This is Absolutely the Last of the Men/All About Masculinity

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Finally the last box of those men! These poor navigators had the burden of boats that would sink if ever put in water. Their phallic forms made of silk are covered with the text of what accounts for “masculinity”. They drag their own testicular anchors along with them through a sea of feminist text.

Here are a couple of details.

And really the best part after twenty years is how true the feminist text is. So good to read that I copied it off from the silk waves and put most of it below. Definitely worth the read. I wish I had kept track of the authors as well, but they are all somewhere in my research books on masculinity….and some of those are long gone.

I will wrap all these “boys” together with their bags. But their boats would be better served given to one of our window washers who does amazing art works with old metals.

Feminist text

“Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns.”

“Accepting a version of female experience that sees us solely as victims, as the dupes of men, enables us to ignore both the violence we do to other women and children and to less powerful men.”

“What made Friedan’s book a best seller was her detailed and sympathetic documentation of the malaise of the middle-class housewife, a woman who had been educated to expect, if not a career, at least something more challenging the search for a matching mitten.”

“Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters.”

“At a time when women, with good reason, are asking men to make known their most guarded feelings, when we want them to love and raise babies and remember our birthdays, it is also required that they be the ones to rescue people in a burning building. And startle the dragons when they are heard in the dark.”

“Considering the extent to which masculinity as it is socially constructed within patriarchy encourages males to regard woman’s words, woman’s talk as without substance or value, or as a potential threat, individual women cannot hope to effectively communicate feminist thinking with male relatives, companions, etc. without carefully considered strategies.”

“Feminist works that focus on strategies women can use to speak to males about male domination and change are not readily available.”

I find the fourth one down so true as I watch a Republican dominated Senate force their choices on women…..some things never seem to change.

Anyway, I am off to wrap these poor fellows up so they can compare notes and their struggles for survival in perpetuity.

Til next time when I tackle war with loads more sheets and shellac.

The Last of the Patriarchs

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Here are nine wrapped Patriarchs ready for the shellac. I will just show pictures of the last one I wrapped. It was done in graduate school about the men in Brasstown who I spent time with. There was not much we had in common so I set out to find a way to portray what we did share. It was a complex cross reference like one would find in an old library…..”Nettles, also see…..”

Using scraps of iron, wood and a belt of old sandpaper for the container, I made several papers using something that each of us used in one way or another.  Those pages had square holes cut in the center to pass through all the strings that “attached” us to one another. The strings went through to the page of paper that best represented that person. Then like library cards we each got our own name with the main component listed first then “Also see”…. Small samples of the papers were on the back side of the name card.

Several of us had cows at the time so manure was used to make a page. I drank a daily infusion of nettles, Paul was mostly baptist, others chewed tobacco, harvested hay, ate okra etc.

The binding was like a concertinaed book to hold the pages apart.

Denim was used to make the blue page because most of us wore jeans. One of the men brought me a program from the baptist church to make a page with after reducing it to pulp.

I loved how tangled up our strings became every time it was looked through. The first letter of our names was stamped on the small squares of paper to the strings we shared in common. I loved making this piece and wrapped it especially careful. Half of these men are gone and those left probably won’t remember.

Here is one other beside the graduate that just could not be wrapped. The old patriarch teaching music. It is his open mouth, his joyful expression and his students held close as they smile at the experience.  I will keep this one a bit longer, not because I know anything about music but Patrick plays guitar and the graduate might become lonely.

Now on to the shellac. Here is the first coat on some of them. I am glad to have purchased two pounds of flake shellac but now need loads more denatured alcohol/methlolated spirits.

Til later.

PS I am very involved with the revisiting and remembering but you do not have to keep reading this as I document the process for my own benefit. Just check in later after I get everything wrapped, shellacked and ready.

 

Wrapping the Patriarchs

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Stripping cloth to wrap the rest of the patriarchs. I emptied a very large packing box to reach the last of them. Here is the start and what is left to wrap.

This is a large wire paged book on how the men I studied in graduate school always knew where they belonged. Moving from outside to inside or vice versa they always stood next to the same man. They kept their order of belonging. Their bodies were woven on the loom, the heads complex wrappings of wires, legs local sticks. Each one had the same private parts of two nuts and one bolt and each had a different token for their heart. These four moved from one side of the page to the other and kept their order.

The binding of concertina folded hardware screening.

And how they finished up.

And another favorite. This old patriarch is teaching cooperation to his students. The local men I worked with while doing this series donated the old tools they no longer needed.

A close up of the teacher.

His students who learn cooperation by all putting the same end of the oar in the water to get anywhere.

And the old man who teaches different cultures to his attentive students.

His students being the next generation of “old men”.

And his text book.

And the rest to wrap.

Different languages in the foreground with another couple of patriarchs in their houses behind. And the two who teach music and dance are below. They hold their students close.

And finally “the graduate”. This one I can not wrap. It will go to our son as a reminder to help the next generation. He stands a bit helpless over a nest waiting for the doubtful hatching of the next old man to come, one who is trapped in this perfect egg-shaped stone. I always loved this one best of all. The futility of waiting for what likely is not coming and the honest to god hope that comes with it. Patrick will love this.

And here is one I found in the bottom of the carton. It will be tossed in the garbage instead of getting a proper burial……The Promise Keepers. They are trapped in their book of bigoted dogma.

In case you never heard of them (and they may still exist), they are the group of men who could not keep their vows to wives and promises to children….usually because of a sense of privilege and an overactive libido. They would gather at the command of an aging football coach of all things and promise to go home and behave.

In graduate school a friend who was involved with one of these men told me that on his way home from the big gathering in Washington DC he called her to see if he could coax her into some innocent phone sex. Not sure he ever passed the test…..but she did by saying “NO”.

I did just enough research to make me want to create this piece but not enough to continue. Their uncontrollable bigotry among other urges was nothing like the men I spent time with and who allowed me to create art about them.

I will finish the wrapping of the men by this weekend and start shellacking all the bundles I have so far.

There is still one more box of men to do…..they are the ones who deal with the pressures and promises of being “masculine”. They will be fun to photograph one more time as they sail their iron boats in waves of text by feminists.

After that it will be the war series. And I am wearing myself out just remembering all the passion that went into the work I used to care so much about.

Til later.