Self Help Clinic Statement: Self Help Clinic Page 2, 3 and 4 are machine embroidered reproductions of a medical "Self-Help" article first printed in "Everywoman," an underground feminist newspaper (Venice, CA 1971). Using detailed photos and text, the article instructs women in conducting pelvic exams and "Menstrual Extraction," a euphemism for self-administered early-term abortions. This article was published two years before the landmark Roe v. Wade supreme court decision that made abortion legal in the US, but it evokes the tenuous status of safe, legal abortion, and reproductive rights in the US today.
- Sarah Sharp
Artist Statement:
I am a multidisciplinary artist influenced by the Pattern and Decoration movement, American craft forms and Underground Press from the 20th century. I use traditional craft based forms (collage, hand-embroidery, quilting, macramé, press-based print media) and digital media forms (video, digital image manipulation, machine embroidery and Augmented Reality), to engage with themes related to land, domesticity, gender, technology and communalism. I am particularly interested in the ways groups of people create community, relate to their environments and respond to new technologies.
My recent series, Women Looking, explores archival material from the US underground feminist press from the early 1970’s through textiles, domestic decor, and Augmented Reality. Through this series I look at the ways progressive political communities developed national and global alliances through analog means, before social media. By imprinting these radical images onto traditional forms like quilting, embroidery and wallpaper patterns, the home is evoked as a site of revolution and community building.
I also work collaboratively and with community members through my multimodal art project, "The Tool Book Project." A semi-annual publication series that was actively made between 2016 and 2020, the Tool Book Project showcases art, writing, dialogue and critical discourse from international artists and writers. It is also a platform for sharing resources via curated gallery shows, readings, roundtable discussions, and other public events. Sales from each publication are donated to specific social and environmental justice organizations, providing a mode of direct action for artists and writers to exchange ideas and affect positive social change.