to give them to my friend if she can use them. On the other hand: when will the madness end??]
[Update to the update: my local friend now says the pantsless landlord is NOT going to give her my chairs that he broke in and stole, and that if she tries to get them he'll call the police. ?!?! Maybe I should have called the police when he broke in the first time, and not depended on his adult son to handle the situation. At this point, I think my friend and I are done with this sordid nonsense.]
~ 2) Woman-made music. From the end to the beginning: the reason I rented the house that I decorated into my Summer Serenity Cottage was quiet. Peace and quiet, to recuperate from the nerve-shattering noise and vibration at my regular place due to a faulty and flimsy new roof. I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to birdsong and crickets, instead of neighbors' ac condenser lines rattling and raging inside the roof. While the cottage environs were louder than expected (neighborhood landscaping! O'Hare flight path! garbage and recycling trucks!), I cherished the lack of machine sounds from within the house. I never ran the dishwasher, and considered unplugging the refrigerator. I brought no TV, as I never watch anyway and haven't in around 20 years. I listened to almost no music, as is my habit anyway. (Except for the music in my head! : ) An exception: Aretha Franklin. To the extent that my summer had a soundtrack, it was composed of songs performed by the great Aretha Franklin, starting with her anthem of Respect. The playlist, such as it is:
- Respect (our birthright as women or as any being)
- Mary Don't You Weep (in my Dining Room post too)
- It Won't Be Long (would be a classic even if all that were left were her amazing piano intro; she was 22 years old)
Heading home on Lake Shore Drive, with sweet Jorji, driven by a dear friend:
Below are some peeks at how I have woven my cottage art pieces into some of the areas of my regular place -- a brick-and-timber loft built in 1903 in downtown Chicago. In some instances I've fully replaced the art I'd hung at home before. You see, when I walked into my regular place again, I wondered: who lives here? Was it the me from 25 years ago when I brought back art from Europe that my then-husband and I had chosen, or that he had chosen? Or was it the me of today, and of the coming Golden Age, with a focus on light and lightheartedness?
Many of the things I was living with at my regular place literally weren't mine: furniture that came with the place such as a leather arm chair, dishes that came with the place such as a cabinet full of black plates and bowls, pots and pans that came with the place that were scratched and rusted. I've gotten rid of it all! In with the new, the meaningful, the me. Decorating for the cottage helped me see it was time to make my regular place my own, too.
Here's to light and lightheartedness, insight through intuition, and the feminine rising with this wall of woman-made art and other art spaces here at home:
I'm listening to Aretha as I write this, happy for the cottage summer and the new start it inspired me to make at home.
One more instance of it's-all-connected as we intuit into the Golden Age of empathy and equality, courage and compassion, liberty and love: my mom had a t-shirt in the 70s that said "Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman!"
Onward and upward!
Your friend in decorating,
Valerie
Feel free to say hi via email as well: valerie.beck@post.harvard.edu.
Thank you!
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