Tag: installation

Womanhouse, Garden Jungle, Paula Longendyke

I chose animals as my subject matter because I identify with the quality of vulnerability in animals.  In this world they are weak, unprotected; they can easily relate to this state of existence.  I wanted to deal specifically with prehistoric animals…dead skeletal forms.  The picture I want to create is of walking through a dimly lit, remote jungle about 50 million years ago, discovering large pearly white bones of magnificent creatures.  The skeletons lie there exposed, open, sad.  Strange tropical plant life offsets the browns of old decaying plants.  In the evening, the jungle is quiet with the exception of a trickling waterfall.

– Paula Longendyke

Susan Frazier, Aprons in The Kitchen, Womanhouse exhibition, 1972

Come in, east…please put on the apron strings and experience the heart of the home with me.

The outside is no longer with you, you are now embraced by my nurturing pink womb, giving life—sustaining milk from my breasts.  The umbilical cord has been cut through, and you must hold on to the apron strings real tight or you might (gasp)…have to rely on yourself…tisk, tisk!

I must work harder to sustain life for you, to meet your biological needs, feed your habits with habits…I am a habit to you!  I am not a habit!  Release me, let me go, you don’t know me, you don’t own me.  I am a human being, not just a source of cheap labor for lazy people.

I want to undo these apron strings, to see what the rest of the world is doing, to see if I can help…to see myself once again.  I want to travel, to see wonders I only dream of daily…to see wonders I only dream of daily, right here in the heart of the home façade.

-Susan Frazier