piece #1
Artist: Jennifer Regan
Title of work: Kinderscenen
Media: fabric with mixed media: mirror, wooden rolling pin, googly eyes, paint
Date: c. 1991
Size: 48 x 36 3/4 inches
Source of picture (URL): Kinderscenen
1. Be receptive - Keep an open mind. Look for what is good. No put-downs allowed.
2. Description – Describe what you see. (subject matter)?
Overall dark, in terms of color usage and shading, scene. Looks like a house, and we're able to peer into the abuilding, and see all the different rooms, within which are many different demonic looking creatures. The largest creature steming from the bottom of the piece, looking as though they are part of the house itself.
3. Formal analysis – (form) What principles and elements were used and how are they used?
Proportion is used quite frequently within this piece, the look of the creatures as they compare to the childlike or baby figures within the piece. They're large and command the most attention.
4. Bracketing - Is there anything in or about this work that reminds you of anything else? Do you see any symbols, metaphors, or allegories? (iconography)
I definitely see what appears to be demons and religious iconography, children struggling to deal with the care they're receiving from these creatures. Almost like humans are being cared for and humanized by demons.
5. Interpretation - (content) What do you think the artist was trying to say?
The hell, and misery that can occur within a home, and how widespread it can be, tainting the existence of the place as a whole.
piece #2
Artist: Jennifer Regan
Title of work: And God Created Woman
Media: Mixed media on fabric,
Date: c. 1991
Size: 24 3/4 x 28 1/2 inches
Source of picture (URL): And God Created Woman
1. Be receptive - Keep an open mind. Look for what is good. No put-downs allowed.
2. Description – Describe what you see. (subject matter)?
Image of many different female animals, humans included, with their children, it seems. Large mostly baren tree at the top, with a large eye looking through it. The entire image has a thick green border around it.
3. Formal analysis – (form) What principles and elements were used and how are they used?
Shapes in how the artist tries to convey the different animals represented within the piece. They also use repetition as they try to convey the feminine, motherly form.
4. Bracketing - Is there anything in or about this work that reminds you of anything else? Do you see any symbols, metaphors, or allegories? (iconography)
This piece definitely seems to celebrate, and honor the female form.
5. Interpretation - (content) What do you think the artist was trying to say?
I think that they were trying to connect the nature of women to that of nature itself, how in tune they are with the earth and cherished both should be.
piece #3
Artist: Jennifer Regan
Title of work: The Mother of Us All
Media: Mixed media on fabric, including daughter Kate’s pink blouse and scrap from a red skirt made for daughter Jane; antique blouse for the angel, scraps from Jennifer’s bathing suit, evening dresses, commercially-produced birds, stars, and eye.
Date: 1991
Size: 23 1/4 x 43 3/4 inches
Source of picture (URL): The Mother of Us All
1. Be receptive - Keep an open mind. Look for what is good. No put-downs allowed.
2. Description – Describe what you see. (subject matter)?
Large, tritypc looking piece with a pink border, and mostly blue coloring. Black men and women throughout the piece as humans, and white ghostly angles.
3. Formal analysis – (form) What principles and elements were used and how are they used?
Repetition, scale, pattern are all used within the piece. Certain characters appear multiple times, almost like there's a story occurring from left to right within the piece.
4. Bracketing - Is there anything in or about this work that reminds you of anything else? Do you see any symbols, metaphors, or allegories? (iconography)
I've cheated in that I know that this is a story about Kane and Able, their betrayal of each other, and death.
5. Interpretation - (content) What do you think the artist was trying to say?
The suffering of women is ever present in human exisitance, way back to the "dawn" of humanity.
blog Qs
1. Make sure all questions/answers from Step 1-3 are posting to your Blog.
2. Make sure you upload images of the 3 pieces of artwork you are interpreting to your Blog or Photobucket account. (If in Photobucket, be sure to hyperlink to Photobucket from your Blog posting).
3. Make sure you upload images that document your visit and experience of the physical space. If you cannot take pictures, upload your pictures, scan in the brochure images, or hyperlink to the Gallery website from your Blog.
4. Answer this question: What did you think of visiting the Gallery and purposefully looking at the exhibition from a different perspective - the physical space, the architecture, theme, etc.?
This semester I am working at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in the Archival department. My boss within here curated and put on this exhibition: Salvaged: The Stitched Narratives of Jennifer Regan will be on view from September 14th, 2018, - January 6th, 2019. I started working at BPAC well within the development of this exhibition, but I was able to help put up this exhibit. During the process of setting it up, I learned quite a lot about the artist and had ample time to think about Who she was, and what lead to the development and musings of her work.
Being in the space, and around art always feels preferable to viewing something online. It's tangible, even if touching the art isn't allowed. While setting up, I learned the practices of setting up and the curatorial eye that goes into the flow and thinking of placing art together. A lot of time, this is something done by the artist themselves, but with Jennifer Regan being dead, a third party stepped in to help out.
For the most part, the work was on display to showcas the beauty of it, but there was also an emphasis placed on the appropriation of black and brown bodies within Jennifer Regan's (as a white woman) work. She went through a horrible divorce back in the 1980s, which lead to Regan identifiying with the lower socioeconomic women of color for the suffering they went through to make it as women. Regan also had a maid as a child that she seemed to reflect back upon fondly. Within the whole of Regan's work, I found myself wondering if there was a new found admeration that she felt towards women of color and what they must go through in life to make it. Regan, being a women coming from money and stability, suffered financial and emotional loss from her divorce.
Due to this, I wonder from her work if there is a mixture of emotional crossroads. Longing for the past comforts her maids brought her? Wondering who she could now be as a divorced mother. Admirqation for women of color, yet still a from the perspective of a "savior" as she brings light to the plight of underpriviledged women.
