On women thus far

I have lots of things to talk about...like going to the first ever dino park in the world, deriving all over the place and such. But first I'm going to talk about my take on women so far.

So far, on our formal visits we have seen very few women, however, the women we have seen have been doing really great work. Women can certainly be very successful designers/creative executives, but they are few and far between, and it seems to come with a price. Thinking back to Kate Stanners's talk she talked about how she headed up tons of projects, had this crazy life going here and there and everywhere and how much fun she had. She told us a story about when she was pregnant, she went to a meeting (very pregnant) and ended up not doing the job because of it. She also remarked that the only time she had in her schedule was when she was sitting on the loo, and didn't get to spend much time with her son. So, women do have babies, and it is difficult and it clearly effects one's ability/decisions career wise. None of the other women we've seen yet have had children. I wonder if they never wanted them, or was seen as a sacrifice? Do the view the role of a mother differently, do they not care about the societal pressures of motherhood, or do they feel the burden of them? She also admitted to going home at the end of the day, second-guessing herself. This is something I can absolutely relate to, but I don't think I really ever thought of it having to do with gender.
She also mentioned that insecurity drives good work, so is it some kind of crazy balance or gift?

Going back to Pentagram, what really stuck out to me was how the issue of gender was approached by Dominick, and how he seemed to make a point of justifying it. There are two female partners (one of which had just returned from a long maternity leave) but their statement was that there were no women designers out there that they wanted. That's interesting because the other day we met Morag Myerscough (a woman who started her own practice because so few women do) who is full of energy and crazy about working...what? you wouldn't want somebody that dynamic? Granted, she re-did the work for the Barbican that Pentagram had done before hand, so if I were her, I probably wouldn't want to join their old boys club anyhow. I can't see a woman like Morag going home at the end of a day and second guessing herself. She clearly loved what she did, was proud of it, and even took a few opportunities to compliment herself. Is it because of the people she surrounds herself with, the fact that she owns her own practice? I'd like to talk more with her about it.

Looking at some of the student shows has been really interesting because art/design schools here are so international. There are Indians, Muslims, Asians, Europeans, as opposed to the pool of students at Delaware, which is not so diverse. You could see the broad range of cultures as soon as you stepped foot in a gallery. There were so many different cultural ideas, and ways of representing things like gender and religion. In the US, in my experience, creative programs tend to have people that are openly liberal in their opinions about politics and such. And just like at home, there is a huge trend about being green and socially responsible, but here, there is a much broader spectrum of thought. There was was poster by a design student that expressed his pro-choice beliefs and thanked his parents for not killing him in the womb so he could grow up to be a designer. Somehow I can't imagine that at home, I can't see a student bringing that in for critique and not having some sort of consequence. Another thing I noticed is that the projects on show were really full, huge endeavors. Things were actually made and installed, on a huge, or public or permanent scale. I wondered again about the women having confidence issues comment. Students here seem less affected by that perhaps?

Oh, and similarly to home, there are lots of girls in school for art and design.

One other thing is that many student projects reverted to hand-done processes, like sewing, embroidery, scrap-booking...does a trend for hand made immediately spur references to the hand crafts typically associated with women, is it sort of a "feminine" thing? There is absolutely a movement back to such things, there are knitting/crochet groups cropping up all over the city...they advertise in Time Out.

Finding working artists has been a bit more of a challenge. I have been trying to keep track of all the events going on, but nothing to do with women/art has been blaring at me. They are much harder to find.