The Queen of Country Music

Miss Kitty Wells sings
'It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk Angels'

This song was written as a response to Hank Thompson's hit song, 'The Wild Side of Life', and the songs lyrical treatment of 'wayward' women. Miss Wells retorts with the line, "It's a shame all the blame is on us women." It was a hit! Miss Wells became the first female Country Music star. Her songs talked about female experience and inspired female listeners and Country singers alike.
I went to see Laura Cantrell last night whose new album is a tribute to Miss Wells. Here's a little interview with Miss Cantrell about her project:

A Bumper Blog Entry

Some people think...

On the 26th April, the legend Poly Styrene died
at the age of 53.
She was true punk rock and an inspiration
to many women and girls.

Sexism is brought to light again, but this time by our not-so-modern, Etonian Leader of the Coalition. Calm down, dear? CALM DOWN, DEAR?! The more these 'episodes', these 'light-hearted banters', come out to play the more debate is roused and the more transparent sexism becomes. Let's not calm down, let's rally against it.
Here's a good article.

WOMAN OF THE DAY: Tehmina Kazi.
Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, an organisation that aims to raise awareness of the benefits of democracy, Kazi challenges and combats Islamic extremism and Islamophobia. Here's an interesting article about Muslim women making change.
She writes for The Guardian too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tehmina-kazi

Karla Black has been nominated for the 2011 Turner Prize.

What to Ask for Others, 2009

The UK Film Council published a report stating that almost two-thirds of the older women interviewed felt under-represented in films. A report also found that half the population feel that black characters are too often portrayed as drug dealers, two in five say that there are no 'good guy' roles for black characters and two in three say that black characters are overly sexualised. Eastern Europeans are shown as ill-educated and poor; Asian characters experience family conflict; homosexual characters are continually shown as camp, with sexual orientation as their main trait. Films about the working class are seen as too depressing, the middle class too sweet.
Stories exist that show more complex characters and narratives, but the films aren't being made. It's time to start demanding more from our screens. Highlighting these stereotypes and disconnection from society (consumers of cinema) can hopefully start the change. It's a shame that the UK Film Council will cease to exist.

Who's afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?

1932-2011

More than the movies, more than the marriages.

"Elizabeth Taylor was the first great actress to fight on behalf of the AIDS movement and brought the illness from a taboo to a reality. She was the cause's leading advocate and became one of the world's most celebrated activists. She is leaving a great legacy for us all and a new challenge to fight AIDS for this new generation." -Richard Zaldivar, president of The Wall-Las Memorias Project in Los Angeles

100 Days

Today marks the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.
This isn't to just celebrate women who have cracked glass or who are visible or who have made a difference to our lives individually, but to bring awareness to the situation of women across the world.
To those women you don't see or hear...

Women of the World, unite and take over!

11th - 13th March 2011
Southbank Centre, London

WOW – Women of the World – is a joyous celebration of the formidable strength and inventiveness of women – a pioneering, groundbreaking annual festival, which will present, recognise and celebrate women, and act as a conversation space for issues of all kinds.

If you can get there, it promises to be a great festival with speeches, performances, debates, and more, discussing issues facing women today. Highlights for me include: Bird's Eye View Sounds & Silents, Life Cycle with Mara Carlyle, and the conferences that take place over the three days. Look here for more information.

Jane Russell

1921-2011
Sassy

In memory of Trish Keenan

14 January 2011

A Pioneer of Abstract Animation

Synchromy No.2 (1936)

Mary Ellen Bute made 'visual music'. Between 1934 and 1953, she made fourteen short abstract, musical, animated films in collaboration with Joseph Schillinger and, later, with Ted Nemeth, who would become her husband. Many of these films were screened before a feature movie at Radio City Hall in New York. Bute was a founding member of the Women's Independent Film Exchange.
Bute died practically penniless in 1983, sacrificing all for her art.

A short documentary about Mary Ellen Bute

Miriam O'Reilly Wins!

Miriam O'Reilly, the 53-year-old ex-BBC presenter, today won an employment tribunal against the BBC on the grounds of ageism and sexism. O'Reilly was dropped for younger presenters on the show 'Country File' when it moved to the prime-time. As she rightly says, the outcome has, 'implications for all broadcasters, not just the BBC'.

Let's hope this means that older women will stop disappearing from our TV screens.

Vivian Maier, Discovered

Vivian Maier, Self Portrait

John Maloof bought a box of negatives and unprocessed rolls of film at an auction and what was inside was a document of Chicago's streets and World travels by an aloof French emigre. There are over 100,000 images that Maloof is currently processing, scanning and archiving. You can follow his blog here. Maier died in 2009, before Maloof could talk to her about her photography.

Thanks to Helen, Paul and Pina for finding this!

Black Swan Posters

These special, limited edition posters have been put out as a teaser for the new Aronofsky film, Black Swan (to be released in February 2011). I'm not sure how I feel about Aronofsky films, but the posters have made me want to see this film all the more. The posters were commissioned by Twentieth Century Fox and created by LaBoca.

A Portrait of Ga

Unfortunately I cannot embed this lovely short film by Scottish filmmaker Margaret Tait,

but you can see it here:

A Portrait of Ga

Margaret Tait, 1955

4.20min

Colour, 16mm

The way Ga unwraps the sticky barley sugar, trying not to get it on her fingers until it's a little shuttlecock to pop straight into her mouth, is tender and familiar.

I Love Lucy

Cristina Garcia Rodero (Magnum Women No.4)

"I tried to photograph the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humor, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth; and the fullest and most intense moments in the lives of these characters as simple as they are irresistible, with all their inner strength, as a personal challenge that gave me strength and understanding and in which I invested all my heart." - Cristina Garcia Rodero

Born: 1949, Spain

Joined Magnum: 2005

Full Member of Magnum: 2009

Old cinema studios, Almeria, Spain. 1991

Holy Saturday, Canossa di Puglia, Italy. 2000

Paseo al atardecer. 2002

Three Flames. 2005

Spiritual Cleaning, Maria Lionza, La Diosa de los Ojos de Agua. (Date unknown)

Martine Franck (Magnum Women No.3)

"A photograph isn't necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth. It's more of a fleeting, subjective impression." - Martine Franck

Born: 1938, Belgium

Joined Magnum: 1980

Full member of Magnum: 1983

Children's Library, Clamart, France. 1965

Swimming pool designed by Alain Capeilleres, Le Brusc, France. 1976

Bresson on his balcony, Paris. 1992

Tulku Khentrol Lodro Rabsel with his tutor Llagyel Shechen in the Bonarth Monastery, Nepal. 1996

Come and Go

Samuel Beckett's 1965 short play, Come and Go, is hypnotic in its space.

“[The women] assert a strength through their interdependence which makes this play one of the most perfect theatrical ensembles ever devised.” -Anthony Roche

Haiku by Hisajo Sugita

O flower garment!

When I take it off,

Many strings coil around me.

Flowers of morning glory.

The sky above this street

Begins to overcast.

In a day of chrysanthemums

I shake and comb my wet hair

Letting the drops fall.

Hardly a word spoken

The man and his wife part -

Autumn nightfall

Chasing a butterfly

Deep into the spring woods

I am lost

Olivia Arthur (Magnum Women No. 2)

'When I am asked about my work, one of the questions that often comes up is 'How much difference does it make that I am a woman?' And I have to agree that it does make a huge difference, that plenty of the situations I have been in would not have been accessible to a man, or if a man had been present the atmosphere would have been very different.' -Olivia Arthur

Born: 1980, UK

Magnum nominee: 2008

Fatima says her midday prayers. A poster of her uncle, who is a wedding-dj, on the wall

(Iran: Beyond the Veil)

A young married couple in a migrant-worker community on the edge of Tehran

(Iran: Beyond the Veil)

(In the Name of God)

(In the Name of God)

Koran School for Girls. Faith, Turkey

(The Middle Distance)

Getting ready for a wedding party. Istanbul, Turkey

(The Middle Distance)

The prison dining room. Tibilsi, Georgia

(The Middle Distance)

Disrespect to women has got to be through

Thank heavens for Kathleen Hanna's blog for resurrecting the Beastie Boys' MTV award acceptance speech. Ad-Rock's words are especially pertinent today after this year's Latitude and T-in-the-Park festivals.

As he says in the song Sure Shot:

'I want to say a little something that's long overdue

The disrespect to women has got to be through

To all the Mothers and Sisters and the Wives and Friends

I want to offer my love and respect to the end'

Made in Dagenham

Making Marks

I thought I'd share this post from my favourite blog, 2 or 3 Things I Know.

9.08.2010

reduce an idea
to a few strokes

or a single gesture

and then it
will make sense


...like a logo.


georgia o'keefe
the winter road, 1963
blue lines 1916

Corrine Day

1962 - 2010

Photographer of the Waif, the Heroin Chic, the bare-faced model.

You will know her for those first images of Kate Moss.

But I like the light, the colours, the ratty hair and frightening spine of this photograph that somehow comment on the fallacy of the fashion world: the glamour is ripped open to reveal the structure that supports it.

Eve Arnold (Magnum Women No.1)

'If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.' -Eve Arnold

Born: 1912, USA

Joined Magnum: 1951

Full member of Magnum: 1956

Bar girl in a brothel in the red light district, Havana, Cuba. 1954

US actress Marilyn Monroe on the Nevada Desert going over her lines for a difficult scene she is about to play with Clarke Gable in the film The Misfits by John Huston. 1960

Malcolm X collecting money for the Black Muslims, Washington D.C. 1960

The Queen on tour, Cheshire, UK. 1968

A woman wearing a veil, the colour of which indicates her tribe, Cairo, Egypt. 1970

Horse training for the militia, Inner Mongolia. 1979

Magnum

'Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.' -Henri Cartier-Bresson

Magnum meeting, Paris, 1957

There's an amazing exhibition about Magnum Photos and the 'New Role of Photography' at the C/O in Berlin. Magnum is a photography cooperative, owned by its photographer-members, that 'chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues, and personalities'. Magnum was started by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David "Chim" Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert in 1947.

The exhibition mainly focusses on the amazing photographs of its founding members, but it also displays other and more recent Magnum members. What struck me was that there was not a single woman photographer within this exhibition. As you can see in the photograph above, in 1957 there were four women in Magnum and there continues to be female Magnum members to this day. Where were they?

Eve Arnold

Olivia Arthur

Martine Franck

Christina Garcia Rodero

Inge Morath

Alessandra Sanguinetti

Lise Sarfati

Marilyn Silverstone

My next few posts will highlight the work of these women.

[I should say that at the Berlinische Galerie there was a fantastic exhibition of women photographers of the Weimar Republic, with Marianne Breslauer as the main draw.]

Elles at the Pompidou

They say it's worse in Europe.

I have just returned from Paris.

They have women artists on show there!

The Pompidou Centre has dedicated an entire floor (and it is a large floor) to the women in its collection. See the website here for more.

By no means does it mean that this should be your only dose of female artists in the canon, but it's a start.

Sweet Harmonies

Marianne Breslauer

Documenting the New Women of the Weimar Republic.

Shorter hair and hems.

Access to the city and workplace.

Incomes.

Sexual liberation.

A new level of (nearing) gender equality.

Wanda Jackson

The Queen of Rockabilly, ladies and gentlemen.

Be Prepared... The Girl Guides are on the march!

The Girl Guides are launching a petition to have airbrushed photos labelled as such. These girls and young women no longer want to only see and aspire to unnaturally 'perfect' images of women. Body confidence and self esteem is at a low (with 50% of a survey of over 1000 girls aged between 16 to 21 stating they would consider surgery to change their looks) and they want to change that. Their petition will be online tomorrow, so sign up on their website here.

If the Girl Guides was this proactive when I was in them I wouldn't have led a strike and been asked to leave!

Suso

Suso Cecchi D'Amico

1914-2010

She suggested that the father tries to steal a bike in The Bicycle Thieves.

She made Audrey Hepburn's character sleep in Gregory Peck's character's bed and wear his pyjamas in Roman Holiday.

Suso saw herself as 'just an artisan, the author is the director', but the stories from Cinecitta (and Hollywood) wouldn't have been the same withoutout her touch.

Women of the punk era

"Punk was something you did rather than listened to, or admired. It was about being that person yourself, rather than standing back and thinking that somebody else was great."

Read Cazz Blase's three-part report on the women of the punk era on the f-word here.

SALT

Who's with me for a trip to the flicks?!

Apparently, Angelina Jolie was asked to be a Bond Girl and refused, saying that she would rather play Bond. A year later, when Tom Cruise turned down the role of Salt (too close to Mission Impossible), the character's gender switched and Jolie stepped in.

I'm really looking forward to seeing a big action movie that centres around a woman and with a strong leading lady.

AMAZING! From Deerhunter's Blog: Janelle Monáe

DEERHUNTER / ATLAS SOUND / GHETTO CROSS by bradford cox and cole alexander: Janelle Monáe is the new Bowie: "i'm really surprised she is not Lady Gaga level by now. This performance is mindblowing and recalls Young Americans-era Bowie with obvious..."

Nina Simone Treat

It's been a while since I last posted.

Let me make it up to you with this...

Meshes of the Afternoon

Part One

Part Two

In her own words.

A Poem by Denise Levertov

Variation on a Theme by Rilke
A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day's blow rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Freestyling

Let the Ladies take the platform and speak for themselves.

Ny, NoLay, Lady Chann, Lady Leshurr, Lioness, Princess Nyah, Alex Mills.

Feeling the Uncertain

Whenever I'm feeling uncertain I take a strange comfort in the work of Francesca Woodman (1958-1981).