Redefining “the spaces of femininity” at the Georgia Museum of Art

Gallery Talk: Art + Feminism on March 3

Today, on International Women’s Day, my friend Catherine cakes a canvas with wet colorful paint in the semi-chaos of an art studio. Another peer, Mary, calculates neat equations in a classroom on North Campus. And Isabelle conducts experiments in the austere excitement of a science laboratory. For each of these women, these spaces and activities are all relatively normal environments.

In the past, however, spaces like studios, classrooms and laboratories were not always available to women. Contesting intellectual and artistic real estate in galleries, museums and universities has required commitment to craft and their works of art. In art and science, entering new spaces redefines what it means to be a woman. During the month of March, for National Women’s History Month, the Georgia Museum of Art is providing a space for scholars, students and visitors to discuss gender and art.

The month started with some intellectual discussion and online activism. Sarah Kate Gillespie, curator of American art at the museum, and Nell Andrew, associate professor of art history at UGA, led more than 40 attendees through the galleries on March 3. Their talk focused on the intersection between modernity and feminism in art history. Gillespie described how art historians “rediscovered” women artists in the 1970s as demand for female-made works of art increased. This discovery contrasted with the erroneous belief that no female masters existed because of a lack of training and opportunity.

Andrew explained that often women were given a “smaller range of vision” for what was considered appropriate to paint. Scenes of the family, domesticity and portraiture were popular among women artists. Additionally, works by men depicting women often placed them in the background of a painting. Andrew discussed Griselda Pollock’s argument in her essay “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” which highlights the limiting dimensions of space for women. In the 21st century, these dimensions look different and continue to evolve.

After the gallery talk, visitors headed to the Lamar Dodd Art Library for the “Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon.” Wikipedia, as a crowd-sourced pool of information, provides many with a quick definition or explanation. Its entries and contributors remain largely skewed male, meaning it does not adequately inform visitors of the historical contributions of women. At the event, attendees received training on how to edit Wikipedia articles and an extensive list of incomplete pages. While they worked, qualified women in the room naturally discussed interview techniques, networking and even salary negotiations. These conversations expand the range of vision.

After the event on Saturday, I met yet another woman redefining the female environment: Kaira Macentire, a doctoral student in wildlife biology at the University of Georgia. She told me that she learned a lot during the gallery talk and was motivated to take art history again. In addition to her scientific interests, Kaira is an artist. She creates works of pottery adorned by salamanders and frogs. She views her work as a source of communication about the diversity of aquatic life. I am grateful to live in a world increasingly defined by diverse female identities and spaces.

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McKenzie Peterson

Intern, Department of Communications

"To Spin a Yarn": A Brief History of Women and Distaffs

With Women’s History Month upon us, it seems an ideal moment to feature one of our current exhibits, “To Spin a Yarn: Distaffs, Folk Art and Material Culture,” on view through Sunday, April 16. Distaffs are inherently feminine objects; the word acts as both a noun, giving a name to the tool used to hold unspun fiber in the spinning process, and an adjective, to define a feminine aspect or association. Featured in the exhibition are about 40 distaffs hailing from Russia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Albania, Greece, Serbia and Bosnia. Despite the geographic lines and design differences that separate these objects, the distaff retains its cultural significance across borders.

To better understand the cultural importance of the distaff, it may be helpful to consider representations of women and distaffs throughout history. Images of women spinning are not unfamiliar — they appear in paintings, carvings, stained glass windows, frescoes and illuminated manuscripts, among other artistic mediums. Frances Biscoglio, in her research on medieval representations of women spinning, parses out two separate perceptions of spinners: one created by the “hierarchal ordering of the medieval world” that views the spinner as an “ideal woman: charitable, industrious, obedient, a model of virtue, her time and space circumscribed by the patriarchal society that asserted its power”; and the other a more mythical interpretation of spinning that perceives the spinner as “the creator, life-giver, intermediary, and source of wisdom.”¹

Karl Müller, Holy Family with John the Baptist, 1866

The notion of spinning as a sort of cosmic act, of taking formless fiber and creating something from it, is one that appears in classical mythology and also in the bible. The Virgin Mary is commonly portrayed spinning and is an interesting figure with which to consider the two separate representations Biscoglio discusses. Proverbs 31:19–22 says:

She stretches out her hands to the distaff,

And her hands grasp the spindle.

She extends her hand to the poor,

And she stretched out her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid of the snow for her household,

For all her household are clothed with scarlet.

She makes coverings for herself;

Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

A Serbian painted distaff
with circular inset mirror.

This excerpt follows the heading, “Description of a Worthy Woman.” The association of spinning to altruism and diligence is not new, and is the mark of a worthy woman both in the bible and in medieval times. Paintings in which Mary spins are interesting, then, for the ways in which she seems to fulfill both archetypes of the hard working, obedient woman and the cosmic woman holding fate in her hands. In Karl Müller’s painting, Holy Family with John the Baptist, Mary sits to the side spinning while Joseph performs the duties of a carpenter. They are engaged in their menial daily tasks, but Mary gazes towards the center of the scene in contemplation. Biscoglio suggests that Mary inhabits a “role as intermediary between God and man, binding the divine and human together to forge a new reality” and that “portraits of the Virgin which show the spun thread passing across the center of her body demonstrate her powerful role in the divine plan.”² For this reason, she is a unique representation of a spinner.

The distaff during this time, and continuing throughout history, manages to assume two almost contradictory meanings. It is on one hand a symbol of obedient domesticity at the hands of a patriarchal society and, on the other, a symbol of female power. The woman holding a distaff in art, then, is an intentional, yet difficult to interpret, representation of femininity.

Considering the many (distinctly feminine) associations attached with spinning, it is unsurprising that distaffs themselves occupy such an important space within different cultures. While the style and décor may change from Russia to France to Serbia, distaffs are items of great importance — women might receive two in their lifetime, and they were passed down between generations. Commissioned oftentimes as engagement gifts, a market emerged for the creation of distaffs, and they became increasingly elaborate. In the original exhibition catalogue, Michael Ricker says of the decorative element of the distaff: “a beautiful distaff reminds the spinner, in a sense, that they too are beautiful and appreciated.”³ When engrossed in such a tedious task, this reminder was probably much appreciated. An interesting addition to a couple of Serbian distaffs is the incorporation of a mirror — maybe this was a way to more explicitly remind a spinner of her beauty.

Ultimately tools of great womanly strength, Ricker remarks that distaffs are simultaneously “a tool, sculpture, and a work of architecture.”⁴ As a tool in their utility, distaffs increased the functionality and productivity of spinning. As a sculpture in its beautiful decor and three-dimensionality, a distaff is artful. As a work of architecture, distaffs contributed to the structure of both the home and the textile market. These are objects that paint portraits of many different cultures’ women and their fortitude.

Sarah Dotson
Publications Intern

1. Biscoglio, Frances M., “’Unspun’ Heroes: Iconography of the Spinning Woman in the Middle Ages.” Journal of Medieval And Renaissance Studies 25, no. 2 (1995): 163–176.
2. Ibid., 171.
3. Ricker, Michael T., To Spin a Yarn: Distaffs, Folk Art and Material Culture (Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2013).
4. Ibid.