Sherri Cornett
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    • FLOW Interactive Exhibition and Community Project >
      • EXHIBITION Flow
      • VOICES OF THE RIVER SYMPOSIUM Flow
      • MIXING OIL and WATER Film Night and Discussion Flow
      • WORDS ON WATER: POETRY AND JAZZ IN CONCERT Flow
      • LIVING IN HARMONY ON THE YELLOWSTONE Flow
      • YOUTH OUTREACH Flow
      • READING AREAS MSUBillings Library Flow
      • YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS Flow
      • MORE TO EXPLORE Flow
      • PRESS KIT Flow
    • FOOD and CULTURE HUB East Helena
    • FOR FREEDOMS Billings >
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    • THE 2020 AWAKENING BILLINGS For Freedoms 2020 >
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Robert Hall on Blood Quantum
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Indigenous Voices Films and Filmmakers Panel
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS MMIP Community Gathering
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS REDRess Exhibit
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Seeing Patterns Exhibition
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Related Events
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Partners and Presenters
    • POINTS OF MANY CONNECTIONS
    • WHAT IS IT ABOUT MY MEMORY >
      • MEMORY CARDS What Is It About My Memory
      • SOMAS What Is It About My Memory
      • EXHIBITIONS What Is It About My Memory
    • ALTITUDE 3123 >
      • EVENTS Altitude 3123
  • CURATORIAL
    • CHINA Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang 2014 >
      • ART & ARTISTS/CHINA Half the Sky
      • ART & ARTISTS/US Half the Sky
      • CULTURAL and COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS
      • DELEGATES
      • ESSAYS & ESSAYISTS
      • BLOG Half the Sky
      • TASKS, TEAMS & TIMELINES
    • GUTFREUND CORNETT ART
    • MATRIXXMODULATION Jon Lodge
    • PLANNED PARENTHOOD A Celebration of Expression: An Evening of Wine, Women and Art
    • SOUTH KOREA Woman Body Seoul and Gwangju 2012
    • WOMEN DO IT! Traveling Postcard Exhibition >
      • WOMEN DO IT Gallery
    • UNDOCUMENTED Difference in America Today
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Ancestresses & Wise Women


Conversations Among Women                 Connections/Women Issues

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In conversations with younger women at a local college, I discovered that many of them had not been exposed to much in the way of women's history or women's rights. This shocked the political activist in me and caused me to reflect on how I had been apprised of such information and the wealth of mentors I have had - ancestresses, teachers, artists, writers, activists, friends. Honoring these women and creating gatherings in which women could mentor each other became the vision behind this sculptural installation and the accompanying Conversations Among Women.

The sculptures begin with my paternal great grandmother, Emma, who shed an alcoholic husband, raised two daughters and sent them to college, built a successful dairy from the ground up, bucked community sentiment by hiring a black man as her manager and showed me that a woman can have ambition and take control of her life. There are activists and authors, such as Gloria Steinem, who reached me first through her establishment of Ms. magazine. Jean Shinoda Bolen, who led a Women's Wisdom retreat, which I attended after weaning my last child, and who now works tirelessly to bring forth a 5th United Nations sponsored World Women's Conference. Anaïs Nin, who wrote lyrical prose with a definite woman's perspective. And, of course, Marion Woodman, whose writings inspired my first series entitled Chrysalis.

The chrysalis forms of my first series evolved to become roughly seven-foot welded steel enclosures for a central wooden core - an idea influenced by Judy Chicago, who talked about its use as a defining symbol of woman. Symbols of the lives and wisdom of these women (books, shovels, fishing rods, MP3 players, maps, instruments, tools…) and written text are woven into the works. The text is also available for viewers on the wall beside each piece.

Since the cores were originally fence posts, they help create the boundary of the circle of the installation. This, in turn, references women's circles, the circles of support groups and consciousness-raising gatherings. The pieces are just above human scale, so provide a somewhat protective, overseeing presence for viewers and the participants in the Conversations Among Women, who have, in turn, shared their histories, collective wisdom, and perspectives.

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Anaïs (Nin)
Author
2007
83 1/2 x 24 x 16 inches
steel, wood core, wire, fabric, photograph, lock, mirror, books
​(non extant)

Lessons learned from Anaïs:
Inner chamber, inner life, labyrinth
Poetic prose, feminine writing and thought
Self knowledge through journaling leads to personal liberation

Quotes from Nin's writings included  in journals at base of sculpture and on central core:
  • We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
  • The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.
  • After each encounter with naked unbearable truth, naked unbearable pain, the eyes returned to the mirrors in the inner chambers, to the transformation by understanding and reflection, so that they could emerge and face the naked truth again.
  • And the day came when the risk to remain tight as a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
  • Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
  • Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.
  • I wept.  I am breaking through another shell.  It is painful.
  • I am still in the labyrinth, and I must be willing to get lost before I am saved.  It is only when I abandon myself that I am saved.
  • When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.
  • If enough individuals had worked at their own development, history would be formed as natural things are formed, organically, from the impulse of quality and maturity.
  • Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.
  • I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.​

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Messages on suede strips
Earth
85 x 18 x 18 inches
2007
steel, wood core, suede, sand, shells, stones, feathers, flowers, seed pods
​In Corporate Collection


Messages written on core:
Transformation...Balance...Variety...Refuge...Rejuvenation...
Listen...Wholeness...Connection...
Breath...Spirit..Senses...Flow...Rhythm...Oneness...
Expansiveness...Reverence...Harmony...Presence...Cycles

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Text on vellum detail
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Gabrielle Roth
Dancer, Writer, Musician, Philosopher
2008
84 x 18 x 18 inches
Steel, wood, painted canvas, glass, vellum, wire, feathers, MP3 player

Quotes from Gabrielle written on red vellum strips:
  • If you just set people in motion, they'll heal themselves.
  • If you don't do your dance, who will?
  • The permission to dance with passion and to dance forever jolted me from unconscious inertia and self conscious imitation to the intuitive dance of my soul.  In this dance, nobody knew the steps, not even me. As soon as I committed myself to simply moving, letting the inside flow out, I eliminated the need to live up to forms, to expectations created by someone else.  I entered the realm of ecstatic dance.
  • Mine is the art of inspiring people to turn themselves inside out, transform their suffering into art, their art into awareness, and their awareness into action.
  • There is no dogma in dance.
  • I believe the power of motion, the wisdom of gravity, the emptiness of true love, the fact that there is no way out but through the body, no way up unless we all go together, no way down unless we follow the beat, no way in unless we embrace the dark.  And the darkest shadow of the brightest light is the dance that moves us all.​
  • And so I created a dancing path with no boundaries, no borders, no steps, no beginnings, no end...only a moving center
​

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Central core and "plates" detail
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Rear detail of tools
Judy (Chicago)
​Artist, Author, Feminist, Educator
2008
84 x 25 x 18 inches
Steel, wood, ceramic, quilting, string, ribbon, laminated paper, beads, tools, work gloves, tampons, wire, photo

This piece was juried into the Honoring Women's Rights exhibition at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, September 8, 2012 - January 7, 2013. 

Text and quotes from the writings of Judy Chicao on laminated paper on core:
  • Feminist Art Program, Womanhouse, The Dinner Party, The Birth Project, Holocaust Project, International Quilting Bee, Resolutions, Fragments from Delta of Venus
  • Women's freedom of expression
  • Women's use of tools
  • Women's accomplishments back into the historical record

Quotes from Judy's writings:
  • Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other's shoulders and building upon each other's hard earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel. The goal of The Dinner Party is to break this cycle.
  • Remember our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our capacities by seeing that other women have been strong.  
  • There was no frame of reference in 1970 to understand a woman's struggle, to value it, or to read and respond to imagery that grew out of it. What did men know or care about what a struggle it was for a woman to overcome her conditioning as a woman, to feel comfortable about being assertive, to struggle to use tools that she had never been educated to use?
  • Each woman's work, seen only in juxtaposition with men's work, has been rendered impotent by being separated from the work of other  women.  Seen together, women's work can challenge our most fundamental ideas about women, men, our roles, our potential, our identities and our priorities.
  • I discovered that almost every woman in history who accomplished anything did so in the face of great prejudice, rejection and discrimination.​​

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Mother Clyde (Clyde Connell)
Sculptor, Family friend
​2008

82 x 18 x 18 
Steel, wood core, clay, paper maché, brown paper, fabric, stones, photo
​(non extant)

Text on paper on core:
Began sculpting in her 60's
Social concerns, questions of human existence, church-based civil rights work, women's art support group 
Influenced by southern African-American culture, Eva Hesse's unorthodox materials and female imager, Alfred Gottlieb and Joseph Cornell
Swamp materials - vines, clay; paper maché, farm machinery parts, collage, assemblage
Swamp songs, Habitats, Ritual Places, Sentinels, Nests, Earth Figures, Non-persons, Ladder
​



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Rear view
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Front detail of guitar, compact discs
Songwriters
​
2008
84 x 31 x 22
steel, wood core, paper maché, plaster, paint, guitar, records, compact discs, cassette tape, laminated photos, song sheets and text, yarn, guitar strings,  copper wire, MP3 player
​(non extant)

Text on songsheets and lyrics on MP3 player:
Emily Sailers
I gotta get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands, not just my head
I think myself into jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose

Cris Williamson
What do you do for a living
Are you forgiving, giving shelter
Follow your heart, love will find you
Truth will unbind you
Seek out a song of the soul

Bonnie Raitt
Gonna get into it, babe
Down where it's tangled and dark
Way on into it, baby
Down where your fears are parked

Alanis Morissette
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would I would be good whether with or without you

Carole King
You've gotto get up every morning
With a smile on your face
And show the world
All the love in your heart
Des'Ree
Cause I ain't moving from my face, from my race, from my history
I ain't moving' from my love, my peaceful dove, means too much to me
And loving self can be so hard, honesty can be demanding
Learn to love yourself it's a great, great feeling
Joan Armatrading
I said,"Show some emotion
Put expression in your eyes
Light up if you're feeling happy
But if it's bad then let those tears roll down."
Ani DiFranco
I do it for the joy it brings
because I"m a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
I do it because its' the least I can do
I do it because I learned it from you
I do it just because I want to
because I want to
Joni Mitchell
I search my soul
My heard and in my mind
To try and find forgivenss
This is someone's child
With pain unreconciled
Filled up with father's hate
Mother's neglect
I can forgive, but I will not forget
Julie Gold 
From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace, it's the voice of every man.
Stephanie Davis
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin,
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within,
When the skies and the oceans are clean again,
Then we shall be free.
When we're free to love anyone we choose,
When this worlds big enough for all different views,
When we're all free to worship from our own kind of pew,
Then we shall be free.
Sarah McLachlan
And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it
I won't fear love
And if I feel a rage, I won't deny it
I won't fear love. 

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Rear view
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Dandelion wine detail
Vera
Maternal Great Aunt
​
2008
73 x 24 x 21 inches
steel, wood core, bottle, silk plants, feathers, horn photo, paint

Text on wine bottle:
Connection to the land
Living on the homestead
Heritage
Plant propagation
Cattle, turkeys, chickens
Kept goldfish in the stock tank
Potted plants hanging from the liveoak tree
Preserved her mineral rights and used the lease money to have ice cream delivered and buy a new Cadillac each year
Kept canned goods and dandilion wine in storm cellar
German, Lutheran, south Texas country


© 2011 Sherri Cornett
  • HOME
  • WORKS
    • ANCESTRESSES & WISE WOMEN
    • CHRYSALIS
    • COLLABORATIONS
    • FREEDOM SERIES
    • GROTTOES
    • LENS BASED ART
    • PUBLIC ART
    • SEAFORMS
    • SHELTERS
  • PROJECTS
    • COMMUNITY GROVE
    • CONVERSATIONS AMONG WOMEN
    • FLOW Interactive Exhibition and Community Project >
      • EXHIBITION Flow
      • VOICES OF THE RIVER SYMPOSIUM Flow
      • MIXING OIL and WATER Film Night and Discussion Flow
      • WORDS ON WATER: POETRY AND JAZZ IN CONCERT Flow
      • LIVING IN HARMONY ON THE YELLOWSTONE Flow
      • YOUTH OUTREACH Flow
      • READING AREAS MSUBillings Library Flow
      • YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS Flow
      • MORE TO EXPLORE Flow
      • PRESS KIT Flow
    • FOOD and CULTURE HUB East Helena
    • FOR FREEDOMS Billings >
      • FOR FREEDOMS Billings 2018 Partners and Presenters
    • THE 2020 AWAKENING BILLINGS For Freedoms 2020 >
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Robert Hall on Blood Quantum
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Indigenous Voices Films and Filmmakers Panel
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS MMIP Community Gathering
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS REDRess Exhibit
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Seeing Patterns Exhibition
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Related Events
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Partners and Presenters
    • POINTS OF MANY CONNECTIONS
    • WHAT IS IT ABOUT MY MEMORY >
      • MEMORY CARDS What Is It About My Memory
      • SOMAS What Is It About My Memory
      • EXHIBITIONS What Is It About My Memory
    • ALTITUDE 3123 >
      • EVENTS Altitude 3123
  • CURATORIAL
    • CHINA Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang 2014 >
      • ART & ARTISTS/CHINA Half the Sky
      • ART & ARTISTS/US Half the Sky
      • CULTURAL and COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS
      • DELEGATES
      • ESSAYS & ESSAYISTS
      • BLOG Half the Sky
      • TASKS, TEAMS & TIMELINES
    • GUTFREUND CORNETT ART
    • MATRIXXMODULATION Jon Lodge
    • PLANNED PARENTHOOD A Celebration of Expression: An Evening of Wine, Women and Art
    • SOUTH KOREA Woman Body Seoul and Gwangju 2012
    • WOMEN DO IT! Traveling Postcard Exhibition >
      • WOMEN DO IT Gallery
    • UNDOCUMENTED Difference in America Today
  • WRITING
    • ESSAYS
    • JOURNALISM
    • OTHER WRITING
  • ABOUT
    • EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS
    • BIO/CV
    • CONTACT/NEWSLETTER
    • BLOG Memories and Musings