Sustained Investigation #5

REFLECTION:

The role of female welders who worked in shipyards first came to my attention when I learned about Bath Iron Works and the great number of women who worked there, taking workshops and mobilizing quickly in order to build these incredible liberty ships used in the war effort. In doing more research, I learned that this was not confined to Maine, and was actually something that happened in shipyards along the coast all over America, and these women were called—similar to the icon of Rosie the Riveter—Wendy Welders. I then, of course, did a lot of research into the art styles and mediums of the time. As people were straying from realism, I saw a shift towards non-photo realistic portraits and a more loose, stylized look to each piece. Especially for the people, while the backgrounds and objects were for the most part pretty realistic, the anatomy became more and more non-realistic and disproportionate. I also saw two common themes in each painting: idealism/patriotism, & the grunge and darkness of the war. In this painting, I leaned more towards the idealism and patriotism of the war by using bright colors and designing my composition to show the enormity of the ships. I did attempt to include some of the grunge aspect in my brush strokes on the ship with darker gray paint in order to create a sense of depth and dirt to the metal. I also did not make the women anatomically correct in order to lean into the style of what I was seeing in my references. Although it was a long battle between oils and acrylics, I ended up using acrylics as it was a very new medium as of WW2 (introduced in 1934) and it helped me to layer paints in order to achieve the somewhat grungy look on the ship. 

My composition required revision after feedback & research which I changed to make it more realistic to the processes that occurred and show scale. I also went back and made the water more calm & idyllic (adding to the ultra-patriotic view of the time), cleaned up edges on the back ship and docks to emphasize them, shaded the middle woman’s arms to make it more 3D, & painted the American flag to show location along with red, white, and blue overalls. 

For my next piece, I have been doing a lot of research on the Mexican Revolution and Mexican printmaking as a way to portray political and social issues. In my research, I have learned about these women called “soldaderas” who not only took up arms and actually fought in combat, but were also especially helpful (and unappreciated) for their work within the camps. They worked as laundresses, nurses, cooks, and even spies, their being viewed as unassuming actually making them very successful. Many sources say that the revolution wouldn’t have succeeded without them. In addition to this, the soldaderas set an example for many female activists in the future who fought for their rights, and, because women in Mexico had very little rights under the previous dictatorship, were able to fight for more extensive rights post-Revolution. I want to come up with a painting to show the duality of these women who were able to help in both the camps and battlefields, and although I have to come up with some compositions, I am thinking that I will show a women with the barrel of a rifle poking out from the skirts of her dress (which was often how guns were hidden when women worked as spies) while also reached up to remove something from a laundry line. I am also in between doing a print and during a larger scale painting, as murals and paintings were an integral part of the revolution and spreading its message. Murals have also been a very important aspect of Mexican culture throughout history. Although I have to do more research, I am very excited to see where this piece will take me!