"Hillary 2016 Herstory: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot."
by Susan Shie Contact me
Above: "Hillary 2016 Herstory: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot." full view copyright Susan Shie 2020.
60"h x 60"w. Inventory #516. Peace Cozy #81. Made
from 2-24-20 through 4-18-20.
There are many detail images below the writing here.
"Hillary 2016 Herstory: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot."
copyright Susan Shie 2020. 60"h x 60"w. inventory #516. Peace Cozy #81.
Begun 2-24-20. Finished 4-18-20. Many large detail images follow the artist's statement below.
Statement for "Hillary 2016 Herstory: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot." copyright Susan Shie 2020. This art quilt is about Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
I am a social activist
painter and quilt artist. I airbrush whole cloth works which I then sew to a
batting and backing, so that they are soft and hang easily. And this is also my nod to my background in
sewing, in women's work, a tradition that came down to me through my mother.
My artwork and writing are
all spontaneous first drafts on the cloth. And my intention in making my art is
to try to help make the world a better place in the future, by telling what
really happens in our world now.
This piece focuses entirely
on Hillary Clinton's historic run for President in 2016, being the first woman candidate
for a major political party, in a Presidential Election. What I wanted to focus
on was the letter that my granddaughter wrote to Hillary, right after she lost the
Presidential Election. Twelve year old Zarigüeya was in shock and devastated,
as many of us were, because Hillary lost the election. Z and her dad had seen Hillary at a rally in
Cleveland two days before the election, and had tried to meet her, but the
crowd was too big. So, right after the
election, she wrote to H, that she wanted more than ever now, to give her a big
hug, and wrote that Hillary was her
hero.
I focused on the positive
aspects of the election, leaving out my strong urges to report the thinly
veiled and unethical struggles against Hillary during this election, by T
and his connections with Russia. I felt,
well before Hillary lost, that Russia was fighting tooth and nail to help defeat
Hillary. I feel that this piece of art
of mine is incomplete historically, without my usual reporting in my own voice,
of current events of the time. But that's
how it had to be, for this exhibition. At least Zarigüeya's
letter is on my quilt, in full, including her drawing of Hillary. I hadn't told her my feelings about all the
treasonous activity going on to ruin Hillary's chances, so Z never expected
Hillary to NOT win. But I felt then, and
I feel now, that T’s ego and greed are just the tip of the Putin iceberg,
working to ruin America. A devil's
bargain was struck long ago, to bring T to power.
I've now made 4 quilts with
Hillary Clinton as the subject. The subtitle of this one, "8 of
Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot," places this piece in my tarot deck
art project, The Kitchen Tarot, which I began in 1998, and will probably will
complete within the next 4 years. There
are 78 cards in a Tarot deck. All of my
pieces about Hillary are Kitchen Tarot card quilts, as part of this 78 quilt
project of mine.
The Kitchen Tarot project
began as apolitical, but by the time I finished the first 22 card quilts (the
part of a tarot deck called the Major Arcana), I was making some pretty strong
political statements, as we had just gotten through the 2008 primary and then
moved into the general election race.
The first, not-very-political, 22 cards were published as "The
Kitchen Tarot" in 2010, by Hay House, and only had one edition printed,
but to get the whole deck published will be much harder, as it's gotten a lot
more political. The art quilts (or "soft
paintings") are all different sizes - many are much larger than this one - and
they all get cropped into a vertical rectangle, card shaped, for turning them
into tarot cards.
I have to say, I never
expected to get any of my card quilts published. I just got lucky on the Major Cards
publication. My co-author Dennis
Fairchild had already published with Hay House, and he got my quilts published
with his writing that interprets them very nicely, due to his excellent knowledge of the Tarot. I
don't want to have to worry about what anybody thinks, when I'm making my
art. I consider it my civic duty to
report what's going on, in my work. And
I really think the full deck will NOT be published. It's ok.
But in the last few years, I haven't
been getting into some of the exhibitions I was used to having my works
in. My theory is that my work was too
radical for many quilt shows to want to risk it. Hmmm.
So I've just kept making my now openly-political work, showing it where
I can. This show project, "Women's
Voices, Women's Words, Women"s Votes" is the first time I've censored my
writing on my quilts, because of being asked to keep it nonpolitical. But I doubt that I'll do it again. I might have to make a fifth quilt
about Hillary someday, telling what I think of all the manipulation that it
took, to defeat her.
When I start a new Kitchen
Tarot quilt, I pull a card from the traditional Tarot deck, then start thinking
about what it means to me. Sometimes I
have my basic idea already in my head, when I pull the card, but not often. I am usually interested in at least one topic
– one story or person to feature, and then everything comes into place. Stories of things going on in our world show
up in my quilts, as I learn about them and find myself pulled in. I work with what I feel is important, as
markers of where we are in time, as I work.
I would have combined Hillary's 2016 election story with the current
Coronavirus story, if left to my own devices, but I am now working on that as a
topic in my new quilt in progress.
Compared to the traditional
Tarot suits, my suits are: Pyrex Cups for cups; Paring Knives for swords;
Wooden Spoons for wands; and Potholders for coins. This tarot card for this quilt is the 8 of Potholders
(coins), which in my deck, is about working hard to improve your skills and
become a master at what you do. Biddy
Tarot says of this card: "You may have
recently changed your work, education or financial circumstances, and now you
are applying your sheer determination and concentration to master the new skill
that you are learning. You are diligent and hard-working and you are applying
yourself fully to whatever is at the center of your attention. As you do the
same task over and over, you work your way towards mastery of your craft, and
through your perseverance and unwavering attention, you create success."
So I was thinking about what
all that meant, and it seemed to me that Hillary, indeed, had to work very hard
to reach the Presidency, and I think she did reach it, winning, but I couldn't
say that on this quilt, so I didn't.
I made a lot of sketches on
paper, to create the composition of this quilt, but I didn't look at them, when
I started to draw the figures and forms on the fabric quilt panel. I wanted
this to be as spontaneous as making the sketches had been. I drew the whole composition on white cloth,
with my airbrush and black paint, freehand, and also colored it in with my
airbrush, and wrote most of the stories on it, also with my airbrush.
I drew Hillary accepting the
Democratic nomination in June, 2016, at the Democratic Convention. The arch
above her in my painting is the glass ceiling she was hoping to shatter, but
instead, figured she’d put 57 million cracks into, the numbers of popular votes
she’d received, 3 million more than T got. I wrote on her dress, a quote from her concession
speech on Nov 9, the day after she lost the Electoral College vote to
T. I especially wanted to write what
she said to the young girls, like my granddaughter, whom I knew was listening
to her speech, that sad day.
I drew the Statue of Liberty
as a huge, turquoise head behind Hillary and wrote Hillary's main stump speech
points on Liberty's face. I hung 8
potholders down from the glass ceiling, with a beet on each one, as Beets are
my symbol of the Resistance, which had already gotten going before the
election, but went into high gear afterwards. (I didn't explain the Beets' symbolism on the quilt, because that's
political.)
I drew a big palm tree next
to Hillary and the SOL, and put a bunch of strong women into its trunk. They are:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, my artist friend Hirarin from PS1, Buffy Sainte
Marie, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, my artist friend Robin Schwalb, my
daughter, and me. It is the Women's
Peace Palm.
In the right side's middle of
the quilt, I drew the entire letter my granddaughter Zarigüeya wrote to
Hillary, right after the election, including the portrait she drew on it, of
Hillary. And under that letter, I drew
my granddaughter and her dad, playing a uke and guitar, in support of Hillary,
at her Cleveland rally. They were not
really playing and singing there, but this is my idea: They're singing "I Want
to Hold Your Hand," since Z's dad loves to sing and play Beatles songs, and Z and he
didn't get to shake hands with Hillary that day.
Between the palm and Hillary,
I drew Hillary and Zarigüeya hugging each other, as the fulfillment of Z's
request in her letter to H.
I wrote a lot about Hillary's
life, her qualifications for being President, including her 4-year job of being
Obama's Secretary of State and traveling to 112 countries during that time,
negotiating on Obama's behalf. I told
about how Hillary has spent her life advocating for children, from her high
school days on. And I wrote
about her speech
in Beijing in 1995, in which the young First Lady made famous the
expression "Women's rights are human rights, and human rights are
women's rights."
On the border of this quilt,
I wrote "Of running for President, Hillary said, 'I think I had the most
relevant experience, meaningful accomplishments, and ambitious, but achievable
proposals. It was the chance to do the
most good I was ever going to be able to do.'"
---What Happened. (That's
not a question there at the end, but a reference to the name of Hillary's fourth memoir, that
came out in 2017, about her reflections on the 2016 election, and why she lost
the election to T. But I figured I
couldn’t write most of what she said in that book, on this quilt.) I would have loved to use her quotes a lot,
but the one on the border is powerful, without mentioning T at all.
I sewed on my little Green
Temple Buddha Boy bead, in the bottom right corner, by the title and signature
info area. And I sewed my Peace Cozy - #81 - onto my son-in-law's shirt, over his heart, because I want him to be safe at
his Fed Ex job, during this Coronavirus pandemic.
I've now begun my next quilt, about the Coronavirus quarantine and our time living in it. I'm back to being uncensored for making this
piece and will include political information about how our President is
handling this pandemic. It makes me
think about how the whole world would be different in many, many ways, if
Hillary Clinton had become our President. We would have stayed in the Paris Accords for
stopping Climate Change, and she would have worked with China, when CVID-19
first appeared and probably stopped it pretty fast. In between those two
issues, she also would have never put into place all the bullying T has
done to Muslims, Hispanics, and many
others around the world. She would have
fought tooth and nail for Justice in our country and around the world,
protecting refugees, not abusing them. Hillary sees a political position as a
way of serving the people, for the good of all.
What a crying shame it is, that Hillary Clinton was not allowed to serve as our President.
I wanted to call this piece "Hillary is MY President: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot."
Thanks for reading this.
- Susan Shie, Wooster,
Ohio May 22, 2020.
Visit my Facebook album of
making this quilt, which starts with sketches and goes through all the
processes I use, including airbrush drawing, coloring, writing, and
quilting. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=susanshieturtlemoon&set=a.10157958675741772 It’s a public
album, as are all of my FB albums, so you don't have to be on FB to access it.
Finally put onto my website on 12-4-21
Susan Shie Wooster, Ohio
If you want to take a Lucky Drawing class with me, you can find the information on my website or my Susan Shie Turtle Moon Studios Facebook page. I teach 30-day sessions with 12 day breaks in between them. Most of my students consider my class to be like taking a yoga class: You just keep going with the group. You can find info about my next online freehand drawing classes on my Turtle Moon Studios front page.
In all the classes I teach, I am only teaching freehand, intuitive drawing and painting on paper now, using a format very much like my online Lucky Drawing classes. I continue to make my art quilts, but no longer teach those processes. You can learn quilting from others. I teach how to open up and express yourself as an adult who draws. I work to convince you that there are no art rules, no right and wrong. When you knew that instinctively as a small child, you happily drew and painted wonderful things on paper. That innocence is healing, is un-stressing, and is about impossible to find in our adult world. We can get it back, while we draw freehand together, with curiosity, eagerness, and joy.
Drawing is one of our natural skills, and we each deserve to reclaim it. Like singing and dancing, like making up poetry without rules or jazz that just improvises, freehand drawing is easy, and it feels good. So, that's what I teach now. And I will convince you to let go of your adult-self's ideas of right and wrong. I've found that there's no place for that stuff in real creativity.
Read all about my Turtle Art Camp - how it works for your weeklong artmaking experience here in Wooster, Ohio, and see the changes I've made to the camp agenda. I have many large photos on the Turtle Art Camp page, to show what goes on at this biosphere-like art experience. The emphasis in this adult students' art camp is on freehand, intuitive drawing and painting in large, hardbound sketchbooks now, because I’ve figured out that with these processes, everyone can relax and focus on expressing herself. I want my art camp to help you become more open to letting your art flow out later, in whatever medium you want it to be in.
I started my Turtle Art Camps in my home in 1994 and they
continue, though they stopped for the Pandemic and have not restarted
yet, in 2021. See my Turtle Art Camp schedule on the main page of Turtle Moon Studios,
along with a link to my current online Lucky Drawing class description
and enrollment info. I had to cancel all 2020 and 2021 camps, but hope I
can get them going again in 2022. ???
Below are many detail photos of "Hillary 2016 Herstory: 8 of Potholders (coins) in the Kitchen Tarot":
Turtle Moon Studios: Outsider Art
Quilts and Paintings
Susan Shie
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