This Isn’t How My Gran Did It

A “craftivist” is apparently someone who “uses traditional craft techniques for a political or social activism purpose.” Say, when taking a “brave” stand against the patriarchy and our “very gendered” society. As the Australian performance artist Ms Casey Jenkins demonstrates: 

“When I’m menstruating it makes knitting a hell of a lot harder.” Thank goodness the world’s artists are showing us the way. 

Comments

[Sam]

On behalf of The Patriarchy, we surrender.

[David]

I’d been meaning to give it up anyway.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

This Isn’t How My Gran Did It

You know how your granny did it? ;-)

[sk60]

So her message is she has a vagina and too much time on her hands...?

[David]

So her message is she has a vagina and too much time on her hands...?

It says here that Ms Jenkins has been “particularly sensitive to feminist issues for a long time” and has “always been trying to have her voice heard.” However, now that she’s achieved a certain, um, profile, I’m not sure what exactly it is she wants to tell us about. Even the obligatory feminist boilerplate is, well, woollier than usual. From what I can make out she’s upset that “society is very gendered” and she wants to “raise awareness,” though of what I couldn’t say. She doesn’t seem very focused on particulars, despite having waited so long to “have her voice heard.” And I’m not at all sure how knitting with wool that’s been stashed internally communicates much of anything. Beyond, that is, a wearying narcissism.

[Jon Powers]

Does anyone know where the "Un-see" button is on my keyboard?

[sk60]

She doesn’t seem very focused on particulars, despite having waited so long to “have her voice heard.”

Step 1: Do something to get noticed.
Step 2: Make up some bullshit as an excuse.

But mostly step 1.

[Joan]

I've got it. She's trying to make us see that vaginas aren't repulsive and she's doing this by using her vagina to make something covered in blood and really repulsive.

Oh wait.

[David]

She’s trying to make us see that vaginas aren’t repulsive and she’s doing this by using her vagina to make something covered in blood and really repulsive.

Producing menstrual blood-stained knitwear probably wasn’t the best way to go about it. Why, it’s almost as if she hadn’t thought it through.

[Franklin]

Ms Jenkins ... has “always been trying to have her voice heard.”

I don't think that's where one's voice comes from.

[Steve 2]

And yet, when I post a video online of me fencing with my penis, it gets pulled off :-(

[Col. Milquetoast]

At 2:37 are those plaster casts on the wall? All this talk of things being "shocking or scary… pretty robust area… fear and repulsion" but it doesn't seem to have hindered the continuation of the species.

2:00 people say "you're so brave, you're so brave"

I snickered.

at 1:20 it sounds like she says "I want to, I guess, not just walk off and become a parent like a cultural lemming; I want to make an informed decision" Are there a non-informed decisions about knitting? Or was she talking about something unrelated and since she used "cultural lemming" the producer felt it had to be kept in the video?

[David]

people say “you’re so brave, you’re so brave”

Yes, Ms Jenkins makes a point of letting us know just how brave she is. Sorry, how brave all those other people keep saying she is. On account of her bravery.

[Jimmy]

I'm graduating in December and will no longer have to frequent an environment populated with these types. Praise be!

[Paul]

The grant application would make interesting reading.

[Scott]

I for one, was totally unaware that there was so much fear of vulva's in society today. Thank god she is doing this to combat this horror. Btw, where does one go to take a good hard long look at a vulva? you know, to combat the fear...

[BenSix]

It had never struck to me to be frightened of the vulva but long, stringy objects being pulled from peoples' orifices? Yeah, that is more disturbing.

[JoeBlow]

This comment on the Gawker article is a classic

"This seems like a deliberate stick in the eye to transgender women, as they'll never be able to participate in such a project. At the very least it's quite exclusionary to those women who were born with 'anomalous' plumbing."

[bgates]

And yet, when I post a video online of me fencing with my penis, it gets pulled off

What gets pulled off?

[Fay]

Oh fuckidy fuck. Where's the eye bleach dispenser.

[Charliewww]

This could be a new genre! By swapping orifices we could next be looking at an annual record of what Ms Jenkins ate every day.

[David]

It had never struck to me to be frightened of the vulva but long, stringy objects being pulled from peoples’ orifices? Yeah, that is more disturbing.

Yes, if said organ needs rehabilitation in the public imagination, which is a big ‘if’, she’s going about it in a rather implausible way. She seems to be adding vileness, not subtracting it. But her interview is filled with odd assertions. For instance, she tells us that “craft… is something associated with women being harmless.” I can’t say I’d ever thought of craft as being an exclusively female and therefore demeaning and lowly activity. Do craftsmen not exist in her mind? Male shoemakers, tailors, furniture makers, glass-blowers, etc?

She sounds like she’s reading aloud her feminism lecture notes rather than looking at the world.

[Andy]

Did you see the video were some bloke paints with his willy?

http://www.pricasso.com/

[David]

Truly, we live in an age of wonders.

[JuliaM]

*stunned disbelief*

[David]

Someone fetch a large Scotch to steady Julia’s nerves.

[James]

IIRC, the meme that vulvas are considered repellant in some way was the reason the kiddies at Sydney University decided to feature a bunch of photos of them on the front cover of the student magazine a few months ago (with predictable results).

I must say that until that event, the idea that female genitalia were unattractive or even repulsive had never occurred to me.

I do recall reading somewhere that after his marriage, Salavdor Dali was horrified by the first sight of Gala's genitals, and that it was thought the marriage was never consummated. But Dali was of course mad as a cut snake, so I don't imagine he'd be a reliable reference point for anything.

[Patrick Brown]

That story is more usually told about English art critic John Ruskin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin#Sexuality

And it's news to me, as a straight man, that vaginas are supposed to be repulsive. About two-thirds of the internet is devoted to presenting images of vaginas and some of the uses thereof, and it's not exactly losing money.

[Megaera]

If craft is "associated with women being harmless", what about the ancient imagery of the Fates, spinning, weaving and cutting the thread of life? Scarcely harmless. Come to think on it, what about Mme Defarge and her cronies knitting daily at the foot of the guillotine -- grim as you can get. Is she illiterate, pretentious, preciously stupid, or some dismal combination of the above?

[dcardno]

Megara - I'd take the trifecta on that one.

[Jimmy]

Is she illiterate, pretentious, preciously stupid, or some dismal combination of the above?

A mix, I guess. But the important thing is that the school is such an enabling environment for these ideas, especially when they relate to her personally and her person. The actual details and real-world results aren't important; the proposition is important. Because the content of the work is so much about her and her body, it's harder for the incumbent intelligentia to deny that she's engaging in a valid form of expression. Valid in this sense meaning oh so deep and meaningful expression as opposed to I painted this (technically brilliant) picture of a sunset because I thought it was beautiful and I want to make beautiful things, which doesn't fly with pretentious art-tutor poseurs.

[David]

That story is more usually told about English art critic John Ruskin.

In today’s Observer, feminist Minna Salami tells us “feminism is to be found in the tiniest detail.” And so she shares her stance on pubic hair. It’s a thing on which one takes a stance, apparently.

[David]

Julia points us to this Guardian article. Apparently, shockingly, the typical reaction to Ms Jenkins’ vaginal ‘art’ has been mockery or mild revulsion and therefore, says the artist, therefore her art has been somehow validated. Indeed, she has been validated. Her feminism has been validated. Everything about her is incredibly important and immensely validated.

She tells us this while insisting, “What I am not seeking through this work is external validation of myself – in fact, the work is primarily about casting off the need for validation from external sources.” And yet she makes a point of letting us know just how validated she is, because of “the deafening response” to her video, which has been “consumed, contemplated and commented on by millions across the globe.” Apparently, people are afraid of what she does. Because it’s so daring and politically radical.

Not that she’s looking for validation, you understand.

[JP Jones]

Hey, she's got nothin' on the stripper I saw in Pattaya Beach, Thailand. Imagine a bar full of Sailors, proverbially drunk, watching a woman dance on the raised stage behind the bar. The stage itself had about 13 or so stripper poles that she was dancing around. As she moved she put her hand down to her pussy (a technical Sailor term) and started to pull fluorescent string from it, shining under the bar's black light. She obviously had a lot of practice as she smoothly and quickly (but not too quickly) gyrated around the poles, more and more string coming out of her. The string wrapped itself around the poles, around and around and around until the stage started to look like a spider's web done by a spider on acid.

Of course, the Sailors showed their appreciation of the performance more and more forcefully, screaming and jumping up and down. The whole show finally reached its climax when one of the overwrought mariners jumped up on the stage and started flossing his teeth with the string.

That's when I left before it really got out of hand.

Now THAT'S vagina art!