A look at womanhood

By Kristen Peterson

Friday, Aug. 7, 2009 | 2 a.m.

When a gallery exhibit falls through at the last minute and the curator has only one week to find a replacement, there’s no telling what will end up on the walls, particularly with a group exhibit where multiple artists’ works must be sensibly corralled.

It helps to keep this in mind when walking into “It’s a Girl Thing,” on display though Oct. 10 at Reed Whipple Cultural Center.

The show was sort of a last-minute rallying of the troops by gallery coordinator Jeanne Voltura, who created a loosely defined theme — “female” — and asked local artists of both genders to submit works.

Don’t expect a comprehensive and cohesive study of women and the female psyche.

The exhibit dabbles lightly in stereotypes, symbolism, convention and common female rituals, portrayed through various media and multiple voices. The show is not designed to be a deep discussion about what it means to be a woman, Voltura says.

“I didn’t think I could get women to answer that in such a short time frame,” she says.

Some of the works have been featured in other exhibits around town and some are more serious than others. Marty Walsh’s pop-art painting “Sunbeam” pays homage to a vintage electric can opener, one of many appliances designed to improve the domestic life of women. Artist Kyla Hansen’s ceramic tea cups are renditions of girls’ underwear — Monday through Friday briefs — that spill out of a ceramic drawer. Joseph Watson portrays women shopping in urban settings, while Anne Hoff’s “Seven Degrees of Separation” explores the difference between men and women through pencil-on-mylar landscapes.

Grayson Ronk’s drawings include a graphite-on-paper portrait of a Prozac capsule and another of a Bentley, a status auto seen as helpful in attracting women. The exhibit includes two botanical works by Mary Warner.

The show is comfortable and endearing, and the works were selected to be appropriate for children and families. That explains the lack of overt edginess, although it would have been nice to see one of artist Laurenn McCubbin’s sassy vamps. The show does feature McCubbin’s “Spring,” a digital archive print of a showgirl in a floral setting. (Think vintage Vegas meets contemporary Botticelli.)

This is definitely not a radical feminist show, nor did Voltura want it to be. She preferred instead to throw out the idea of femaleness and see what happens when artists present female-centric works.

Nearly lost among the larger, more vivid conceptual works is a seemingly subtle graphite self-portrait by Merrilee Hortt. In the portrait, Hort looks tried and tired, but a certain beauty arises from the honesty. The image comes from a series of photographs Hort had taken of her face as it mimicked certain fabrics in an attempt to make herself look like dresses featured in fashion magazine advertisements. For this piece, she wrapped string around her face to represent the tension that comes from trying to master multiple roles, asking herself, “How can I be a good wife, mother and good member of my community and still have this selfish part called being an artist?”

Another figurative work is Mary Lou Evans’ portrait of two teenage girls in a bathroom, one watching the other get ready. The image takes viewers into that sacred space among girls where bonding and rituals take place. It’s titled “Older Sister.” The young women are Evans’ daughters.

“It’s a little bit voyeuristic,” she says of the piece. “To men, the rituals we go through are interesting. They find them mysterious. Those rituals are kind of what make us female.”

Tarissa Tiberti’s “Desserted Desert” is an intriguing, barren landscape made by photographing her sculpture of cake frosting. It is not a literal piece, Tiberti says. Nor is it necessarily feminist. But Tiberti says she occasionally has to explain that when discussing her work.

“People see my work and ask, ‘Is that feminism?’ I say, ‘No. I’m a female and I’m making art,’ ” she says.

“Anything I do is a girl thing.”