Author Archives: sjczekalski

Emancipation Thread

Emancipation Thread

These prints starts as layered experiments for the quilt I wanted to make to be a part of “A Quilted Statement”, however, once made they could no longer be folded back up and put inside of a box. Emancipation Thread is a quilt of endless possibilities. The women in the prints are taken from their objectified portraits, the images of “woman” that dominate the mainstream media and embedded back into the fabric of their traditional ancestry. The women are then liberated through unconventional ways of quilting, embroidery, and collage. Free from a stereotype, from a tradition, and from the male gaze. Reclaimed in their own body, craft, voices, choices, and stories.

Full Quilt Front and Back

Front Piece Close Ups

 

 

Back Side Close Ups

Recycled Quilts, Embroidery Thread, Embroidery Cloth, Cheese Cloth, Handmade Flax Paper dyed with red wine and soy sauce. Varying dimensions about 42 by 23 inches.

 

 

Documentation of Process

https://sites.google.com/massart.edu/unlimitednarratives/sonja-j-czekalski?authuser=0

A Quilted Statement

A Quilted Statement

This artist book was inspired by the Unlimited Narratives course I took this summer. The book is encased in a keepsake box, a place to store secrets and treasures. Inside the box, is another box, crafted from milkweed fibers and flax fibers, stitched together by a pink thread. Tied closed with a bow of pink fabric, once opened it reveals a skin-like stained quilt. The quilt is stitched together, piece by piece, with the words of 32 stories from the #whatwomenwear project I started in the Spring scratched into its surface. The quilted statement tells the unique stories of each woman woven together, the individual stories combine to tell the collective narrative. The scratched statements are permanently there but buried away. Permanently there, but not obvious to see.  The stories are tucked away but begging to be heard. When she says ” They wait years to say Me Too… but I never heard them complain” I ask first, why did no one listen… I ask next, why did no one ask?

Wooden Box- Upcycled antique box with glass frame, 5×7 inches

Paper Box- Handmade milkweed and abaca paper, handmade flax paper, embroidery thread, adhesive, and fabric, 4×6 inches

Statement- Handmade flax paper dyed with soy sauce and red wine, scratched with needle tip tool and stitched with embroidery thread.

 

 

 

The full statement is written below, a sentence from each of the 32 letters I received for #whatwomenwear woven together into one.

 

“In a world where I was conditioned from adolescence to fix myself for others, cover my face with powder, straighten my posture, speak quieter, don’t interrupt, maybe don’t speak at all… I cannot disconnect my being female from the trauma it has gifted me.- worried my absence would leave her to wilt, I stayed- take care of everyone else and put myself last. My feelings weren’t as important as anyone else’s… I let myself be controlled by a man for many years- my life has always been about sex… I was 5 when he asked me to marry him…I never told my mom.- When I got my period my mom came home from work and we both cried. I knew what it meant. She was a woman. I was no longer just a girl. I lied for five years and pretended I didn’t have it.- Tampax- we all have them- The nice girls were virgins… I don’t want to die before I have sex- and wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced because it was a sign of a loose woman… so intellectually I know I ran to NYC and slept around and had a grand time-  I began walking to my car, the man who raped me in 9th grade walked by me as I walked to my car and asked me how I was.- suicide becomes the only remaining source of hope, hope that the pain will stop.- scars on my body and years I want to erase- some say I am too young to have these scars- pleasure through punishment-  My skin is meant to keep me safe, protected, secure. Why then does it show me all the hardships I’ve endured… These marks are a relic of behavior I no longer condone and they will push me to grow until my body is once again my own- Loss and gain has me wondering how powerful I am or am I the one to blame? – They wait years to say Me Too… but I never heard them complain- I carry a needle and thread so I may sew myself up again if they cut faster than I do – When I dump all of these items on the floor when they finally get too heavy, inevitably I’m putting them all back in my bag – my physical appearance allowed me to disguise my sexuality even from myself… I was accepting what others pictured for me as my reality- As a woman, a mother, a wife, I carry my mistakes, my poor or tired or not optimum parenting- I start to reflect on my life, shy , quiet, peace-maker, these were the words that were used to describe me… but I have found my voice… fighting for my son.-When I was told to be quiet I made sure I was the only thing they heard- I led a Take Back the Night walk… That night there were several death threats against me… He was told by his friends that if he chose to stay with me they would no longer be his friend.- my ambition was to be a nurse and a mother… together.- My wife self, my mother self, my friend self, my lover self, and my caregiver self, from time to time feel like a loose self.- something resplendent, a liquor that laces my blood with gold.- I try to keep a balance and stay positive… so many people live in constant trauma- I carry my nieces reminding them to walk in the Light-  I think of all the hats I have worn, some being more comfortable and as light as a feather, and some heavier and more cumbersome, but I know that I value each and every one of them and realize that they all helped make me who I am today. I consider myself to be an extremely lucky woman.- There’s my little poem thingy about being a lady.”

Womban Corset

Womban Corset

I created this piece as a “reaction” to my art-making process for an assignment for my Major Studio class this semester. I followed the rule of “no rules” to create the fabric of the corset layering on all of my processes from drawing and writing, to collage, embroidery, and papermaking. When creating this “reaction” the word “Woman” kept echoing in my ear. I paint because I am a woman. I write because I am a woman. I collage because I am a woman. I embroider because I am a woman. I learned to make paper this year because I am a woman. I learned to make clothing at a young age from my grandmother because I am a woman. The interplay of the nurture from my nature has shaped me into the woman I have become from the woman who raised me. In Catholic school as a child, my teacher taught us that the term “Woman” means from “man” because written in the bible a man was lonely so he created a woman to provide him with comfort and children. I thought, but don’t I have the womb? Meaning I have the power to create, so in reality, a man came actually from Woman. Womb-man is is the root of woman. Womban is not from a man, she is the single divine power of herself and within herself. Overall, this piece reflects a reaction to my complex and contradicting experience of being a woman.

 

Process Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAjTrtHQv0Y

Womban Corset, made from canvas, embroidery cloth, flax fibers, yarn, acrylic paint, charcoal, and recycled quilts, life-size.

In Progress: Wedding Dress

Wedding Dress Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv9Uus8IZw0

I created this dress as a response to my experience of the expected American Dream for a woman. The wedding dress is a symbol of the “American Dream” that was projected onto me since I was a little girl. I was 5 years old when a 40 something-year-old man cornered me in a room at my elementary school’s Holiday Bazaar. He grabbed my hand and asked me to marry him. I giggled and said yes. Now, as a young woman, I am still plagued with the question at every family party “ Why aren’t you married?” It has been ingrained into me that no matter what I wear, say, or do, I have grown up in a world where I will be seen as, and expected to be, a future wife.

The wedding dress will be made of 345 female bodies. There are currently 73. Each of the 345 figures will represent 100 of the 34,560 domestic violence calls per day in the United States. I want to use the wedding dress as a mirror for people to see the reality of being a “domestic partner.”  I want the dress to expose the painful truth behind the closed door of the American wedding dream by using the bodies as a symbol for each call of domestic violence.

The dress addresses the themes of giving women a voice to their own stories, gender roles and expectations, domestic violence, women’s work, women’s craft, sexual relationships, virginity, and the American dream.

 

Process Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe2hgR7Do54

Wedding Dress- Made from steel and aluminum wire, wrapped in yarn and dipped into handmade kozo and flax paper pulp, tied back together on steel wire form. Gown is life size.