Miranda Taylor Cultural paper

Icons and Feminisms

Using Icons and art that is considered feminist art I hope to create a few pieces that will show how I feel about how women are view in the world today. I also hope to use the GLBT community in my work as well. I have had many different issues pertaining to the bible and the Christian religion. Last semester I did a water color of a woman on a cross and a man that was pregnant with the Virgin Mary’s blue shroud on. I hope to do more drawing and paintings along those lines. I plan to use the hand placement that is used in most of the different painting or frescos. I want to use the GLBT community in some of my work. I always want to have my beliefs prevalent in my work. It is important to me to stay true to my roots even when exploring something new.
I plan on using icon art work such as Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pomegranate and the Virgin and Child with Five Angels, Lamentation of the Dead Christ and Pieta by Michelangelo. Using these different Christian Icons for examples in hand placement, shrouds, body language and body size to incorporate into my. In Michelangelo’s Pieta I love how the Mary is so much larger that Jesus. She is not just bigger in length but in her overall size. Jesus looks so thin and frail while Mary seems to be twice to three times his size. Jesus seems breakable while Mary seems durable. Mary in the Pieta seems at piece not scared or upset but, more of a come what may face; which is a face I know I have seen on most women’s faces when dealing with something strenuous or upsetting. In the pieces that I mentioned by Botticelli I will be focusing on the hand placement, their facial expressions, and body language. All of which I plan to use to switch the role of men and women.
The YWCA and WOW by Adolph Treidler are two of the pieces that I intend on using as my “feminist art”. I want to put women in roles that we have been in for centuries the working role. Where they do everything and still get no credit for it. I wan t be able to show that women have been considered the weaker of the sexes but have always been the stronger in many different ways. I want to do this by using the propaganda type illustrations. To put men in the typical role of women to illustrate that without a thought people associate women with children or the kitchen. When I say in the role of women, I mean in the clothes in the curlers, everything. Which is where I have the plan to put the GLBT community in my creative works. I want to change the typical husband and wife in the suburbs with their 2.5 children. To make it two men or two women or even a transgender and their partner with their lifestyle obviously shown their faces, outfits, setting and background. There is a painting by Freda Kahlo called Self portrait with Cropped Hair that is like what I would want to show using the GLBT community. I want for people to think that the person is a man but when they actually take the time to look to realize it is truly a woman.

I aspire to make different crucifixions with women instead of men. Using different media and medium such as acrylic, oil, collage, clay, found object and metal to portray what I am envisioning in my head. I want to not only do painting but I want work with sculpture and jewelry making. I want to market my form of “feminist religion” like religion and women have been marketed for years.