Crafts in general, particularly knitting, sewing, and needlepoint, have a reputation for being “women’s work” or “women’s hobbies.”  Not always true.  In fact, at my college there were multiple male members in the kitting club, of which I was VP for a year.  A few months ago we took a look at crafting truckers.  Today, I bring you artist Nathan Vincent.

His artist statement reads:

“My work explores gender permissions and the challenges that arise from straying from the prescribed norms. It questions the qualities of gender by considering what constitutes masculine and feminine. It critiques stereotypical gender mediums by creating “masculine objects” using “feminine processes” such as crochet, sewing, and applique.”

Vincent’s work was recently featured on one of my favorite blogs, Sociological Images.  Here are a few of my favorite examples of his work:

In these three pieces a pair of boxing gloves, a collection of handguns, and a urinal have been constructed with yarn through crochet – traditionally a “feminine” medium, and yet all of the objects are considered “masculine.”  The gloves and guns are masculine symbols of aggression, and the urinal is masculine because, well, you know…  In two more examples a push lawn mower and beer-can graveyard have also been crafted:

Masculine or feminine or (!!!) simply objects, the creativity and uniqueness of this sculptural collection rocks my world.  Maybe it’s time for me to move up a notch from scarves and mittens…

After 18 hours on the road, everyone needs to unwind.  These guys do it with balls.  Of yarn.

Oh hells yeah.  As a knitter, and as someone who believes that gender roles are entirely socially constructed B.S., I have much love for this article.  Check it out:

Since last year, when the economy left drivers with fewer hauls, Mr. White, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound ex-Air Force mechanic with a bushy mustache, has hunkered down inside his truck in his many off hours, making quilts… When he’s not sewing, he’s daydreaming about it, he said.

Kevin Abraham-Banks [pictured above], a 37-year-old trucker with a shaved head and dragon tattoos, passes time at truck stops with his cocoa and knitting… “The fact that you can take strands of thread and basically make something out of it, that’s awesome I think,” he said. “It’s pretty cool stuff, man.”

Thomas McConnaughy, a married grandfather from Hemet, Calif., hauls cereal, reads his Bible, plays Sudoku, and talks trout fishing at truck stops. He doesn’t let on to other drivers that he keeps 15 coils of yarn in his cab and makes what he describes as “really cute slippers.”

At times the tone of the article is a little patronizing (ex. “patterns with names like ‘Meet Me In Paris’,” “a square of yellow cotton with little violets,” and “his blue eyes widened behind his glasses as he moved to the topic of thread”).  It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, like wow, check out how feminine these macho truckers are when you’re not looking! As a crafter, I can understand getting excited about your projects, the time and energy you put into them, and the joy of finding a sweet yarn or print.  But it’s rarely with childlike widened blue eyes.  Or green or brown eyes, you know, depending.

Men and women of the world: hobby in what ever ways make you happy.  Knit, quilt, and stitch to your heart’s content, with pride.  Crafting’s not just for grannies anymore.  And if some journalist tries to belittle your art form because it utilizes flowery and fruity fabrics instead of chainsaws and wood glue, just remember:  you’re the one with the set of pointy sticks.  And you know how to use them. [via Bust]

Straight from io9, who said it better than I could:

Big, beautiful, lusty women. Gorgeous, gigantic, muscled men. Fantastic animals and larger-than-life settings. This is the wonderful world of Molly Crabapple: the woman who married art and burlesque and watched them make beautiful music together with Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is an amazing event. Roughly twice a month (in the NY location) artists come to sketch live models, but not just any live models, actual cabaret performers. Skits, performances, music, all kinds of festivities. So much more than just a bunch of artists sketching models.

The World of Molly Crabapple contains artists and performers from all walks of life. Her vibrant images capture happy, smiling people that we’d like to get to know. Not just the most beautiful women around but also circus performers, muscle-men and lots of other interesting characters. You will notice that many of these pieces show their subjects on stage, with adoring fans surrounding them.

As you can see… Molly likes to put lots and lots of characters into her work. An image is packed with detail. You can look at these pictures all day long and still not see all the cool touches in them.

Pretty flippin’ sweet.  Be sure to check out more of Molly’s work at her personal site,  and learn more about Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.  Mad shoutouts to io9 for this one!

Lady Gaga fascinates me.  She makes me think.  I often find myself wanting to defend her, to whom I’m not sure.  I think she puts me on edge, makes me wonder why she does what she does, and I always come up with a self-satisfying answer.  Take her fashion statements for example.  They’re often… weird, to say the least.  They are revealing, bizarre, and often unattractive or even kind of hideous.  She does not dress like we typically expect our pop star/sex icons to dress.  And in an avant-garde, art club/theater kid misfit kind of way, that’s cool.  But I think it’s more than an angsty rebellion.  Lady Gaga’s fashion choices often make statements about how our society dictates female beauty.

Lady Gaga is thin, white, blonde, hairless…  She’s got the body of the pop star/sex icons of the last decade (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, P!NK, Fergie, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Gwen Stefani… you know the mold), so she’s not scoring major points by presenting us with a new body type.  But what she does with that body is unusual.

Exhibit A: Body Shape

Despite having that “perfect” bod, Lady Gaga frequently distorts the way we see her body, using sharp angles, increasingly large shoulderpads, and poufs or wings to accentuate her hips.  Each of these things in moderation have been considered attractive/fashionable at one point or another, but the extremes to which she takes them have a distracting effect, creating a mismatched, unnatural body shape.

Exhibit B: Nudity

Lady Gaga was first known to me as that pantsless popstar.  Everywhere I saw her, she was rocking the leotard, and I’ll admit, I wasn’t into it.  However, I do remember loving Elizabeth Hasselback’s reaction when Gaga was interviewed on The View with no pants (priceless).  Although we like seeing young hot skin, there is a time and a place for it, but Gaga didn’t follow those rules, and it made people uncomfortable.  Furthermore, she has pushed the boundaries of lingerie as formal wear and the flesh toned body suits made popular by Britney Spears that fateful music award night.  Gaga puts taboo spins on what has formerly been described as sexy.

Exhibit C: The Masquerade

Lady Gaga is beautiful, but you might not know it.  In fact, if you saw her on the street in jeans and a t-shirt, I’m almost certain you wouldn’t recognize her.  Her fashion statements speak for themselves, and just as she often distorts her body, she frequently disguises or even hides her face.  Be it make-up, masks, glasses or veils, Gaga’s face is one of her least recognizable aspects.  In most of our day to day lives, faces are our primary cues in relating to one another.  Gaga’s masquerade takes the human component out of the pop star.  It also prevents her face from being plastered on T-shirts, folders, pencil cases, and sneakers because her image is constantly changing.  Not so marketable to the bubblegum crowd.

Exhibit D: The Kid Thing

Speaking of the bubblegum crowd…  We’ve touched before on our culture’s obsession with sexualizing girls and infantilizing women.  Gaga messes with this, too.  She takes the pure and childlike to a whole new confusing level.  Our society likes to be aroused, not confused.

Exhibit E: Danger, Pain, and Injury

Furthermore, we like our pop stars sexy, naughty, but safe.  Xtina may have gotten Dirty and Britney may have been Toxic, but those were essentially role-play to Gaga’s for-serious S&M.

Gaga gets messy, she gets ugly, she owns her sexuality, she makes us uncomfortable by giving us what we say we want – but on her terms.  She might not be entirely subversive, but she’s messing with our “traditional” definitions of what it is to be feminine, beautiful, and sexy – not by showing us different ways to be beautiful, but by showing us how our definitions can be hideous and unnatural.

A few weeks ago, my partner and I took a trip to Denver and were able to visit the Denver Art Museum.  We had a fantastic time, and were exhausted after spending four hours on our feet examining the art.  Of the art that we saw, the pieces that have stuck with me most were the lipstick sculptures created by artist Rachel Lachowicz.

One Month Late

One Month Late is a sculpture of red lipstick and wax, displaying a single woman in a man’s world.  A single pair of high heels is surrounded by hanging business ties.  Upon closer inspection, a bent wire clothes hanger is suspended above the shoes – a symbol of a do-it-yourself abortion.  To me, the piece represents the burdens and sacrifices that women carry alone in a world where women are considered “equal” to the men around them.  The trials women experience, from the discomfort of a pair of sexy business heels to the anquish of carrying the responsibility of reproduction, are separate from the experiences of men.

Untitled (lipstick urinals)

The second piece by Lachowicz at the DAM was an untitled lipstick sculpture of urinals.  Are the masculine objects sculpted in feminine material ironic?  Political?  Silly?  What does this piece say about the status of men and women?  I don’t have the answers, and don’t even have organized thoughts about the piece, but found both works to be intriguing and worth sharing.  What are your reactions?