I started with 3 rather large drawings that I made of 3 suffragists…. Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt … Sort of the beginning and the end results of the process of getting women the right to vote…. I have been interested for quite some time in the idea of creating images of women using words or objects to form their bodies and drawing their heads… These women had so much to say that I thought it would be quite easy to form their bodies with their words…. Since Susan B was on the road so much, I filled her with advertisements of her upcoming speeches and other ephemera promoting her….. And her infamous statement running down her arm, “Failure is Impossible”.. and a photo of Elizabeth Cady Stanton over her heart…..
I have a good collection of suffrage postcards and wanted to include them some way so I made etchings of three of them and matched them up to the three different women…. The Susan B Lives postcard, of course, was obvious and had to go with my Susan B etching and I think, completes the idea that her spirit is still alive and well in the current women’s movement…. our ever constant fight for equality with the men and generally our place in the world…. Failure is Impossible…. The postcard is something done in probably the 70s…..
For Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B’s best friend, I filled her body with her most important speech, “The Solitude of Self”….. If you are not familiar with this writing, check it out by clicking here.. It is probably the best piece she wrote and speaks passionately of full freedoms of individuals… It was her farewell speech when she resigned as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1892….. Again, remember we didn’t get the vote until 1920….. The postcard I chose to be paired with her etching was probably from either the 30s 0r 40s and was a birth announcement. I felt she was definitely born to fight for this cause …..
And in the third etching of Carrie Chapman Catt, I constructed her body with an article that she wrote for a magazine about Equal Suffrage as an Issue of World Democracy… Carrie Chapman Catt sort of brought a conclusion to the voting struggle along with Alice Paul and all of the numerous courageous suffragists….. I love the postcard that I used with her of George Washington questioning “Did I save my country for this?”….. Well, yes, George W, this is our country too…..
I chose the accent color of red to punch up the striking importance of this part of our history…… Red is a color that is hard to ignore….. And for you printmakers, I printed the two colors on one plate and the color on the postcards was added after the etchings were printed and dried.
Each of these etchings is about 5.5 X 10 inches….
and just a little FYI….. are $145. each, unframed….
In the bible, most any time God speaks to anyone directly, he starts out with “Fear Not…… ” I believe that the “fear not” was really his catch phrase for “don’t run away when I am about to tell you something profound”…..
I have had such a wonderful adrenalin rush since Barack Obama was announced as our president that I can only attribute it to my release of eight years of pent up fear….. mainly fear that was handed down as a mandate from our government and passed along by the media….Fear is such a wicked controlling device….. And I must have bought into it, hook, line and sinker…..Our country has been motivated by so much fear and in so many directions that I wonder how we are going to be able to stop doing it …. In this election, we saw the sheer numbers of people who want to quit the addiction of fear…. And replace it with something positive like HOPE ….. and that makes me smile…..
Right now, most of the Republicans who voted for McCain are having to deal with a fear of the unknown….. and I wish I had the words to relieve them of that burden….. I wish they could understand that the sky is not going to fall, that the rapture is not going to happen and they are not going to die…. that the police are not going to be instructed on January 20th, 2009 to come into their houses and take away their precious guns…… And maybe somewhere along the way, they will relearn that the word “liberal” is not a bad word….. that it means to be open minded and inclusive and not something to be feared…
FDR said in his inaugural address that “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. “
He was asking America to rise above their fears and become a “fearless” nation …. We don’t need to attack and cause war to make the rest of the world think we are strong…. Our might should come from us banding together as Americans and covering each other’s backs….
“Always Celebrate Your Love” ….. monoprint collage by d.little-wilson
Which brings me to wonder why the gay community’s backs in California weren’ t covered?… What was that about????? Why doesn’t the country stand behind their struggle to be as equal as the rest of us ? …why do so many people fear gay marriage? …. If someone thinks their marriage will some how be diminished because gay marriage is allowed, then their marriage was not that strong to begin with….And why should anyone who loves someone else, not be able to marry that person, if they feel that is so important for them to do so…….
It makes me mad when morality is brought into this issue ……. when and who decided that LOVE between two people was ever morally wrong?? …… And if the bible is used to define morals, then in quoting my favorite verse about love, I find no reference to it being defined as just between a man and a woman…..
1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Not to sound weird or anything but…. I think God has been telling us “Fear Not……” but our government has been trying to over ride the message …… I think we need to stop and listen to our hearts and start covering each other’s backs ……
Not sure why I was on my soap box tonight but there you go…….
What an amazing day…. I feel totally energized…. We are living in a New America….. I feel like my blood pressure has gone down at least 20 points….
We have a new president…. Barack Obama…
So much is being said about what a great day this is for black Americans and I know this is true but for me, I feel this is a great day for ALL Americans…. It is absolutely historic for America, not just because he is black but because we have chosen the very best person for the job….. He is brilliant, articulate and all encompassing and he happens to be black ….. If anyone has a chance to bring us all together, it will be Barack Obama… I don’t mean to underscore the significance of what this means for black Americans, because this is huge…….. But the HOPE that Barak Obama offers is important for the rest of Americans, as well….
In June 2007, I was selling at an art show in Des Moines, Iowa…. Two young women came into my booth and were interested in my suffrage pieces, which got us into a discussion about politics….. They said that they had just moved to Des Moines to start the grass roots of Barack Obama’s campaign to get out the vote …. They liked my pieces because voting was such an important cause for them and I was honored when they bought several pieces…. I remember being impressed by their youthful enthusiasm and their admirable dedication to this man, Barack Obama …. What a long job they had ahead of them….. I have thought of them off and on through the race, wondering if they were still on the trail with the same vigor that they had on the day in June….. I imagine they had to be, in order to make something like this happen…. Thanks girls, where ever you are now…… Good job …
But like President – elect Barack Obama said, the road is still going to be long and hard……I feel like we finally found someone to lead us who has a working compass and knows the right path…..
And in the words of Susan B. Anthony…. “Failure is Impossible”
Congratulations, Barack Obama and Joe Biden … And Congratulations, America….
This is a rare real photo postcard that I was extremely fortunate to buy at the Wichita Postcard Show a couple of weeks ago….. It broke my bank but I had to have it…. I bought it from Tom Mulvaney, a postcard dealer from Helena, Montana…..He had the image researched because he thought it was of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman congresswoman, who happened to be from Montana, as well…. But he couldn’t find any evidence that it was… It would be nice to know who the woman was but it is more the demonstration of bravery that captured my imagination….
Right after I bought this card, I found another suffrage card…… It is by the artist, Bernhardt Wall……
But I didn’t get this postcard for the front, I bought it because of the message on the back…….
The message reads “I believe I heard you say that you favor votes for women. Do you wear a Suffragette button?” …….. A call to stand up….. Can you imagine what it would have been like before 1920, to wear a button on your blouse or dress, saying that you think women should have a voice as important as a man’s.. I wonder if Miss Ida K. Miller was that brave…..
I will be making an etching that will combine the real photo and this postcard back to convey the message that it is important to not just believe in a cause but to stand up and let the rest of the world know what you have in your heart….. I will post the etching when I get it done…..
You know, it has bothered me that I haven’t been brave enough to put an Obama sticker on my van for fear of having the tires slashed….. It is time that we stop living in a world controlled by fear …… We have to stop letting anyone who disagrees with what we believe to continue to bully us around….. We have had enough of that from the present administration….
Right now, the main thing that we can all do is get out and vote between now and Nov. 4th…. I will be voting for Barack Obama for change and for a better future that hopefully won’t contain as much intimidation by fear …… Okay, I guess, I will go put that sticker on my van now……
I really didn’t want to get into this subject but after watching this video of Sarah Palin fumbling the ball, while trying to answer this question, I found it hard to contain myself any more… When questioned about whether someone who bombs abortion clinics is a terrorist or not, Palin said that she did not know… Wouldn’t anyone with a bomb be a terrorist?…. Is she that immersed in defending her anti abortion crusade that she can’t admonish bombing an abortion clinic?….. How rednecked can this woman be and do we want someone that callous and narrowminded in the White House?
Here are her own words……
To me, this is an extremist stance and is not what I would want in any leadership position ….. I do not deny her right to be anti abortion but evidently she would want to deny other’s rights to be Pro Choice, to the extent of believing that bombing a clinic is a justified kill…. Now that is more than a little scary…
Mainly, I avoid talking about abortion because I feel that to talk about this issue is really a ploy to avoid the issues that are more important and of course, harder to solve……Issues that would make the world a better place for the children who are already here ….
Notice that I have not called her Pro Life because, obviously, by the way she thinks, that description does not really fit her… After all, she kills large, innocent animals from a helicopter and brags about it …Human or Animal, it is all life in my book…..But my point is not to debate abortion….
It is her stance on most of the issues that elude me and unfortunately, I believe, elude her… And there is the problem…. We have had a President for 8 years who could not talk intellectually on the most common subjects….. I want someone in that office who can think faster on their feet than I can…. That position needs to be filled by someone who is not a common person…..Haven’t we had enough of that ?
The way I see it is that the $150,000 spent on Sarah Palin was $150,000 that wasn’t spent on their campaign …..They can spend all the money they want on her, it won’t make any difference in the outcome….. Their girl will look good but it won’t sugar coat the fact that their basic plan will not change America for the better …. Their priorities are a little skewed, if you ask me and this is just another example of how our money will be spent if they get into office, again….
Look, the RNC spending $150,000 on a new wardrobe for Sarah Palin, so that she will impress us is like an average “Jane, the homemaker” going to Penney’s to buy a pair of $50 shoes so she has something nice to wear when her husband takes her out to the Golden Corral Buffet ….. Rich Republicans are probably wondering what all the fuss is about….. A further nod to the fact that they are out of touch with the general public….
I understand that she now plans on donating her clothes to charity….. (even she doesn’t believe that she will need these clothes when she goes back to Alaska, I guess) ….. I say, she should just take the clothes and run, it may be all that she will get out of her hard work on the campaign trail….. But if the RNC is smart, they would auction them off, take the money and start saving for their next run in 4 years…. What a better way but to start with the skirts of the woman they banked all of their hopes on……
Hey, I was lucky enough to go to the great Ann Richard’s estate sale… I spent $20 on a pair of her black shoes that she bought from Barney’s in New York….. How cool is that!!!!!
But Sarah, don’t you be looking at these shoes…. they are some you could never fill…….
Come November it will all be a mute point anyway…. She will just be a better outfitted govenor of Alaska, paid for by the RNC (basically Republican donors), not the Alaskan people….
We just got home from spending a week in Wichita, Kansas doing the annual Wichita Postcard Club show… We had a fabulous time with friends we share our love of postcards with….. Now for some reason, most of our postcard friends are conservative Republicans… Usually we all skirt around political issues but we were delighted to find out that this year we had more in common besides postcards… Several of the couples we enjoy being with have decided to switch their support to Barack Obama…. What I loved was their enthusiasm…. One couple comes from PA. and another from Illinios……And another close Republican friend who is the glue holding the postcard club together has become an Obama supporter…. I came home with hope that people are really seeing who Barack Obama is and all of the positive possiblities that come with him…..
And as McCain continues to badger the crowds with fear and lies about his opponent, Obama stays the course in his calm and honest way, showing us how presidential he will be….. I want Barack Obama to be President because he doesn’t make me feel afraid…
In Kansas, there is a sign in a field off of the highway that has always bothered me when I pass it….. The sign reads……” Accept the Lord or you will regret it for the rest of your life”…. To me, that sign plays with fear and would be much more inviting if it read, “Accept the Lord and you will not regret it for the rest of your life.”….. It’s not that I am that religious but I am tired of control by fear in practically every aspect of life….. And that seems to be the Republican policy…..
Anyway, before I get back to writing about the suffrage movement, I want to speak about how people are attracted to the positivity that seems to fuel Barack Obama….. I love that Colin Powell has come out endorsing Obama and he did it so eloquently…..
And then I found several other videos I wanted to share … First, Women for Obama…… (this one is about 19 minutes but well worth watching……
Mexican Americans for Obama…….
Israelis for Obama…….
So, in order to make this happen, don’t forget to vote….. And be careful when you vote, make sure every thing looks right before you pull the lever or push the button…..
Vote….. it will make you feel like you are a part of the change and it will make you feel hopeful and good…..
Oh, I bought some great suffrage postcards and I will be sharing them in my next post…..
If McCain wins and I have to listen to him say “My Friends” a hundred times in every speech, I will slit my wrists…. It is bad enough that we have had to endure eight years of Bushisms but the prospect of four years of Palin’s folksy, gosh darn it nonsense and McCain’s breathy “Listen, my friends” will absolutely do me in….Okay, I had to get that off of my chest first before I could continue…
They say that “Actions speak louder than words” and what I have observed of McCain’s actions towards women is a big shout out…. His voting record alone makes me understand how he views women’s rights.. I could list these but they are too long …. If you are interested in viewing them in detail, check out.. WomenForBarackObama.com
or go to Votesmart.org to learn how he has voted on all of the issues….
In my efforts to tolerate Sarah Palin, I have just come to feel sorry for her….. She is really just a pawn for McCain to add a bust, oh I mean, boost to his dragging campaign….. There were other more qualified Republican women whom he could have chosen but they weren’t sexy enough and we all know that sex sells… Now, granted, Palin did accept the position “without blinking” but she should have known that she wasn’t ready for the job….. Maybe if she had really read all of those magazines or newspapers that she couldn’t name to Katie Couric, she would have been better equiped….. she should have said “Thanks, but no thanks” to McCain’s sexism….
I hesitate to bring up McCain’s first wife but since we are talking about how he views women, I might as well go ahead….. While he was a POW, his wife was in a horrible car wreck…. she became disfigured and gained weight…. He comes home and dumps her for a richer, younger, more fit model…. Not an uncommon tale but if you claim that are in the “moral” party, you might as well “walk the walk and talk the talk” or suffer the criticism …..
Recently during the debate, a young black woman got up to ask him a question…… His body language spoke volumes…. Instead of answering her question and looking into her eyes, he totally turned his back to her when he spoke…… I was in disbelief…. A sharp contrast to the hand shaking and drooling he did over the overweight comrade in arms at the beginning of the debate….I don’t know if this reaction was because she was a woman or because she was black or because he was just too old to be standing that long but what ever it was, it was pretty rude
Women are not the only people he doesn’t respect…. I would talk about the “that one” comment but it leaves me speechless…..There was that moment he told the young man that he probably never heard about Fannie and Freddie until this crisis…. how insulting….
McCain doesn’t even seem to have as much tolerance for women or African Americans as Palin has for the gay community…..and that isn’t saying much….It seems like he only has respect for the old guard Republicans and military men…. that leaves a huge portion of our population at risk….. which scares me…..
and leaves me wondering, who are these “friends” that he keeps talking about………
My original intent was to talk about Sarah Palin as a Maverick…. but “Say it isn’t so” Joe, threw that tag out of the ball park, so to speak….. When he went off on John McCain being no Maverick, it was for me, a real “Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy” moment…. I just LOVE Joe Biden… I have since the 80s, when he first ran for president…
But let’s talk about the other VP candidate … I had it in my head that I wanted to explore all of what Sarah Palin claims to be in order to keep myself “fair and balanced” and maybe even tolerate Sarah, as she does gay people .. You know, like… I tolerate her but I don’t want her to marry her soul mate, oh I mean, I don’t want her to be the VP………. I really don’t want this to just keep bashing Palin so I think I will conclude my assessment of her by talking about her claim to be a Feminist….. To me, this was the most appalling claim of all…
In her interview with Katie Couric, she said this…..
Katie Couric: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Sarah Palin: I do. I’m a feminist who believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed and to try to do it all anyway. And I’m very, very thankful that I’ve been brought up in a family where gender hasn’t been an issue. You know, I’ve been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and you’re out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family. So it kinda started with that. With just that expectation that the boys and the girls in my community were expected to do the same and accomplish the same. That’s just been instilled in me.
That is more of a Tom Boy description than a Feminist…. Just like the Maverick tag that they are so trying to cling to in order to separate themselves from George Bush’s Republican party, this Feminist claim just doesn’t stick either….. I would love it if she was a real feminist, I would be able to tolerate her just a little bit more…..
It is not just that she isn’t for women’s choice over what they can do with their bodies, that is bad enough but consider what she is saying with her next comments to Katie Couric….
Couric: What is your definition of a feminist?
Palin: Someone who believes in equal rights. Someone who would not stand for oppression against women.
Couric: Where do you stand on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?
Palin: I’m absolutely for equal pay for equal work. The Ledbetter pay act – it was gonna turn into a boon for trial lawyers who, I believe, could have taken advantage of women who were many, many years ago who would allege some kind of discrimination. Thankfully, there are laws on the books, there have been since 1963, that no woman could be discriminated against in the workplace in terms of anything, but especially in terms of pay. So, thankfully we have the laws on the books and they better be enforced.
Couric: The Ledbetter act sort of lengthens the time a woman can sue her company if she’s not getting equal pay for equal work. Why should a fear of lawsuits trump a woman’s ability to do something about the fact that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. And that’s today.
Palin: There should be no fear of a lawsuit prohibiting a woman from making sure that the laws that are on the books today are enforced. I know in a McCain-Palin administration we will not stand for any measure that would result in a woman being paid less than a man for equal work.
Couric: Why shouldn’t the Ledbetter act be in place? You think it would result in lawsuits brought by women years and years ago. Is that your main problem with it?
Palin: It would have turned into a boon for trial lawyers. Again, thankfully with the existing laws we have on the books, they better be enforced. We won’t stand for anything but that. We won’t stand for any discrimination in the workplace – that there isn’t any discrimination in America.
Out of one side of her mouth she says she is for equal rights for women but on the other side, she won’t be voting for them when she gets that kind of opportunity even if it is for equal pay ….. And it clearly sounded like a memorized answer plugged into her head by the McCain staff…. Like most every thing else the woman says…..
I am not sure what her point was to try to even identify herself as a feminist when most of the women in her party take a step back in horror over the word…. Wouldn’t that turn off those women or are they just voting for her because they like her style of glasses…. or her folksy way of talking…. or the way she wears her clothes…… which by the way, it was pointed out to me that she made the fashion gaffe of wearing white after Labor Day yesterday….. Good Grief, can she do no wrong in these people’s minds?…..
I grew up with the Miss America beauty pageant every September and was totally mesmerized by it but even I know the difference between a beauty queen and a feminist……
And Sarah Palin, you are no feminist…..
I would like to stop with that but I want to include one more comment from a much more qualified feminist than myself … This is for any of the Hillary supporters who are still trying to make up their minds between voting for Obama/Biden or doing a protest vote for McCain/Palin … this is from Gloria Steinem….. that would be like saying “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”
I started with 3 rather large drawings that I made of 3 suffragists…. Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt … Sort of the beginning and the end results of the process of getting women the right to vote…. I have been interested for quite some time in the idea of creating images of women using words or objects to form their bodies and drawing their heads… These women had so much to say that I thought it would be quite easy to form their bodies with their words…. Since Susan B was on the road so much, I filled her with advertisements of her upcoming speeches and other ephemera promoting her….. And her infamous statement running down her arm, “Failure is Impossible”.. and a photo of Elizabeth Cady Stanton over her heart…..
For Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B’s best friend, I filled her body with her most important speech, “The Solitude of Self”….. If you are not familiar with this writing, check it out by clicking here.. It is probably the best piece she wrote and speaks passionately of full freedoms of individuals… It was her farewell speech when she resigned as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1892….. Again, remember we didn’t get the vote until 1920….. The postcard I chose to be paired with her etching was probably from either the 30s 0r 40s and was a birth announcement. I felt she was definitely born to fight for this cause …..
This is a rare real photo postcard that I was extremely fortunate to buy at the Wichita Postcard Show a couple of weeks ago….. It broke my bank but I had to have it…. I bought it from Tom Mulvaney, a postcard dealer from Helena, Montana…..He had the image researched because he thought it was of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman congresswoman, who happened to be from Montana, as well…. But he couldn’t find any evidence that it was… It would be nice to know who the woman was but it is more the demonstration of bravery that captured my imagination….
But I didn’t get this postcard for the front, I bought it because of the message on the back…….
The message reads “I believe I heard you say that you favor votes for women. Do you wear a Suffragette button?” …….. A call to stand up….. Can you imagine what it would have been like before 1920, to wear a button on your blouse or dress, saying that you think women should have a voice as important as a man’s.. I wonder if Miss Ida K. Miller was that brave…..
