I would describe myself as many things: artist, researcher, architect, teacher, dancer, swimmer, woman, and maker. These last two are things of complexity. To quote Patti Smith

‘As an artist, I never wanted to be fettered by gender nor recognized or defined as a female poet, musician or singer. They don’t do that with men – nobody says Picasso, the male artist. Curators call me up and say, “We want your work to be in a show about women artists,” and I’m like, why? For Christ’s sake, do we have to attach a gender onto everything?

Nevertheless, I will also acknowledge that it permeates a great deal of how we are in the world. As I have gotten older, I would divide these into two or three sections; the first is how women are taught to be in the world, step back, facilitate others, be in a sentence ‘not a problem’, and not have an opinion. This, of course, is training education. Not all women receive this training; one assumes Patti Smith did not. I, for better or worse, both did and didn’t; my parents, for reasons unknown, did not see cause to treat their son and daughter any differently. So we were taught to be in the world in a more masculine way, inquiring about things, demanding answers, advocating for injustice, and here it is important for the making bit, being allowed to be interested in anything. Resulting in me being well for one opinionated, inquisitive, but also solutions-focused. But also attended Catholic school, a place of rules; if you know me well, you will note that I walk with my hand behind my back when I am restraining myself, for example, and gesticulate wildly when not.

However, this brings me to the second thing: how the world responds to women who do not conform. First, the practical stuff : For one, apart from the tools of sewing, carving, drawing or painting. There are instead few power tools designed for use by persons with smaller hands. Using a chop saw remains one of my least favorite activities, I prefer, by and large, to work with manual tools since they are more ergonomic and offer more control for persons with smaller frames and smaller hands. For reference, I’m quite tall, I’m taller than many men. This can’t just be a problem for women. There are endless tribulations to finding steel-capped boots in size 5, appropriately sized working gloves, and not pink PPE!

Socially, of course, there are challenges when one behaves at odds with sociable norms; for new acquaintances, I like to assure them that there are no contradictions between doing ballet, baking cakes, cooking pasta, designing and making clothing, building furniture and designing buildings or fixing the door, or roof or carry a chair. They are made up. If confused, assume that I am male and proceed accordingly.

Now, on to the third, to a way of being in the world. Here, I will agree there is something, I call it flow, a kind of alchemic balance that seems to allow the weaving of life worlds that come easily to women that my male colleagues struggle with. It is the ability to balance the ebb and flows of matter – the work in harmony with things. People who work with wood often speak of this, working with the living thing as if the body and hands were conversing with the medium. As a woman who makes this, this is the central thread that runs across all my work at all scales, materials, and mediums. It is about the weaving of material worlds. In art, in writing, and in buildings which facilitate life stories.

Feminine Practice flows, it flows across materials, boarders, it flows across bodies, boundaries, territories. It weaves worlds.