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Click on women's names on the left for individual pieces.  The genesis of this installation was two-fold. In the summer of 2006 both my father and his only sibling, my uncle, died. I spent more time around my few remaining relatives in south Texas than I have in many years. I also listened to audio tapes of stories my father had recorded of his relatives, mostly the strong German pioneer women. It reminded me that, no matter how much I have moved and traveled, much of who I am has roots in who they were and the lessons and advice they gave. Around the same time I was having conversations with students at the local university, Montana State University - Billings, about women's rights and history, which caused me to look back at how I had learned of these things. I found more women, beyond my relatives, whose actions, writings, leadership and workshops have influenced my beliefs and helped me grow stronger as a woman and as an individual. In this series of sculptures, the chrysalis forms of my past work became receptacles of the wisdom and experiences, which my female elders, friends and mentors have shared with me. In each of these sculptures are woven symbols of their lives, their personalities and their spirits.  The sculptures begin with my paternal great grandmother Emma, who shed an alcoholic husband, raised two daughter and sent them to college, built a successful dairy from the ground up, bucked community sentiment by hiring a black man as her manager and showed me that a woman can change her life for the better and have ambition. I have sculptures of both of my grandmothers (Inez and Ella), my mother (Darleen), and older friends such as Louisiana sculptor Clyde Connel. There are activists and authors such as Gloria Steinem, who reached me first through her establishment of Ms. magazine as a voice of feminism, Judy Chicago, who helped bring women's accomplishments back into the public record, Jean Shinoda Bolen, who lead a Women's Wisdom retreat which I attended upon weaning my last child, and Anais Nin, who wrote lyrical prose from a woman's experience and with a woman's voice. And, of course, Marion Woodman, whose writings inspired my first installation entitled Chyrsalis. The installation is made up of 12-20 of these life-sized sculptures, each of which has a wooden core, welded steel rod exterior and a mix of other media symbolic of the woman represented (fabric, yarn, books, crochet hooks, cds, fishing rods, shotgun shells, a podium, maps, tools, instruments...). Each includes text - some short, some lengthy - about their lives, their experience, their wisdom and their writings. There are audio portions - MP3 players in Inez of her telling life stories, in Songwriters of their songs and in Gabrielle of her dance music. Conversations Among Women held within the circle of these sculpture involve younger and older women sharing their views and experiences of the world and on such topics as comunication, activism, correcting women's history and the status of women. (For further information, please see Conversations pages on this site and the interview under News/Press/Interviews)
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