PaperCity Magazine

March 2020- Dallas

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ART TOPICS O ne of the most meaningful bodies of work this season is a rediscovered trove of black-and- white images taken nearly 40 years ago, during the height of the second wave of feminism. The artists — women leaving behind confining marriages and seeking creative expression — escaped to the country together on weekly jaunts to an old farmhouse and its surrounding acreage outside Houston. But this was not about the bucolic: It was a radical shedding of both clothes and prescribed roles that led the friends to their true selves — hence, the series title, "Finding Our Way," by collaborators Mary Margaret Hansen and Patsy Cravens. Hansen recounted the organic experience: "Patsy Cravens and I took a series of nude photographs of one another in the early 1980s, when we hightailed it out of Houston after carpooling kids to school so we could spend the day photographing at her family's farm near Weimer, Texas. Each carried a tripod, camera bag, and plenty of film. We wore little but knee- high boots to protect from snakes and rough terrain. We explored, rebelled, and sought what we called freedom from traditional roles of wife, mom, community volunteer, carpool chauffeur, family cook, and PTA president. At the time, we each faced consequential life decisions about our families and our lives as women. We were on the verge of defying expectations." For decades, the work sat in drawers, shelved and forgotten. Hansen says, "We never thought of exhibiting our photographs until 30 years later — and a chance conversation." That dialogue resulted in an exhibition that took over a wing of FotoFest's Silver Street Studios building in the fall of 2015. That show, part of "This Side of Paradise: New Photographic Work from Texas," was curated by yours truly for FotoFest and Houston Center COURTESY THE ARTISTS COURTESY THE ARTISTS COURTESY THE ARTISTS 48 for Photography. But besides the 100- plus prints, banners, texts works, and archival materials sourced from the artists' coming of age that comprised the installation — a moving and prescient evocation of an era — Hansen and Cravens organized a weekend seminar of panelists surveying successive waves of feminism and asking, "Where we are now?" A show like this deserved to travel — and now it will. The MAC director Rachel Rogerson has stepped up as organizing curator in Dallas, where "Finding Our Way" is the centerpiece of an innovative spring at the museum, led off by "On the Surface," a cultural exchange between six female Dallas and Houston artists (through March 8). Hansen and Cravens' installation fortuitously coincides with Make Art with Purpose DFW Festival 2020, timed to the centennial of the passing of the 19th Amendment. Tahila Corwin Mintz also screens a video in the art space's new media gallery, which speaks to indigenous women's roles within their culture. "Finding Our Way," March 21 – May 10, at The MAC, the-mac.org. MARY MARGARET HANSEN AND PATSY CRAVENS BOLDLY PRESENT THEIR '80S-ERA NUDE SELF-PORTRAITS WHEN "FINDING OUR WAY" STORMS DALLAS. CATHERINE D. ANSPON PREVIEWS THE EXHIBITION. DEJECTED HOUSEWIVES ARISE FEMINISM ASCENDANT AT THE MAC Clockwise from top, on view at The MAC: Mary Margaret Hansen's Freedom, 1981. Patsy Cravens' Untitled, from the "Dejected Housewives Series," 1982. Mary Margaret Hansen and Patsy Cravens' Just Playin', 1982.

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