It Won’t Make A Summer
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It Won’t Make A Summer
from the Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello collection
Acrylic on papier-mâché
Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello
I go into detail about what this collection is all about on the collection overview page, but if you haven’t seen that you can read the description in the accordion below - click the + sign.
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If you have spent any time in my company over the last six to eight months, you will have heard me talk about my latest collection, Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello.
The collection comprises 10 pieces inspired by things actual men said to me instead of hello during a period of online dating in my mid-thirties. I took screenshots of the most heinous, graphic, and creepy openers and, although at the time I wasn’t sure what I was saving them for, the idea for this collection arrived a few years later.
The purpose of bringing these ‘greetings’ (if you can call them that) into the light is not to demonise men, and paint them as predatory monsters in contrast to the delicate saintliness of women eyeroll. It’s to open the floor for discussions about the patriarchal waters we are all swimming in, perpetuate, and, to a greater or lesser degree, are complicit in.
I want to provoke discussions about rape culture, the male gaze, beauty standards etc etc, and explore all the ways in which we all benefit or are hindered by the status quo. Most importantly, I want you to join me in the horrified realisation of how NORMAL we’ve made all of these things.
When I’ve told people about this collection, the responses from women and men are vastly different. The women know immediately what I’m referring to, and usually respond with some related (horror) story, delivered in the blasé manner of someone who has been dealing with this shit her whole life (because she has).
The men on the other hand, range from absolutely horrified, to knowing stuff like this happens but only in an abstract kinda way, to (on one memorable occasion) asking me if any of the ‘Men’ I’m referring to have ever mentioned my “great tits” - I kid you not.
I’m not going to go into all of the ways that the patriarchy is a problem for men as much as it is a problem for women (and I’m aware that I’m leaning into the gender binary here for simplicity’s sake, but really it’s a problem for ALL of us), but suffice to say that we can’t make things better unless we can see, identify, and name the problem.
This collection is my contribution to bringing these open secrets into the light.
It Won’t Make A Summer
My favourite thing about this particular piece is watching people interact with it. “Oh pretty! What does it say?”, they ask, leaning forward. “Spit or… wait, what? Oh. God, really?” as their nose wrinkles in disgust.
Historically, spittoons (this style of wide-mouthed jug) were receptacles for men's bodily waste - tobacco juice, phlegm, the detritus of their physical presence in the world. They were utilitarian objects that existed solely to receive what men expelled. By creating a vessel that references this form whilst inscribed with a demand for sexual labour, I’m making explicit what's usually implicit: the reduction of women to receptacles for male desire.
But, of course, this isn't a functional spittoon. It's an art object. It's elevated; highly decorated in a classical style; for display and analysis. The woman-as-vessel has become the artist-as-alchemist, taking the degrading message, transforming it, and presenting it back to the world.
The words ‘spit or’ circle the pot in a decorative loop, seemingly nonsensical until your brain catches up and translates the band of swallow silhouettes directly underneath.
Swallows are traditionally symbols of freedom, loyalty, and safe return - sailors would have them tattooed on their bodies to represent the number of nautical miles travelled. A declaration of strength, experience, and, most importantly, survival (that feels particularly poignant in this context).
But here, frozen in silhouette, they circle endlessly around the vessel, trapped in their decorative role, their flight paths prescribed and repetitive. Much as a question like this traps women in a role that reduces them to function rather than person, and ignores their autonomy entirely.
The title - It Won't Make A Summer - references the proverb 'one swallow doesn't make a summer': i.e. don't mistake a single sign for the whole season.
But the man who sent this message clearly believed otherwise - that this one crude transaction would 'make his summer', would bring him the warmth and pleasure he imagined. We know better. Neither option in his binary leads anywhere worth going.
See the rest of the pieces in this collection below.
