Practice Viva Questions

Introductory Context

What is the area in which you wish to be examined?

Stitching (In)Significant Women - samplers, supporting artwork and essay

In what way is your thesis original?

It explores how specific, named, previously unstudied women, have been identified as significant by their actions, by people who knew them. It uses the sampler as a textile art medium to make social observations about women as a group who are under-represented as subjects and makers in museums and art galleries.

What are the theoretical underpinnings of your work?

My work uses various feminist theories - standpoint theory; epistemic injustice - and value theories: Kohlberg's theory of moral development and Schwartz's theory of basic values.

Who, or what, was most influential on your thinking?

Haraway & Hartsock - standpoint theory; knowledge is socially situated; minorities see 'some things from somewhere'
Arden McHugh - epistemic injustice - universal values are actually masculinist
Irigaray - women's values have not yet been clearly defined
Donald Schon - Reflective Practitioner
Richard Sennett - The Craftsman
Visiting the NPG for the rehang of the 20thC gallery

Visiting the National Portrait Gallery in 2018 for the rehang of the 20th century gallery, showed me how skewed is the representation of anyone other than white men, and how restricted are the media they display - mostly oil on canvas.  Reading their Collections Policy showed me how fine words in a policy recognising they have an over-representation of oil on canvas, does not necessarily transfer into changing the curatorial practice, which is usually rationalised/justified via 'we have inadequate funding'. This challenged me to consider how I could redress the representation of women with my contemporary work, using the sampler as a largely female art media.

Which previous studies and researchers influenced your work?

The Value theories of Kohlberg and Schwartz.  Kohlberg said men's values were around Justice and Women's around Caring, and measured them in a hierarchical structure. Theory devised and trialled on men, then applied to women - who always scored less than men.  I believed his theory was fundamentally flawed.  Schwartz created a 360 degree structure with a diverse range of values held by men and women.  But neither theory accounted why women are represented, by the media in general and institutions in particular, with a narrow range of reasons (sexuality, domesticity, passivity) to be valued in 21st century society.

Why did you narrow your focus of enquiry to this?

Because my life experience and work experience showed that women are always valued less than men for what they do, even when in the same job.  Women in my diverse, manual workplace were rarely valued for their skills and contributions that were relevant to the workplace.  Laddish behaviour was valued, especially from men.

Explain your thesis, in two minutes

My thesis considers history of the sampler as a vehicle to demonstrate skills for middle class and working class girls.  I consider how women have been portrayed in art history as demonstrated by museums and galleries, and which groups of women are unrepresented. I reflect on Elaine Reichek for her samplers that describe the stereotyping of her Jewish family; Mary Kelly for her depiction of the unsavoury reality of motherhood via baby nappies; Margaret Harrison for her challenge of Government perpetration of unfair employment conditions for women, and Lubaina Himid for promoting the skills of a black laundress from history.   I use the sampler to carry a narrative of working class women, known to me, whose skills are largely unrecognised, and conclude that women's values centre around verbal and practical skills, kindness and work ethic.

How did you maintain objectivity during the research process?

I'm not sure I did. This is an art MRes, based on social observations from my position as a straight, white, working class, middle aged woman. There is a feminist phrase 'objectivity is male subjectivity', and my work portrays 'some things from somewhere'.  My work depicts activities conducted by specific, unrecognised women who I believe make a valid and valuable contribution to society by their mundane and consistent actions.  The research was based on oral history interviews, records in archives and contextual research in museums and galleries.  My work portrays social observations about women, by women, for women.

How far do you think you can generalise your work?

The principles of considering who is under-valued can be applied to many walks of life.  I am working to consider women - any type of woman - different ages, ethnicities, orientations.  But these principles can be applied to anyone, for example lorry drivers are often under-valued when overtaking on a two lane motorway because they slow the traffic, but if there is an accident, these drivers know what to do and use their vehicles to create safe space for emergency services.

The generalisation of my work is displayed when it is on display at exhibitions.  Feedback from curatorial staff indicates my samplers inspire a lot of discussion from women, around the skills in the making and associating skills and talents in the women I depict with memories of women in the viewer's life.  This generalisation and association is my critical success factor.

How did your research questions emerge?

??

What are the motivations for your research?

The first motivation was my workplace - women were not valued in the same way as men; many women worked really hard and were ignored for their contribution, whereas many men were rewarded for who they socialised with (I ran the payroll and could see who was rewarded for supposed high performance!).

Then I looked at the National Gallery rehang, and realised men were represented by war-mongering; power; status; whereas the few women shown were sexualised, passive, or domestic, and the only painting of an ethnic minority woman was not even finished! While there were possibly restrictions on what was displayed because of historical collecting practices, imaginative curation could have diversified the display.  And the only exhibits brought in on loan for the rehang, were cigarette cards. They were absolutely exquisite but it occurred to me that WW1 cigarette cards were a male media - there were no media related to women.

My contribution to the under-representation of women in institutional art collections, is to make my own art, in a female media, that celebrates the contributions of women who have little power or status, but who are valued in mundane ways.

Methods, Design and Analysis

Why did you select this sample?  Were there any limitations to it?

This sample was selected as women known to me.  Limited by working class status, all with links to the East End of London.

How did you choose your methodology?  Were there any constraints?

I used a multi-modal methodology, which varied according to where I thought I would find relevant data.  Because I chose each woman represented, I wanted to take wider views and opinions about why the individual should be valued.  The first sampler, Intellectual Woman, Mrs Konieczny, commenced with oral history recordings with her daughter which gave some key quotes.  Argumentative Woman, about me,  used a questionnaire to gain views from my friends and family about my helpful and unhelpful behaviours and sketchbooks to develop ideas. Homemaker Woman, Aunt Joan, used oral history interviews with her children, visits to gardens that inspired her; and sketchbooks to develop ideas about artefacts that she used. Migrant Worker Woman, toilet cleaners at Liverpool Street station, used interviews with Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong, and sketchbooks to develop ideas about their artefacts.  Manual Worker Woman, Aunt Daisy, used archive research, and sketchbook development.  Much of the sketchbook work involved working with tools and substrates that represented the individuals chosen - for example drawing with identity cards, dressmakers wheel and stitch, or working on dressmaking patterns, key fobs, car seat templates or toilet rolls.

Talk us though how you analysed your data

I usually read through data gathered and start creating sketchbooks inspired by those phrases.  In the case of my Argumentative Woman piece, I took the database created by the questionnaire about me, and identified patterns and trends in what was valued, or was deemed unhelpful.  There was a strong correlation between what I say that is supportive, or what I say that can be unkind or cutting.  I realised that sometimes the same statement that is deemed both supportive and cutting, but by different parties.  I identified that this is often a key factor in being deemed argumentative - when supporting someone being treated unfairly, my words are deemed helpful by the underdog and unhelpful by the person I am arguing against.

How did you manage the data you collected?

Mostly by restricting how much I gathered.  In the early stages of research, I made the mistake of thinking that data had to be on a database, so did some quantitative research about how women were represented in museums.  This gave me a lot of data which indicated I had set the parameters too wide.  But it did give some broad base conclusions that women were poorly represented in general collections, and tended to be represented as passive, sexualised or domestic.  Occasionally women were represented as successful in a male dominated field eg science or engineering.

Interviews were recorded, with required consents, and written transcripts are available, with destroy dates.  Archival visits are documented.

Did you encounter any problems with applying your chosen method of analysis?

No.

What were the ethical issues in conducting this research?

Consent from individuals to use the data gathered for artwork.  Permission was sought and granted to use their names. This was resolved by stating they would be consulted regularly with the outputs of my making, and that they had the right to withdraw consent, so I would stop work.  If I failed to ensure they were represented fairly, my university would fail me on my degree.

What steps have you taken to minimise researcher bias in your work?

I think with artwork, some researcher bias is inevitable, because my work is based on selecting people who I believe were worthwhile and contributed positively to their family and society in under-noticed ways.  However, what I have represented has come from sources within their own families or archives.

If you could start again what would you do differently?

Have a better plan at the start.  Don't fall into the trap of masculinist thinking - I chose Mrs Konieczny as she was an intellectual woman whose upbringing prevented her from using her intellect to earn her living.  I made the mistake of following Enlightenment thinking that separated mind from body, and valued mind over body.  So I started by valuing her intellect but the research found her contribution valued by her family was her interaction and kindness with people who were struggling.

If you could start again what would you do the same way?

The sketchbook developments.  I enjoy the artwork and how it makes me consider what people do.
I'd continue using the long narrow shape, the alphabets and the text panel of the samplers.  The shape alludes to the purpose of the sampler cut from a bolt of cloth to develop skills; the alphabet to enable working class girls to mark linens; the verse to show they could read.  The border pattern to indicate something significant about the individual: the national flowers of England and Poland for Mrs Konieczny; honesty for me; the single colour flower borders for Aunt Joan; the Ghanaian symbols for Gifts, Mavis and Sarpong; and the production line of car seats for Aunt Daisy.

How did you decide what literature to include in your literature review?

As an artist, I'm deeming artwork to be the literature.  Elaine Reichek uses samplers as a artefact of her colonial childhood and subversively uses it as in indicator of a comfortable home life, to narrate the casual racism her family encountered. I love Mary Kelly's use of soiled nappies to tell the complicated, unsavoury mundanity of motherhood, challenging the sweet-scented idealisation given by the patriarchal society.  Margaret Harrison, with her collaged Homeworkers, appeals to my feminist knowledge of employment law and the practices companies use to circumvent their legal responsibilities. And Lubaina Himid draws attention to Grace Robinson, a black laundress, hidden in the history of Knole, National Trust property, thus broadening the range of people studied in British history.

Results and discussion

Do you think the data collected were the most appropriate to answer your research question?

My initial practices to create a database of information about formal portraits was not, but was broadly useful as I identified the need to tighten the criteria on which I gathered data.  It identified that formal portraits in institutions were very restricted in range - to people  with status, power and money (usually men, but sometimes women associated with such men).  Thus I identified that ordinary, working class women were under-represented.

What are the weakest parts of your work?

My writing.  My inability to accept that I need to write a lot and refine continually to achieve one decent paragraph.  (I accept that I can make several things in an art class, and only one image will be high quality.  I accept that I have to create the less successful, in order to get into flow to create the good stuff.  I wish I could do the same with my writing!!). I find the writing really difficult.  Yet I recognise that all the angst leads to me drawing articulate conclusions about my subject - Margaret Harrison's Homeworkers is brilliant  - because she publicises that the Government that introduced employment and H&S legislation subsequently becomes a perpetrator of discrimination against women by contracting out its low-grade female employees work to contractors, thus depriving its lowest paid staff of safe working environments, holiday and sick pay, and guaranteed salaried income.

In Migrant Woman Worker, the shaping on the toilet brush handles should have been done in a different stitch to get the flowing shapes.  Also, I should have stitched all the toilet brushes in black (not various of grey, and definitely not the blue grey), to simplify the design and restrict the range of colours to red, green, gold and black - the colours of the Ghanaian flag.

What are the strongest parts of your work?

The people I choose to consider. Very few people even thank toilet cleaners for their work, let alone make art about them.

What aspect of your research did you find most interesting?

The contextual stuff.  I am always going to museums and galleries, and thinking 'how do they represent women here?  Which women do they represent?  As what?"

How did your thinking develop as you went through the research process?

I started by thinking that women should be valued in the same way as men.  But as I looked at how art institutions represented men - power, status, money - I realised this was not my value system.  And women are not men.  We do different things and value systems are often unspoken, and masculinist - ie created and controlled originally by men, and retrofitted to women.   Women's values are not clearly defined, but I think they are different to men's.

While considering which women to represent, I considered my former headmistress, who was an intellectual, champion swimmer, multi-faith champion, Kew Garden volunteer. And she was middle class.  But she had received an OBE, so had received considerable recognition.  I refined my focus to look at women who had not received any form of formal recognition.

How have you evaluated your work?

I find my work is validated by whether it is selected for exhibition - which is has been.  If other people look at my work and start identifying and discussing the significant women in their lives, then it is a success.

Which part of the process did you enjoy the most?  Why?

Developing sketchbooks that tell a narrative of specific women.  I like using mundane materials.  I like the humour of using unconventional media when making wry observations about how women are treated.  When I was working on Manual Worker Woman, I realised the first jobs that were contracted out by Ford Motor Co were the machinists.  Ford had used the women's skills and as soon as the women successfully campaigned for higher wages (still the lowest paid in the company), they had been discarded - thus Ford had treated them like abject commodities.  So I drew payslips on Izal toilet paper - an abject media, designed to be used and discarded.  I thought this was quite witty!  If sad.

Where did you go wrong?  What did you learn from it?

On the toilet brush handles - the curves were not elegant enough.  I used the wrong stitch.  So I learned a different stitch to apply smooth curves to the car seats on Manual Worker Woman.

I used too many shades of grey on the toilet brushes, especially the blue grey.  I should have used black on all of them.  I learned to simplify designs as I went along, not make them more complicated.

How long do you expect your work to remain current?

It's art.  It can remain current for a long time. So long as my work provokes thought in others, I'm not particularly bothered whether it is current.

Please describe your main findings in a few sentences

Women's values, as identified in my tiny selection, seem to be around verbal and practical skills, kindness, and work ethic.  Also viewers appear to like looking at artwork that kindly represents them, or people they know.

How do your findings challenge the literature in this field?

By portraying different people to those frequently shown in galleries and museums, using infrequently used media.

How do your findings support the literature in this field?

I am treading a well-worn feminist tranche by making art about women and their life experiences.  Miriam Schapiro, Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger, Monica Ross, Shelly Goldsmith, Caren Garfen

Implications and utilisation

How do you intend to share your research findings?

By offering the samplers for long term loan to the East End Women's Museum (opening in Barking & Dagenham 2021) to inspire their outreach programme.
By exhibiting the samplers and supporting artwork in Women's History Month events
By talks to women's organisations eg WI.

How has your work been received so far?  eg conference, publications, blogs (art shows)

At art shows, my samplers inspire much inspection by stitchers and affectionate reminiscence of the significant women in the lives of the viewer.  They trigger memory.

How would you like this research to be followed up and taken further?

By outreach programmes inspiring other women to make art about their (In)Significant Women, and realise the contributions of other unknown women.

Is there anything you'd like to share or discuss that we've not asked you about?

No.

What are the research implications of your findings?

That museums and galleries review their collecting and exhibiting policies, and diversify how they show/represent people.  For example, the National Portrait Gallery's collections policy states they collect images of significant people, and are aware they are over-represented with oil on canvas and white men.  Their means of addressing this was to have a wonderful exhibition of Grayson Perry using ceramics, tapestry, miniatures, of many types of people not in the NPG. But no exhibitions of diverse media since!  I would challenge their definition of 'significant' - they refer to people who have been high achievers in the fields of engineering, medicine, politics, sport, music, which I think are masculinist values.  I'd like 'significant' to include nurses who conduct smear tests, renal nurses, laundry workers, dustmen, miners etc.

Who is your audience?

Mostly women but anyone who is prepared to look at people who are different to them.

What are the practice implications of your findings?

Not sure.

What are the theoretical implications of your findings?

That women are usually deemed as lesser than men in any measurement or value system;  that more research could identify in more detail, the patterns and trends of what women value, what onlookers value women for, and how society could be more gender fair.

What are the policy implications of your findings?

That museums and galleries need to write policies relating to the representation of people more widely, and apply them.  To find alternative sources of imagery.  Consider borrowing works rather than purchasing them.  To display more contemporary art.

What are you most proud of, and why?

Migrant Worker Woman.  Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong are good, hard-working women who serve the travelling public.  I love the colours, I love the mundane objects depicted.  I hope that in some tiny way, my work makes them feel more valued and that people who look at my sampler see toilet cleaners in a more positive light.