It was the last class of the V& A course Women Artists. The first session was class members delivering presentations on a favourite woman artist of their choice. There were seven of us presenting. I spoke on Lucienne Day, other class members spoke on Gwen John, Laura Knight, Marlow Moss, Gillian Ayres and Lucy Rie (and one other I missed ).
The tutor spoke about Dod Proctor, Lee Miller, Ithell Colquhoun, Bridget Riley, Paula Rego Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas. So we covered a huge range of women and artistic styles. I thoroughly enjoyed the class, and we gelled well together. So when I was completing the feedback form and was listening tomcomments from other course members, I was quite astonished with some of the carping criticism. People felt the course covered too great a range (but did not cover "their" favoured artists!); the course was too short (it was a new pilot course to gauge the market), too much audience participation (!), they did not like the tutor's style (she was an elderly lady who said she had chosen not make a "feminist" art course but a "women's" class). Yet I found it excellent. I could not have committed to 10 weeks at this stage in my course; I am quite open minded about which artists I hear about and quite like some well known women, combined with under-sung heroines that are relatively unknown; I want to listen to all sorts of speakers (old, young, disabled, varied ethnicity) so long as they are knowledgeable in their subject; and althouggh I am interested in feminist art, such a class should be marketed as such. I think we had excellent value forwhat we paid. Particularly in relation to the costs of a university course!
In the afternoon Sue Stockwell spoke about her practice as an artist. Really excellent speaker. She trained as a sculptor with a particular fascination with materials. She uses a lot of found materials, sawdust, rubber inner tubes, tea bags and coffee filters, toilet paper. She has a fascination with maps, which commenced when she was a sole tea drinker amongst coffee drinkers in the US. Sue has done some wonderful maps of the US created from used tea bags and coffee filters.
Another series was about underground maps when she worked with the London Transport museum. She had very homesick when in the US and started stitching the LU map on handkerchiefs, then produced on a silk hankie with the Stockwell roundel in the corner. She has done road maps as cut paper arts, making the roads intolace or arteries, and superimposed red route road maps onto the River Thames, the embroidered the red routes on her granny's blanket.
Sue made a wonderful paper quilt for the V&A Quilts exhibition, using low value Chinese paper money. Also dresses made of money, using style and paper money as an indicator of wealth. Also uses OS maps and atlases to make dresses that comment on colonialism and empire by using sections that show the former British empire. Sue is now using recycled computer boards (some of which are only 2 years old) to make world maps. She works with themes that have a political agenda. She has a passion for injustice and inequality, portrayed with a high aesthetic in a democratic and accessible format. Her materials can be a curator's nightmare. She is interested in using her own voice via accessible materials and an interest in the ordinary. Sue feels her work is best received in the V&A context or via Crafts magazine. She does things, and omly later understands what itis all about. She explores male and female qualities and believes her work has an appeal that is universal to many but also personal to her.
She is very interested to explore ordinary materials and states all materials have histories and references. For the less precious the material, the better the effect.
An excellent lecture.
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