Pretty ladies

All dressed up and...

September 2009...Black Mountain, NC.

This lovely little lady from Sepia Saturday (HERE) has her hair perfectly in place...and her dress, and shoes and socks.  And she is probably writing a thank you letter to her grandmother.

All of which my mother strived to get me to do, to no avail!

But when I grew up I enjoyed having grown-up tea parties, where we had fun and acted somewhat like what we thought our mothers might have had in mind all along...some of us chose to even wear hats. 

These are photos of some women who got together on an afternoon to drink tea and eat dainty things. We also told some interesting stories, and I can't remember what the topics were, but there were lots of laughs!  I'm not going to try to list all their names.  Some of these wonderful women, so full of life and laughter here, have died since this afternoon tea party.

 The UUCSV banner stands for Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley

 Quote for today:

Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.
MAYA ANGELOU

A Riveting Woman

I guess someone must have said, "This week we'll be taking photos for the contest for title of Rosie the Riveter," which turns out to have not been true.

Now I ask you, how many true riveters wear a beautiful ring and have their nails done?

I think this Rosie-wanta-be was beautiful and perhaps had actually done some riveting, but she's posed with a bit of beautification that belies her craft.

'A "Rosie" working on the A-31 Vengeance bomber in Nashville, Tennessee (1943)' 

(According to Wikipedia...mmmm! There's that ring again on the same woman!)

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Conover while working at the Radioplane factory in late 1944 (Wikipedia)

A riveting woman, implying someone you can't take your eyes off of.

Posing for photographers while filming the subway grate scene 

for The Seven Year Itchin September 1954 (Wikipedia)

A woman operating a turret lathe(1942) from Wikipedia also 

(Much more believable!)

A working woman, certainly signifying a woman who brings home wages (can I say brings home the bacon still?) There also was a use of this term to signify those women who work as prostitutes.  But I don't think the term is accurate in today's society, as so many women work outside the home and it now means just that. (All women who have families who work outside the home know they also continue to have the work that is unpaid within the home.)

I'm actively promoting having a US Constitutional Amendment ratified, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)...which only needs 2 more states to become a law of the land.   North Carolina is among those who haven't ratified it yet...and many amendments have taken more years than this one to finally be ratified.

Nevada's legislature passed their ratification just days ago. Thank you to all those men and women who finally declared the rightness of this action.

But rather than make this a political post, let's get back to Riveting Women. (And I promised unspokenly that I'd actually make this post appropriate for Sepia Saturday this week!)

"We Can Do It!" by J. Howard Miller 

was made as an inspirational image to boost worker morale (Wikipedia)

We can Do it is not Rosie at all..
"During the war, the name "Rosie" was not associated with the image, and the purpose of the poster was not to recruit women workers but rather as motivational propaganda aimed at workers of both sexes already employed at Westinghouse. It was only later, in the early 1980s, that the Miller poster was rediscovered and became famous, associated with feminism, and often mistakenly called "Rosie the Riveter" '  Source: Kimble, James J.; Olson, Lester C. (Winter 2006). "Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception in J. Howard Miller's 'We Can Do It!' Poster". Rhetoric & Public Affairs. 9 (4): 533–569.

Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover featuring
Rosie the Riveter (Wikipedia)

Rosie by Rockwell:
"Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her penny loafer a copy of Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf. Her lunch box reads "Rosie"; viewers quickly recognized this to be "Rosie the Riveter" from the familiar song...." Source Wikipedia

Today's quote:
The willingness to consider possibility requires a tolerance of uncertainty. ..

Moon Dancers

Moon Dancer number two

This is the figure that I made when I started back to clay making in 2007.  And she graces my business cards, which reminds me that sculpture in clay is what I most love.  But nobody ever sees her back side, with the slit dress.  Just thought I'd let you see what the Moon Dancer looks like on reverse.

Moon dancer number two

Yes, she does have a front side.  And an older sister, since she is the second in the series.  Of two, so far.

Moon Dancer number one

I just made another dancer, who will be the white woman.  Last year's blue woman didn't measure up, and will eventually meet Mr. Hammer.  I love looking through old photos (which are taken soon after the pieces cool off from the kiln.)  Several of them were embarrassing, and have now been relegated to scrap.  It's only interesting to me to see what I thought and felt at the time, but failed to express at a level that I expect of myself.  I want to work more on movement and balance that's barely there in a figure.  I want to stretch beyond a "pose" and get more of the "caught in motion" sense in my work.  I've got a long way to go!

But now I need to get back to work on the Mad Hatter.

Heroines and mentoresses

When this was the topic for our Women's Spirituality Group at our church this month, I started making a list of all the great women I've learned from and been influenced by.  It kept getting longer and longer.

Here are a few of them.  I just mainly wanted to archive the list for today, and will be happy to look at it again in a year and see if I've got some new mentoresses, (too bad that spell check doesn't think that's a word.  Of course it is!)

Deep dish casserole

These are not in any particular order, and their relationships to me, and reality, jump all over the place!

Mary Carolyn Richards (teacher, author, potter from Black Mountain College & "Centering in Pottery Poetry and the Person")
Akelanda (Never not-broken, rolling on the floor crying saint)
Mary Cassatt
Georgia O'Keeffe
Gertrude Stein
Amma, Spiritual leader (the Hugging Saint)
Mary Oliver, poet
Hecatedemeter blog
Mary Beth Rogers Miller, sister
Willow LaMonte, friend
Anita Spring (Dean, UF boss)
Antiga, friend
Dawn Wilson, friend
Miss Kessler (freshman English)
Martha Curie, friend
Mary Magdalene
H. Byron Ballard, friend
Adelaide Robineau, early ceramic artist
Judy Garland
Emily Dickenson
Shirley Temple
Susan B. Anthony
Ginger Rogers
Nancy Drew
Elizabeth Cunningham, author
Pollyanna
Audrey Hepburn
May Sarton
Frieda Kalo
Merlin Stone
Elizabeth Caddy Stanton
Michelle Naglieri Heym, daughter in law
Linda Metzner, friend
Starhawk
Cinnamon Heym, daughter in law
Ramya Ruth Gleeson, friend
Deb Vingle, Yoga teacher, friend
Rosemary Beddingfield, friend
Jinni Beck Stahl, friend
Rosemary Stout, friend
Teresa Ballinger, friend
Elizabeth Jessie, friend
Mary Heym, mother in law
Margaret Mitchell
Carol Christ
Mary Baker Eddy, Religious leader
Laura Ingles Wilder
Susan Sarandon
The Bronte sisters
Vicki Lane
Pearl Buck
Linda Arkwright, in-law mother in law of son
Agatha Christi
Edith Wharton
Judy Lynch (7th grade best friend who died)
Katherine Hepburn
Bette Davis
Mrs. Edwards, 7th grade teacher
Goldie Hawn
Sojorner Truth
Snow White
Julie Andrews
Jackie Kennedy
Heidi (the book)
Julia Roberts
Mary Daly
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Cinderella
Judy Chicago
Martha Stewart
Louise Nevelson
Grace Kelley
Meryl Strep
Princess Diana
Jo in Little Women
Sacajawea
Dr. Christianne Northrup
Brigit
Quan Yin
Gretel (in Hansel and Gretel)
Patricia Monaghan
Marija Gimbutus
Fanny Farmer
Bette Crocker
Hecate
Innana
Aphrodite
Persephone
Demeter
Athena
Indira Ghandi
Beatrix Potter
Grace O'Malley (real Irish pirate who saw Queen Elizabeth I)
Julia Ward Howe
Dorthea Dix
Margaret Mead
Rachel Carlson


many other women who influenced me by their words and deeds.  (I've not included the mothers and grandmothers which I've already honored this week)