women in art

Helene Berson's work is on display in the main reading room on Level 2 from July to August. Since we opened last May, six local artists have shown their work here.

Describe the kind of art you create.
My artwork is best described as collage and mixed media. The materials I rely on are myriad types of papers, photos and acrylic paint. Some of these come from quite ordinary contemporary sources, some are vintage, some are found objects, and some are specialty art papers. The works come together with the use of a variety of glues and gels. Frequently I incorporate details that have great personal meaning to me in addition to adding visual interest or suggesting the themes or subject of the work.

Talk about the scope of your show at the Mulberry Street Branch.The show consists of about 25 pieces of artwork. They range in size from 4 x 4" to 16 x 20. Most of these pieces were inspired by family photographs; many are of my parents. I found making these works of art gave me an opportunity to explore my feelings about family; family history and my roots. For this reason I coined the term “biollage” to suggest the connection between collage, biography, personal biology and history. Although much of the work contains very personal and mundane references I believe it evokes universal common human themes and experiences.

Where do you find inspiration?I have been deeply inspired by the good fortune of having many vintage family photos in my possession. For many years, decades actually, I treasured these photographs but was not actively relating to them. They were stored in boxes and bags and tucked away in a cupboard. Over the past several years they have revealed both a treasure trove of memories real and imagined and at the same time a Pandora’s Box of the mixed bag of my family history. This show at the library consists of one collection of my work. Other work reflects the inspiration of the sea; shapes--especially triangles; travel, and architecture.

How do you think the library setting affects the people who are experiencing your art?I believe that the Mulberry Street library is a particularly fitting setting for my show because it is a historic building that matches the vintage photographs and settings of my collages. I would like to think that when readers and researchers look up from their books or laptops my work provides a thoughtful resting place for the mind and eye.

Let's judge books by their covers. Describe the kinds of book jackets that have stuck in your artist's memory. I have certainly been drawn to look at a book because of its cover. I like bright, simple, dynamic and stylized designs and typefaces. One example is The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain. Generally speaking pulp fiction, Art Deco and styles popularized in the 1930s and 40s will almost always get a second glance from me.

Visit the Mulberry Street Branch to sign Ms. Berson's guest book and see the installation in person.

The 1920s saw the final triumph of the slender silhouette for women in fashion, forever banishing the voluminous undergarments of previous centuries. Poiret, Worth, Vionnet, and other couturiers devised a straight and tall line, meant for slim hips and small busts. Look in any costume survey textbook, and the pictures of changing dress silhouettes over time reveal much about the periods in which they were created. Yet when I looked in Wikipedia the other day, I saw that their definition for silhouette lacked mention of its clothing context. Can someone out there repair this omission?

Twenties fashions celebrated the slender, youthful feminine form. Previously, womanly curves had their own vogue. What I find interesting is how the 1920s aesthetic has been fiercely retained by the fashion industry, to the point that it has become embedded in the postmodern psyche. Check with all the girls who suffer from eating disorders, or have figures fuller that what’s in fashion. Tim Gunn is aware of the importance of the silhouette. He has a chapter in his A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style called “The Fit Conundrum,” in which silhouette and proportion are the measuring sticks for dressing around one’s body type.

The craze for slimness in the 1920s also crept into pop culture representations of women in general. A book from 1988 looks at Women and the Popular Imagination in the Twenties: Flappers and Nymphs. Read how the “liberated woman” started to take off in this period, with implications for today…

Men have always had it easier. Although, checking into last week’s Milan Fashion Week, where menswear fashions are previewed, Miuccia Prada was doing her best to diss today’s man. When the runway guffaws over back buttons, flyless trousers, and silly belts ceased, it was just another case of a prominent fashion designer mocking the uncertain times we live in. The rest of the offerings looked like the usual dreamy sportswear trends we’ve seen all along…

As a decorative style, Art Deco has its masculine and feminine elements. Yet the style doesn't so much embrace womanly attributes as shows off women as subject matter. The 1920s were a decade that allowed women to enjoy a new kind of physical and social freedom after the rigors of the first world war. Even the colors used for Art Deco design have a new freedom in their tints.

Part of the visual appeal of Art Deco design at this time is in the use of pochoir, or color stencil printing. Have a look in the Library's Digital Gallery at the illustrations of Jean Saude, done for his book, Traite d'enluminure d'art au pochoir. Women were entering a period when their gender could reap the benefits of modernity. Consider the fact that two of the most fascinating women of 1920s pop culture were Josephine Baker and Clara Bow!