Exhibitions

My piece is inspired by my love of the outdoors and the struggle to sometimes feel safe as a woman exploring alone. I want to showcase feminine strength and power by embodying a hawk. In “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen Torvald Helmer states “Here is shelter for you; Here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk’s claws.” I am responding to that passage by sewing a feminine rag doll with hawk’s wings empowering herself and free of fear. She is a mature woman and not a “doll” in terms of childish ways or being reduced to an object. She is strong and feminine. In an ideal world, she has the freedom to be naked and free of predators. She is fleeing from the “doll house” to the wild. The doll & doll house represent Nora’s passage “Home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife and Papa’s doll child.” The appliquéd fabric art quilt represents the dichotomy of a traditional child’s doll house and a tent in the wilderness with a chimney coming out of it. The lower left “room” is a scene inspired by nature and topography. The muslin rag doll with hand stitched details and layered fabric wings will hang in front of the doll house art quilt to create depth, movement and confront the viewer.