Feminist killjoy.

Hello! I have been on a bit of a crafting kick at the moment, I think because I have quite a lot of time on my hands and I don't really feel like being on the internet all day long, it is the perfect solution! I have been making quite a few pom poms (see my last post!), as well as doing an awful lot of cross stitching!

Feminist Killjoy banners! Although they are quite little, so I'm not sure if they can actually be called banners! The lilac one is my favourite, but I think I might sell the other one in my shop with a few other colour combinations soon.

This one didn't quite go to plan, it was meant to be symmetrical with the Venus symbol on both sides but I miscalculated the amount of squares I was supposed to start "Patriarchy" at. The one time I don't draw out my design first! I am going to take this one and my Feminist Killjoy banner with me to decorate my room when I start uni next month, just to make sure I'm as much of a scary feminist as I can possibly be.

I got the idea for these banners from the feminist necklaces I make in my shop, and I got the idea for those from the final pieces I made for my A Level Art exam on Feminism! I'm not sure if I've ever actually posted pictures of what I made before, but here they are;

I was mainly looking at craftivism, so I embroidered different slogans about feminism in different ways. This one was taken from a poster in my Psychology classroom, which I then embroidered onto half of a vintage napkin I had.

I think this one might be my favourite piece. It is cross stitch over a coloured pencil drawing on Aida fabric. It took me so long to do! I did the cross stitch before I went into the exam (which was allowed!) because it literally took me about 10 hours.

It was inspired by the Susie Orbach novel of the same title, and this image from a Body Shop advert (which I think was eventually pulled because the people who make Barbie complained?! I'm not sure though). Just after we got the exam paper for this project, our art class went on a trip to London, basically to visit art galleries and find inspiration. Anyway, while we were at the V&A I visited a talk about Female Body Image where one of the speakers was Susie Orbach! It was so amazing and inspirational and I took like three pages of notes.

Lots of people didn't really get this one, but what I was trying to say is that mainstream society views feminism as a bad word, a swear word even. A word that people - women and girls, mostly - are scared to say or identify with because it is seen as something undesirable and unattractive. Well, fuck that. I am proud to call myself a feminist.