The Things She Learned

This series of ceramic hollow form dress sculptures focuses on things the anonymous “she” learned growing up. I am interested in the ways that learned gender roles play out in our culture and society. I grew up in the 1960s when the reading textbooks in elementary school portrayed girls in pretty, frilly dresses playing house and/or watching the boys roughhousing outside. These “Jack and Janet” books never specifically wrote about gender roles but did leave images in the mind of how girls should look and behave. The girls were often the pretty and fragile objects in the background. 

My apron and dress forms reflect stories of women, things they know, anonymous and nostalgic narratives. When we talk to young girls we often start a conversational pattern that continues into adulthood. We say things like, ‘That’s a very pretty dress,’ ‘you look so cute in that outfit,’ or ‘your hairstyle is so cute.” As adults, women often address each other with phrases like, “You look great, have you lost weight?” So, the dresses are an acknowledgment of our conversations while also asking us to examine the things we teach and learn without thinking about it.  The things she knows goes beyond just domesticity and looking pretty. 

These pieces are low fire clay finished with underglazes, glaze, or layers of encaustic and pigment. The hollow forms are hand-built and cut into. This surface imagery is meant to be decorative and nostalgic with a narrative that can be interpreted in various ways.

-Brenda Jones