Sexuality: Social and Cultural Constructs of Women Represented Through Art

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Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of
Spring 2008
Sexuality: Social and Cultural Constructs of Women

Represented through Art
Gayle Shaw Clark
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SEXUALITY: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTS OF WOMEN
REPRESENTED THROUGH ART
by
GAYLE SHAW CLARK
(Directed by: Elizabeth Jane Pleak)
ABSTRACT
Life is one beauty pageant after another. There is always competition, be it
physically or mentally. Societal rules have always determined the constructions of
gender both accepted and taboo. My research explores how these social constructs
pertaining to sexuality began and how they have been perpetuated throughout history in
art. Because of my personal struggles with social constrictions as a woman, an artist, and
as one whose sexual identity has been designed from these social constructs, I have
explored women‟s roles as artists: how women and their sexuality have been portrayed in
the past through artworks using various media; how the viewers of these artworks saw the
women that were portrayed and society‟s reactions to these works of art. My intent here,
and in my work, has been to focus on the construction and constrictions of female
sexuality, beauty, and competition. I will also be discussing the role of sexuality as
content in ceramics and how the influence of ceramic objects from history and the
contemporary world has had on my own artwork. My interest also includes how western
religious aspects control our sense of our bodies, the vagina for example, as “the yawning
mouth of hell,” (Blackledge, 51) and how these ideas form the construction of
womanhood.
INDEX WORDS: Sculpture, Ceramics, Sexuality, Gender, Women, Constructs

Georgia Southern University, Thesis
by
GAYLE SHAW CLARK
BFA, Georgia Southern University, 1992
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
STATESBORO, GA
2008
© 2008
Gayle Shaw Clark
All Rights Reserved
iii
by
GAYLE SHAW CLARK
Major Professor: Elizabeth Jane Pleak
Committee: Julie McGuire

Marc Moulton
Electronic Version Approved:

May 2008
iv
DEDICATION
This is for Collie, my husband, who, without his tremendous support and
encouragement this immense accomplishment would not have been possible. He has
supported me every moment throughout this endeavor and among other things, given up
many home-cooked meals and many hours of sleep, worried, waiting for me to arrive
home. He has been my foundation; my rock.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Julie McGuire and Marc
Moulton for their assistance in my journey throughout my graduate career here at
Georgia Southern University. I would also like to especially thank my major professor
Jane Pleak for her guidance, dedication, and the sharing of her tremendous knowledge
with me.
Another thank you goes to Patricia Carter. Thank you for all you have done.
Lastly I would like to acknowledge my mother, Maryann Shaw; for without her
talent and inspiration, I would have never known my potential.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………….. ….. vi
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………….. viii
CHAPTER
1. Introduction…………………………………………….. 1
2. The Depiction of Women in Western Erotic Art……….. 4
3. Sexual Control………………………………………….. 9
4. The Body……………………………………………….. 16
5. The Gaze………………………………………………... 24
6. Nude and Naked………………………………………… 29
7. Sexuality as Content in Ceramics……………………….. 41
The Moche Culture……………………………… 46
Greek Sexpots………………………………....... 60
Sexual Content in Modern and

Contemporary Ceramic Artwork……………….. 65
8. Feminist Expressions………………………………….... 69
My Early Works………………………………... 76
9. Presentation of Current Works by the Artist…………… 81
Tripping the Beauty Queen: Competition

Between Women……………………………….. 83
Methodology…………………………………… 87
10. Conclusion…………………………………………….... 90
Images of Work from Tripping the Beauty Queen,

Created by Gayle Shaw Clark……………… ….. 91
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….... 107
vii
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1: Gustave Courbet, Sleep, 1866………………………………………. 5

Figure 2: Tiziano Vecelli, or Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538………………….. 8
Figure 3: Peter Breughel the Elder, Syphilitic with Couple, 16th Century…….. 13
Figure 4: William Hogarth, Luetic Viscount Visiting the Quack, 1745……..... 14
Figure 5: Francisco Goya, The family of Charles IV, 1800…………………… 15
Figure 6: Small Terracotta Squatter, 2nd or 3rd Century…..….………………. 19
Figure 7: Baubo 2nd or 3rd Century ….………………………………….......... 19
Figure 8: Italian Figure, 12th Century…………………………………........... 20
Figure 9: Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Negresse, 1800………….. 22
Figure 10: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Grand Odalisque, 1814………… 26
Figure 11: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath, 1862………… 27
Figure 12: Raimondi, The Judgment of Paris, 1520…………………………... 30
Figure 13: Tiziano Vecelli, or Titian, Pastoral Concert, 1509………………… 31
Figure 14: Goya, La Maja Desnuda, 1805……………………………………. 33
Figure 15: Gustave Courbet, Origin of the World, 1866……………………… 34
Figure 16: Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863…………………………………… 36
Figure 17: Édouard Manet, Luncheon on The Grass, 1863…………………... 38
Figure 18: Édouard Manet, Nana, 1877………………………………………. 39, 79
Figure 19: Vessel, Peru, circa 600 BC………………………………………… 47
Figure 20: Moche Culture, circa 100 AD…………………………………....... 48
Figure 21: Moche Culture, Homosexual Anal Penetration……………………. 49
Figure 22: Moche Culture, Day of the Dead Myth with Heterosexual Anal
Penetration Ritual…………………………………………………... 51
Figure 23: Moche Culture, Cadaver with Erection……………………………... 53
Figure 24: Gayle Shaw Clark, Flower Cup, 2007……………………………… 54, 77
Figure 25: Moche Culture, Fellatio Scene with Articulated Female Head ……. 55
Figure 26: Moche Culture, Woman Offering Herself………………………….. 58
Figure 27: Moche Culture, Venereal Disease Vessel………………………….. 59
viii
LIST OF FIGURES cont‟d
Page
Figure 28: Greece, Oinochoe (Wine Tub), circa 480 BC……………………..... 62
Figure 29: Greece, Cleansing Scene, 4th Century BC………………………….. 63
th
Figure 30: Greece, Seduction Scene, 4 Century BC….………………………. 64
Figure 31: Pablo Picasso, Priapus, 1964….…………………………………… 66
Figure 32: Pablo Picasso, Head, 1948……………………….………………… 66
Figure 33: George Ohr, Vagina Bank, 1900…………………………………… 68
Figure 34: Gayle Shaw Clark, Pocketbook, 2006……………………………… 68
Figure 35: Warren Mackenzie, Vases for a Gynecologist’s Office, 1970……… 69
Figure 36: Kim Dickey, Pissoirs, 1994………………………………………… 71
Figure 37: Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979…………………………….. 74
Figure 38: Gayle Shaw Clark, Undressing, 2006……………………………… 79
Figure 39: Kristin Kiefer, Two Sparrows, 2007……………………………….. 80
Figure 40: Gayle Shaw Clark, Girdle, 2006…………………………………… 89
Figure 41: Gayle Shaw Clark, Contestant #2, 2008…………………………… 92
Figure 44: Gayle Shaw Clark, Contestant #11, 2008…………………………. 95
ix
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
I feel how society sees me is who I am. This may sound quite ridiculous to
another woman with mounds of self-confidence; one who is truly comfortable with their
outer and inner beauty, who owns her sexuality and complete identity; one who can
control and turn down the volume of the masses shouting the demands of conformity and
turn a blind eye to the gazes of objectification. However, with my experience as a
member of the “second sex” who has heard negative comments from many people about
appearances during my childhood and throughout my life and having religious views of
morality, gender and sexuality drilled into my head since birth, I feel that my identity has
been constructed by society. My identity lies somewhere outside this circle.
Sociologist Judy Lombardi, PhD, writes that human beings are socialized to think,
believe, value, and behave according to the social constructs of the social systems we live
in. Like our body-hood and our physical environments, social constructs act as
constraints. Some scholars believe that social constructs are designed to generate human
conformity and thus order (Lombardi, 1). Social constructs certainly act as constraints,
especially with regard to the female sex and has since the beginning of humankind.
These constraints are not only about appearances but also about womanhood. In society
women are traditionally viewed as the second sex and have had to endure and accept
cultural norms throughout history pertaining to our sexual selves, the sexual gaze and
objectification. The construction of gender begins at childhood as we are taught to be
ashamed of our genitals, how we are described as the “other” and even diseased
throughout history. In the professional world, women are limited in resources, career
1
choices, and even being told what to wear as nineteenth century artist Rosa Bonheur had
to get permission to wear pants in order to participate in painting outside. Bonheur said
“I had no alternative but to realize that the garments of my own sex were a total nuisance.
That is why I decided to ask the Perfect of Police for the authorization to wear masculine
clothing” (Nochlin 1989, 174). She goes on to justify this to the disapproving society of
her time by saying “Nathalie [her companion] makes fun of them as I do. It doesn‟t
bother her at all to see me dressed as a man, but if you are even the slightest bit put off, I
am completely prepared to put on a skirt, especially since all I have to do is to open a
closet to find a whole assortment of feminine outfits” (Nochlin 1989, 174). This is just
one example that attests to the constraints toward women and serves to illustrate the
prolific scholarship on this issue.
Linda Nochlin‟s landmark essay, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists
was a tremendous inspiration in my creative research. After reading this article, I started
thinking about social constructs; women‟s place in society. Nochlin‟s essay goes into
detail about women‟s struggles in becoming artists; the thought collective‟s restrictions
and guidelines on what was acceptable for women to paint and other constrictions set by
society. Whitney Chadwick, another prominent scholar in the field, who wrote Women,
Art, and Society, supports Nochlin‟s findings. “Women‟s artistic endeavors were more
readily accepted when confined to “feminine” media and executed in their own homes,
even if the magnitude of their productions challenged what was considered appropriated a
feminine „accomplishment‟”(Chadwick, 142). Nochlin states that in the nineteenth
century, women who were artists had to choose between creating their art and having a
family while men were free to participate in love and sex and careers. Women artists
2
were not supported and lacked encouragement and only few were allowed to enter the
academies or other educational institutions for artists. “As long as the woman artist
presented a self-image emphasizing beauty, gracefulness, and modesty, and as long as her
painting appeared to confirm this construction, she could, albeit with difficulty, negotiate
a role for herself in the world of public art” (Chadwick, 127). The few women that were
accepted to take part in formal art training were not allowed to study the body in
educational institutions; they were not allowed to study or draw or paint the nude. One
artist, Jacques-Louis David, reclaimed nineteenth century artist, did allow women, one of
whom is Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist who I will discuss later in this paper, to study with
him but made it absolutely clear that they would not be allowed to participate in the study
of the figure. Ironically, women were studied, drawn, sculpted and painted by men
specifically for the male erotic fantasies.
My research on the construction of gender consistently reveals this dichotomy of
both delight (learning about accomplishments and progressive women and ideas) and
dismay (obstacles and restrictions forced by women though history) and has set my path
of research and creative expressions throughout my graduate career.
3
CHAPTER 2
THE DEPICTION OF WOMEN IN WESTERN EROTIC ART
The study of eroticism in art and its contextual meaning has not been examined as
thoroughly as other subject matter, although this area under discussion has a rich history.
In Linda Nochlin‟s 1972 essay Eroticism and Female Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Art,
she notes that there has been little attention paid to the erotic implication of artworks by
scholars and critics. Psychiatrists, since the time of Freud, have investigated
psychosexual developments of artists, but the content of erotic works created by artists
haven‟t had the same stage time (Nochlin 1989, 136). “Erotic art has either been too
quickly dismissed as pleasurable for the sake of pleasure alone or it has been torn apart
for being politically incorrect”( Mahon, 16). The study of erotic art described the
artworks and psychological implications but not by breaking it down into socially
determined criteria and constructs of the time. To evaluate sexual artworks critically and
objectively, one must understand the context in which they were created; the social and
historical context along with the intent in which it was created and the reception it was
given, both critically and on its popular basis (Mahon, 16).
In what context has the role of the female subject played in erotic art and fantasy?
“When we compare the theorized construct of the female nude with that of the male nude,
we find that the female body has often been associated with nature, sexuality and
abjection, while the male body has been associated with strength and wholeness‟ (Steele,
114).
4
Figure 1, Gustave Courbet, Sleep, 1866
5
Nochlin says “there really is no erotic art in the nineteenth century which does not
involve the image of women and precious little before or after” (Nochlin 1989, 137).
Erotic art was ultimately created for men and their desires. The scandalous painting by
Courbet, Sleep, fig 1, was painted for the former Turkish ambassador, Khalil Bey. This
painting depicts two young, nude lesbian lovers with legs and arms intertwining, lying on
a bed sleeping as though tired from a long sensual session of love making. This work
was painted not for a woman‟s fantasy but for a man‟s. There is no art during this time
which satisfies women‟s fantasies. Women were not even allowed to imagine such
things. In fact, for centuries, women were taught not even to bathe, at least not for long
periods of time. “Saint Jerome for example, admonished women, especially young
women to avoid bathing, since it „stirred up passions better left alone‟” (Maines, 12). It
was always the woman that was the object of desire, and precisely the object that men
fantasized about. As Nochlin states:
“As far as one knows, there simply exists no art, and certainly no high art,
in the nineteenth century based upon women‟s erotic needs, wishes or
fantasies. Whether the erotic object be breast or buttocks, shoes or corsets,
a matter of pose or of prototype, the imagery of sexual delight or
provocation has always been created about women for men‟s enjoyment,
by men. This is, of course, not the result of some calculated plot on the
part of men, but merely a reflection in the realm of art of woman‟s lack of
her own erotic territory on the map of nineteenth-century reality. Man is
not only the subject of all erotic predicates, but the customer for all erotic
products as well, and the customer is always right. Controlling both sex
and art, he and his fantasies conditioned the world of erotic imagination as
well. Thus there seems to be no conceivable outlet for the expression of
women‟s viewpoint in nineteenth-century art, even in the realm of pure
fantasy” (Nochlin 1989, 138,139).
“Art allows erotic fantasy to become reality” (Mahon, 17). As with social
constructs of beauty and what is placed on women today, artworks of the past used
6
perfect bodies and beautiful women as subjects to perpetuate what is beautiful and what
is good. Artworks such as Titian‟s Venus of Urbino, fig. 2, painted before 1538, reflects
the perfect body and very specific notions of beauty and taste promoted in their day. Just
as the media today try to teach women about morality and how we should look and
behave, past artists painted the perfect body as a reminder of greater truths, greater
beauties. Titian‟s Venus was painted to excite the viewer but there is also a moral code
included about the idea of women. The expression of virginity, chastity and fidelity is
easily read from Venus‟ prudish gesture, a veiled sex, and there is a pet symbolizing
loyalty (Mahon, 17). “For Christians, chastity and virginity are synonymous with
excellence” (Drenth, 60). These moral codes may be a bigger “turn on” for men than one
may realize. Where there are erotic fantasies, there are also erotic fears including
castration anxieties and the fear of disease placed in heads of millions who are members
of organized western religions.
7
Figure 2, Tiziano Vecelli, or Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538
8
CHAPTER 3
SEXUAL CONTROL
According to Judy Lombardi‟s definition of social constructs, they are designed to
generate human conformity and order. “The major western religion, Christianity, is
famously renowned for being sex-negative and sexist. For centuries the men of the
Christian church pushed the notion that sex was not for pleasure, but solely for
procreation. Indeed, in their eyes, intercourse for pleasure was contrary to natural law and
hence sinful” (Blackledge, 51). According to art historian Lucy-Smith, Christians fear sex
and have contempt for the body (Lucie-Smith, 34) and author David Friedman states that
the body was seen by Augustine as a curse (Friedman, 39). Religion has had much to do
with conformity and order especially with sexuality and sexual representations of the
body.
“No single source of sexual images is more important within the modern
western tradition than the bible. Indeed, for the west, the biblical paradigm
of sexuality and the narratives in which it is incorporated, stands at the
center of any understanding of the representation of the body. Our
understanding of the body, at least from the Middle Ages to the present, is
in terms of (or in spite of) those models of sexuality presented in the
Bible” (Gilman, 13).
“The Greeks invented the nude. Christianity brought back the naked” (Friedman, 41).
As stated earlier, there was no art created for women and their fantasies in fact.
Women were not even allowed to think of such things. Western religion, especially
Christianity, discourages women to think of sex, to discuss sex and teaches the negative
aspects of female sexuality; that it is to be hidden away, never to be discussed and thus
never to be understood. Sander L. Gilman also writes in his book, Sexuality an
9
Illustrated History, “Female beauty, the sexually attractive female is merely a mask for
death and decay” (Gilman, 73). He goes on to say “death has a traditional association
with the sexual, specifically with the beautiful female. For Eve‟s act, the seduction of
Adam let Death into the Garden. The original fault of Eve opens the world for the satanic
control of human sexuality and resultant death” (Gilman, 73). Eve‟s seduction of Adam
created the fall of humanity and therefore constituted original sin. There are other
theories of the origin of original sin as described in David M. Friedman‟s book A Mind of
Its Own a Cultural History of the Penis which reads “but for Augustine the cause and the
effect of original sin is lust, the symptom and the disease is the erection” (Friedman, 39).
In either scenario, “sexuality was a beast but the Church was the lion tamer” (Friedman,
40). The lion tamer is conformity and order.
In 1495 there was a great outbreak of syphilis or the “pox” which caused other
erotic fears; the fear of death from disease. It is noted in Gilman‟s book that “for, from
the first appearance of the disease, it was seen as caused by God, who has sent it because
he wants mankind to shun the sin of fornication” (Gilman, 78). God sent down a
punishment for the wicked; ones who were having sexual relations. In Titians, Venus of
Urbino, fig 2, the woman is a virgin. Although she is beautiful, which can in itself lead
to death, she is without disease therefore she is safer to fanaticize about. She becomes the
ideal, one to be desired.
Art has perpetuated the notion of sex leading to death throughout history. From
the onset of syphilis, there are many artworks that have depicted a mask of death from
sex. Large spots or blisters were drawn or painted on men and women subjects showing
disease from sex. Many times it was a sexually transmitted disease and later in the
10
nineteenth century, masturbation. If these images did not lower the activity of sexual acts
there were rules set by the church to try to control sex and desire. Earlier in history “the
church declared sex illegal on Sundays, Wednesday and Fridays, as well as forty days
before Easter and Christmas” (Blackledge, 51). Also there were illegal sexual positions
that were deemed perverse, which is still true today. In the late sixteenth-century, Peter
Breughel the Elder‟s Syphilitic with Couple, fig. 3, depicts a man marked with the
external sign of disease with sores and grotesque bumps. The man in this image is
fantasizing about sex. Breughel makes the association between perverse sexuality and
disease direct in an image of two people having sex in a position measured illegal on the
man‟s head, as if coming out of his brain. He literally has sex on the brain therefore death
awaits him. Is the man in this image recalling a sexual event which gives him the disease
or is he sick because of the thought of perverse sex? Either way it is a woman who has
caused his upcoming death. “Such diseases are understood as originating with the
female, the source of all sexually transmitted diseases and their sequelae” (Gilman, 203).
It is interesting that women are the ones that have a sex organ; the clitoris is designed for
pleasure with no other functions. For males, the penis has another function; not strictly
sexual pleasure therefore it is the female with her sexual desire that becomes the sign for
disease.
Images like the one described above surface throughout history suggesting other
constructs as well. “The syphilitic skin lesion had an unabated signification for the
eighteenth century as the public sign of those who were „seen‟ as at risk” (Gilman, 203).
William Hogarth‟s painting, Luetic Viscount Visiting the Quack, fig 4, depicts the
11
the avaricious nobility and the rising bourgeoisie, which ends in disease and corruption.
As a moral failing, venereal disease presented society with the overt sign of the failings
of the individual” (Gilman, 203).
Another example depicting the disease is portrayed in Goya‟s The Family of
Charles IV, fig. 5. In 1799 Goya was named First Painter to the King and was
commissioned to paint a group portrait of the Royal Family in that same year. In his
painting, completed in 1800, he shows his disdain for the family and government. “The
costumes of the family glitter with the wealth and ostentation of their rank, yet the faces
of the King and Queen betray their shocking lack of character. The French novelist
Theophile Gautier observed that they look like „the corner baker and his wife after they
have won the lottery‟” (Schickel, 72). Although the family loved this portrait, there was
“little about the personalities of this spiteful family that escaped Goya‟s eye and brush”
(Schickel, 72). If you look closely, the old woman on the left side of the queen has a
huge black spot on her face symbolizing disease. There probably was a big black spot or
sore on the old woman‟s face but Goya made the choice to include it in his depiction of
her. Here, the black spot on the old woman‟s face may not be symbolizing her failing as
an individual in a sexual sense, but of the corruption of the family; the corruption during
the reign of King Charles IV.
12
Figure 3, Peter Breughel the Elder, Syphilitic with Couple,
16th Century
13
Figure 4, William Hogarth, Luetic Viscount Visiting the Quack, 1745
14
Figure 5, Francisco Goya, The family of Charles IV, 1800
15
CHAPTER 4
THE BODY
The female figure and body parts have been painted and sculpted over and over
from the beginning of time showing changes in beliefs and social standards including the
representation of the vagina. Today, in the western world, the idea of a woman showing
her genitals is bound up in sex, pornography or images of women in accommodating
positions rather than ones of power and influence (Blackledge, 9). From the time I
started working in clay, my focus has been on sexuality and specifically women‟s
sexuality and body parts. I began creating “sexpots” depicting the vagina in abstract
ways but when my work demanded realistic views of the vagina, I didn‟t know exactly
where to start since I had only seen drawings or illustrations of the vagina. I know this
sounds ridiculous but it never occurred to me to look at my own vagina because I was
taught that the idea of showing it was wrong, even to myself…it was something to be
covered; left undiscovered. It is a symbol of embarrassment and shame; something to
paste a fig leaf over. However, it is “yet apparent that women around the world have
been lifting their skirts to full effect for centuries” (Blackledge, 9) without shame and
with pride.
Many cultures believe in a power of the vagina and the gesture in lifting skirts to
show the female genitals is found in these cultures. “A society‟s myths can be seen as
statements about vital issues of life, although their truth is not necessarily literal,
historical or scientific. Indeed, it has been said that it is impossible to understand the
people of a particular society without having an understanding of the mythology”
(Blackledge, 14). Lifting skirts in India dispelled evil influences. There is a Catalan
16
belief in the power of the vagina; it was good luck for fisherman‟s wives to display their
genitals to the sea before the men go out so the seas will be calm. Russian folklore
relates how when a bear appears out of the woods, it can be put to flight by a young
woman raisin her skirt at it. In ancient Egypt women showed their vagina to the fields
they worked in to drive out evil spirits. This in turn made the women capable of working
without fear; increasing the yield of their crops. “Across the globe in Papua New Guinea,
an Ilahit Arapesh woman can mock and shame a man by flashing her vagina at him in
public. The most shameful thing that can happen to a man is to have a woman‟s vulva
put to his mouth” (Blackledge, 18). This act of raising the skirt is called ana-suromai;
vaginal display.
There are many sculptures, statuettes, amulets and figurines depicting ana-
suromai. Syria has cylinder seals of some of the oldest vaginal displays that date from
1400 BCE. “These show women either spay-legged displaying, or lifting their robes to
reveal their vagina-gesture that have been interpreted as having sacral significance”
(Blackledge, 23). These pieces show a woman‟s sense of pride and full of joy by giving
us a peek at their vaginas. There is no shame, just dignity. In fig. 6, a small terracotta
squatter is touching herself as she gazes straight forward. There are others from
Alexandria, Egypt from the second or third century CE where the women are standing
proud with one in a full length gown with headdresses who also look straight forward,
gracefully raising their skirts. Who these women are is not clear. No one knows if they
are goddesses or queens. They may represent Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of joy, love,
sexuality, childbirth nourishment, and the daughter of the sun god Ra, or the goddess Isis,
17
the female principle of Nature who was known for the invention of agriculture. She was
worshiped by both Greeks and Romans.
In the nineteenth century, a small terracotta Baubo was found in southern Italy,
fig. 7. Baubo was a woman who brought Demeter, the Earth-Mother or Corn-Mother,
goddess of fertility, out her deep depression when she would not eat, caused by the loss
of her daughter, Persephone, by lifting her skirt to show her vagina. “On seeing this bold
display of womanhood, the goddess laughs, and shocked out of her suffering, accepts
some sustenance” (Blackledge, 20). After this act by Baubo, the earth returns to its
original state and life continues. The small sculpture of Baubo, sitting on a fat, pregnant
pig, a symbol of female fertility, with legs apart with her right leg lifted and supported by
her right hand proudly shows her vagina.
The last figure discussed relates to fertility, but there are ana-suromai pieces that
were created to drive the devil out. There is an Italian figure, fig. 8, dating back to the
twelfth century which stood above the medieval Porta Tosa gateway into the city. She is
in a full length gown lifted to expose her genitalia. She is holding a dagger in her right
just above her vagina which is plush with pubic hair and she is staring proudly outward to
protect her city. Also, the Shelah-na-Gig are sculpted women with a great emphasis
placed on the vulva. These figures are vestigial survivals of the old pagan cults found in
Irish churches. “The function of such carvings was evidently apotropaic-they warded off
ill-luck” (Lucie-Smith, 30). In the seventeenth century, many of these sculpted forms
were ordered by churches in England to be destroyed or hidden. “Up until the last
century Sheelas were seen as fertility figures-if a woman rubbed or touched them, then
her fecundity would be enhanced” (Blackledge, 33). These figures created for fertility
18
Figure 6, Small Terracotta Squatter, 2nd or 3rd Century
Figure 7, Baubo 2nd or 3rd Century
19
Figure 8, Italian Figure, 12th Century
20
purposes or protection purposes, whatever the intent, showed the female genitalia
proudly. It is an icon to be cherished and from where all human life comes.
The breasts play a role of sexuality in artwork as well. How they are painted or portrayed
suggests her place, defines her beauty and tells the viewer of her morality. “The firm
rounded breasts come to signify the state of grace before the fall. The icon of the
“sagging breasts” is used to represent witches, demons, death, the devil” (Gilman, 27).
The virgins, or women with high moral standards, ones set by society, are depicted with
beautiful round breasts. This could be the case with Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist‟s,
Portrait d’une negress, fig. 9, as with earlier allegorical subjects previously created in
history, however, there are other ideas surrounding the meaning of the bare breast
depicted in this image.
Benoist paints a slave in her portrait who was brought back to France by her
brother-in-law. She uses this woman as a vehicle for her own purposes. “By depicting a
black woman as exotic, servant or slave in the traditional pose and situation of white
women, Benoist has turned the Portrait d’une negresse into something of an allegory of
her own condition of subservience to patriarchy” (Smalls, 4). Smalls goes on the say that
this is more of a portrait of Benoist than of a black woman. “That is, the portrait
constitutes a visual record of white woman‟s construction and affirmation of self through
the racial and cultural Other” (Smalls, 4). Considering the reasons why Benoist painted
this image as she did, representing herself, the idea of the round beautiful breast and how
it is painted, could be saying that she, the artist, is of high morals and of the social
standards needed for acceptance.
21
Figure 9, Benoist, Portrait of a Negresse, 1800
22
Smalls gives several reasons of why the breast is there for the viewer to see. He
writes that this painting may be eroticized in order to appeal to the male viewer because
he is who a woman painter had to appeal, also “There is typically a sexualizing or
eroticizing aspect to allegory as well, specifically when the bodies of women are used”
(Smalls, 15). He contends that breasts signify the roles of women as mothers and all it
entails; sensuality, nurture, emotional warmth, intimacy and domesticity (Smalls, 15).
Benoist may be saying that she is the ideal woman and what true womanhood represents.
Smalls also points out that the bare breast could represent the myth that black women are
hypersexual. The dark flesh could stir up fantasies as well; dark flesh is erotic.
However, if this is truly a portrait of Benoist and not the sitter, the previous two
explanations, in my mind, do not fit unless it is painted only to appeal to the erotic
fantasies of the male viewer. “Whatever the meaning of the breast, it is the potential for
reading an erotic sensuality into the portrait that adds a curious dimension to a work
produced by a woman artist with anti-slavery and feminist desires” (Smalls, 15).
23
CHAPTER 5
THE GAZE
“The subject of the nude in art brings together discourses of representation,
morality and female sexuality, but the persistent presentation of the nude female body as
a site of male viewing pleasure, a commoditized image of exchange, and a fetishized
defense against the fear of castration leaves little place for explorations of female
subjectivity, knowledge and experience” (Chadwick, 267). Portrait d’une negresse, as
with all erotic art depicting women, brings up other aspects to explore, such as the gaze.
Smalls writes of the complicated networks of looking and power relationships at work in
this painting.
“The dynamics of viewing and the erotics of the gaze are played out
among three protagonists: the black sitter, the (unseen) white artist, and
contemporary viewer. The tensions produced by these players in multiple
gazed are highlighted in the crisscrossing dynamics of seeing, being seen
and not being seen. Benoist‟s painting is about viewer location and it
raises the question of exactly who is looking at whom and how the view
identities with the subject viewed” (Smalls, 22)
“The gaze is where it all begins. „Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can
also be seen‟ writes art critic John Berger „The eye of the other combines with our own
eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world‟” (Friday, 3). To be
seen early on is what we all need. We need the loving gaze of our mothers to build our
self esteem. As we grow older, the gaze can begin to change from the loving gaze of our
mothers that make us feel safe and loved into something less desirable; the gaze of
predatory male, the gaze of participants in a non accepting societal game or the gaze that
objectifies us. “Perhaps what we hate in men‟s stare is that they have seen our worst self-
24
assessment, or picked up on our fantasy of how we long to look, which is in great part
sexual, precisely what we‟re not allowed to be” (Friday, 406).
“In most feminist theories of the gaze, the power of the look is erotically
inscribed. It is men who supposedly possess the power of the gaze and, as such, women
are subjected to it and reduced to objects. Women become, like slaves, commodities or
capitalist objects of [possession and] symbolic exchange…in market economy” (Smalls,
22). Ingres artworks, Grand Odalisque, fig 10, and The Turkish Bath, fig. 11, exemplify
the idea of women as objects to be controlled. “His exotic odalisques reveal his desire to
control matter, from the female body to the very paint he works with” (Mahon, 43,). The
Grand Odalisque is seductive but remains a figure for the imagination. The Turkish Bath
is also about control. “The erotic power lies not only in the voyeuristic fantasy of seeing
these women, but in the fantasy of control, specifically one man‟s sexual control and
enjoyment of them” (Lewis, 111).
Men or women who look at erotic images are also participating in the sensual act;
it is always sensual or sexual even if you are only looking. Gilman explains “The
observer of human sexuality is, however, also always a participant because he or she is
using one of the senses, sight, to experience the sexual act. It is the role of the senses as
the marker of the hidden force, the ape within that signifies the presence of human
sexuality in the observer as well as in the individuals observed” (Gilman, 67). Friday
suggests men look at pictures of nudes or naked women because the human male eye is
born with a taste for the female body. Erotic art fills men‟s voyeuristic needs while
abiding by the rules of society (Friday, 397). It is safe to look at an erotic painting or a
sculpture or participate in a sexual act by using only sight; it is acceptable to look if you
25
Figure 10, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Grand Odalisque 1814
26
Figure 11, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath, 1862
27
cannot touch. “It is quite a tour de force, this fin-de-siècle period of art that gave a
Patriarchal gentleman the opportunity to stand at the Exhibitions and safely stare at naked
women” (Friday, 398). However, there were many people who considered erotic art in
the nineteenth century obscene.
28
CHAPTER 6
NUDE AND NAKED
“From the mid-nineteenth century, erotic art began to challenge openly the
acceptable limits of sexual representation” (Mahon, 16). “From the mid-nineteenth
century, traditional erotic art and its timeless heroic and/or moralizing depiction of the
erotic body began to be replaced with a new erotic art that spoke to contemporary reality”
(Mahon, 17). Images of the past such as Judgment of Paris, fig. 12, or Titian‟s Pastoral
Concert, fig. 13, were clothed conceptually. They were innocent. The women painted by
artists starting from the mid-nineteenth century were real. They were women telling the
truth; prostitutes. These women were also „nude‟ as art historian Kenneth Clark would
say. “To be naked is to be deprived of clothes, and word implies…embarrassment. The
word „nude,‟ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.
The …image it projects into the mind is…of a balanced, confident body: the body re-
formed” (Clark, 23).
“While hints of vaginal iconography do still exist in the west, the general sex-
negative mood of western culture suggests that flagrant, flaunting, proud art depicting
female genital display is far more likely to be censored or covered up than Commended”
(Blackledge, 54). Societal ideas of morality made it difficult for an artist‟s work
depicting the nude to be accepted unless the hands draped the vagina or it was covered up
and modestly and discreetly rendered. These things covered the pubic hair that women
naturally own or it was omitted completely by the artist or it was actually removed by
29
Figure 12, Raimondi, The Judgment of Paris, 1520
30
Figure 13, Tiziano Vecelli, or Titian, Pastoral Concert, 1509
31
women. For Muslim women, depilation is a religious duty; they shave it throughout their
entire lives. From the eleventh century „De ornatu mulierum‟ (On the adornment of
women), a text of women‟s medicine from Salerno, there is actually a “how to” guide on
how to remove pubic hair and how to keep the irritation the removal caused to the skin at
a minimum. In the western world today, it is considered to some, more attractive and
very sensual or sexual. “Some men and women find a smooth mons veneris more
attractive and exciting than the natural „origin of the world‟” (Drenth, 275). I don‟t know
if I believe this, but “it is reported that John Ruskin was so shocked by the detail in which
his bride differed from the classical nudes he had studied so diligently that he was quite
unable to make love to her. The marriage was dissolved” (Drenth, 275). It was totally
unheard of and completely shocking to see art where women were depicted with pubic
hair.
Pubic hair was rarely painted or sculpted. Earlier I discussed one of ana-suromai
women which were created to ward off evil spirits in Italy. This figure included pubic
hair, but there have been few depictions of women sporting this natural element of our
genitals until paintings by Courbet were created. “Goya‟s La Maja Desnuda, fig. 14, is
considered a milestone, but even in this pioneering painting the pubic hair is adumbrated
rather than actually portrayed” (Drenth, 274).
Erotic art in the past, before images such as The Origin of the World, fig. 15, by
Courbet, suggests the attributes of inner beauty and knowledge, grace and modesty, as
well as glorifying the perfectly rendering the ideal. With paintings like the one listed
above, beauty is replaced with obscenity. Obscene art no longer lets the viewer look and
think about the spirit of the nude or naked woman; the viewer is not seduced, he is
32
Figure 14, Francisco Goya, La Maja Desnuda, 1805
33
Figure 15, Gustave Courbet, Origin of the World, 1866
34
shocked and moral certainty is disturbed (Mahon, 19). The viewer of this image is using
his sight to participate in a sexual act. In Courbet‟s image, the erotic innocence portrayed
in earlier works is replaced with pure sexuality. “Herein lies the key to its erotic defiance
of both traditional beauty and the fear of the forbidden and the obscene” (Mahon, 20).
The Origin of the World is the site for all creation and the creation of the artist; it
truly is the origin of the world painted realistically; complete with plush pubic hair.
Linda Nochlin describes this image with the following words:
“In the case of Courbet‟s Origin, this ultimate-meaning-to-be-penetrated

might be considered the “reality” of woman herself, the truth of the
ultimate other. The subject represented in the Origin is the female sex
organ-the cunt-forbidden site of specularity and ultimate object of male
desire; repressed or displaced in the classical scene of castration anxiety, it
has also been constructed as the very source of artistic creation itself”
(Nochlin 2007, 145)
Courbet lays mythological pretexts aside (Lucie-Smith, 204). He was a realist; he
did not abide by the traditional rules of construction. He, like other realists, formulated
the subject matter of his own time for himself without rules (Nochlin 2007, 82). He did
not conceptually clothe his women. His nudes were real, truthful, and unashamed; where
the viewer is not in control of the gaze and the women he painted owned their sexuality.
Many artists before Courbet and Manet painted women that John Berger has pointed out
“could hardly call her sexuality her own. Her nakedness is on a function of her sexuality
but of the sexuality of those who have access to the pictures” (Berger, 215).
Traditionally painted, Manet‟s Olympic, fig. 16, is very similar to Titian‟s Venus
or Urbino, fig. 2, discussed earlier in this paper but with one substantial difference.
Titian‟s Venus is completely submissive. It looks as though she is waiting for a man to
35
Figure 16, Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863
36
own her and she will not put up fight for his control over her. Her body does not belong
to her…it is for the taking. Manet‟s Olympia depicts an utterly different woman. “This
woman is alert and self-possessed; she looks out of the canvas in a way which makes it
plain that she submits to no man” (Lucie-Smith, 134). “What Manet did here beyond
pitting his nude against those of the old masters was to establish by her gaze that is not
traditional” (Brombert, 78). With very few exceptions the frame was always an
uninfringeable barrier between painting and the viewer. The gaze was always in the
frame; up, down, sideways or any direction except out; out towards the viewer. “Only
portrait subjects had the right to invade the viewer‟s space, and they were presumed to be
personages of repute. No nude ever looked straight out at the viewer, even if her
credentials were scriptural” (Brombert, 79). The reaction to paintings like this one was
scandalous. “Shrieks of outrage ring where prostitutes were princesses, where a man‟s
mistress was more likely to be seen in public than his wife and where a perfume of
delight wickedness pervaded the atmosphere” (Schneider, 71). This along with the
woman in the painting, and who she was, the unfamiliar style had much to do with the
scandal surrounding this image as did the same elements the Luncheon on the Grass, fig.
17. Manet was forcing the viewer to look at his paintings instead of looking into them.
The spacing element was not traditional and he took away the “boxlike space behind the
window of the frame, Manet forces the viewer to work at the picture-to fill out the
emotional context and to create in his mind‟s eye the whole three dimensional setting”
(Schneider, 71). The women in these paintings have broken the “fourth dimension” of
the box. This style of painting is what makes Manet a modern painter.
37
Figure 17, Édouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863
38
Figure 18, Édouard Manet, Nana, 1877
39
“Nana, fig. 18, is, unlike Olympia, a modern creature of present-day Paris,
according to a contemporary. But, like Olympia, Nana was perceived as a sexualized
female and is so represented” (Gilman, 287). In Nana, Hauser, the woman who posed for
this painting was an actress and the mistress of the prince of Orange, heir to the throne of
the Netherlands and the son of William III. This painting is regarded as a pendant to
Olympia-as Goya‟s Clothed Maja is to his Naked Maja although, Olympia is a classic
figure and Nana is modern woman. “She is no Venus in a modern idiom; she is an
entirely new manifestation of feminine beauty. What kindled the senses was a partially
dressed woman, and nothing was more exciting than underwear” (Brombert, 384).
The woman in Nana is wearing a corset, which, in my mind constitutes the
placement of constrictions on women to fit into the ideals of society. Throughout history,
historians thought that wearing undergarments was a sign of modesty. However, it was
also a focus of sexual interest in the nineteenth century (Steele, 114). Steele contends,
“Concealed from sight, like the body that it touches, underwear implicitly
alludes to the act to undressing, a transition often perceived as a prelude to
sexual intimacy. By delaying the sight of the naked body, layers of
clothing and underclothing function as a kind of striptease, arousing
sexual curiosity by holding in promise the thrill of exposure” (Steele, 115)
Nana is painted wearing a blue corset but the proper women of the day wore white satin
corset. White was considered elegant. Women who wore corsets were also considered
decently dressed; in accordance with the rules set by society. Roles set by society for
women are confirmed everywhere we look. Women must look and act certain ways to be
considered of high morals and as I have pointed out, beauty is equivalent to morality.
40
Sexuality in artworks is present in every medium for many reasons. Next, I will
focus on sexual constructs and sexual content in ceramic artwork from the past and into
the contemporary.
41
CHAPTER 7
SEXUALITY AS CONTENT IN CERAMICS
As we have seen through theories of sexuality and its roles pertaining to women
using paintings and sculptures for examples, sexuality has been the content for many
artists using other mediums historically and today. Women and sexuality have been
portrayed in many ways for many different reasons which have played a large part in
engineering our womanhood. Throughout history, clay artists have also used sexuality as
content to speak visually about sexuality, constructs and the roles it has played on the
great stage of life.
High art calls for, or demands content over hand. The general consensus says that
ceramic artists get too caught up in the materials and the processes. “There can be no
denying that potters feel, rightly, that pottery, to be authentic, must convey some direct
sense of its material, and that even at the limits of finesse the sense of the material as
symbol bust never be submerged” (Rawson, 14). Personally, I get absorbed in the
processes and materials because of the physical properties of clay, and touch. I choose
clay because it relates to sexuality and to the feminine more than any other medium.
I elect clay because of touch. Although touch is considered to be the lowest
sense, it is to me, the most sensual and sexual sense. From the Creation, Adam (man)
was thought to be the rational and Eve (women) of the senses. Touch is something that I
long for…and something that I long to give. The touch of clay is sexual and the touch
excites me…working with clay, I know that I will always have a very sensual existence.
There is an inseparable relationship between me, my work, my sex, sexuality, and clay.
42
All of these things molded together create a whole. They create my identity. Clay is also
the most versatile of art mediums. I can incorporate many different surfaces working
with clay…I can mimic nature with texture or I can give my forms an industrial surface, a
hard surface, a soft surface or any surface I want… while manipulating a form using
touch.
Any size and any shape are obtainable with clay. Finding the limitations of clay
and trying to find ways to push those limitations pushes me as a ceramic artist. It makes
me think critically about creative processes. Creating work made from clay makes me
think about the execution of my idea and asks how can I create visual interpretations of
my thoughts, position, and ideas with this medium that is so very fickle? Clay is problem
solving. Clay is critical thinking.
I believe that I have a vision of this medium as a means to create meaningful
expressions. Although the act of creating out of clay is very sensual to me I see my work
as art that can be judged and interpreted no matter the material. “We must never allow
ourselves to forget that pottery, like all art indeed, was meant to occupy a place in an
actual world of life and activity” (Rawson, 64). As this writing has shown, I believe that
art created from many different media can be referenced to define my thoughts and
points. In the next pages, I will be concentrating on clay objects to reference my work
and ideas.
Critics and historians say our lack of content keeps us from joining the elite; the
„elite‟ called Fine Art. The Western view of ceramics keeps the studies on the subject out
of many art text books because it is considered craft. During my educational career, I
remember reading and being taught little about artists who create artwork in this medium.
43
Contemporary sculptor Martin Puryear says that ceramic artists and artists working in
wood would never have to contend with such snobbery in Japan (Hughes, 1). “Ceramics,
the medium with the longest art history of any creative discipline (10,000 years as
compared to painting‟s mere 600 years) does not include the comprehensive study of
ceramic history in the education system” (Clark, 359). But Clark also says that
“ceramics should not be plugged into an existing fine arts model but create a history
tailored to the ceramics community and sympathetic to the nature of the medium” (Clark,
361). I don‟t agree with the last statement. Ceramics does have a place in any art history
class. The findings and the study of ceramic sculptures and pots help us determine social
constructs of women and men and how they celebrated life and death. In the
contemporary world, ceramic art, like any other art created from one of the „elite‟
mediums, has much to say. Furthermore, ceramics has a long history of content which
also shows the construction of women in different cultures.
Creating something from clay is an experience; not just a process. In this chapter,
Sexuality as Content, I would like to first mention that sexuality plays more than one
role; creation, use, and for the purposes of this chapter, the completed work of art. Hot,
wet, slippery, drippy, messy, hard, fire, loose, stiff, these are all words that are part of
sexual language. They are also, to me as a potter, the language of clay; a language that I
use every day in my studio. We are very intimate with objects made from clay. We
touch them, we fondle them, we put our lips to them, and several times a day we show
them the private side of us. “Clay comes from the earth; it is alive and fertile. Clay is
like flesh, and most mythologies use clay as origin in creation myths” (Mathieu, 13).
There is no other medium or process as close to sexuality as is clay. Sexuality as content
44
in ceramics has played a large role throughout history in art and its practices from the
earliest civilizations and continues to be an important theme in contemporary ceramics
today.
“From ancient times to the present, the human figure has played a significant role
in art. Human figures have served to express deeply cherished cultural values, including
the construction of women, beliefs about religion, sexuality, politics and personal and
social identity” (Robertson, 131).
Looking at art throughout history, there are more clay representations of the body
than any other medium because of its permanence. Many other artworks, made from
different media have been destroyed by the effects of time. There are female figures
numbering in the thousands that have survived the test of time. With large breasts, broad
hips and a defined vulva, they are usually associated with the Mother Goddess which is
an implication of fertility and recurring rhythms of nature. The mother is the earth and
her womb is the kiln. The pots that are taken from the kiln are her children. The firing is
the moment of birth and the pots are born from the earth to which they will eventually
return. Ceramics has other strong female associations. According to one Greek legend,
the first bowl was modeled on Helen‟s breast. (Vincentelli, 19)
Although few in number, the oldest sexual representations in fired clay come
from Egypt, from as early as the First Dynasty. Fired-clay penises can also be found that
were probably meant as votive offerings in fertility rites. There are countless images in
Egyptian art of men and women as couples, representations of family life and scenes that
beautifully illustrate the tender feelings between lovers, but there are not many
representations of sexuality (Mathieu, 21).
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The Moche Culture
The Moche inhabited the north coast of Peru in South America from about 600
BC to the Spanish Conquest in the 16th Century. The land was rich in clay the people of
Peru were an extraordinary people. Made with millions of dried clay adobe bricks, they
built large networks of pyramids and temples. The Moche were also brilliant potters.
With the clay that was in such abundance, the Moche made thousands of the most
beautiful pots in history and many of these pots are sexual. They were always pots.
These sexpots are most often stirrup handle vessels and are not very functional. Because
they were used for rituals and as offerings in funerary rites, these pots have been found
within tombs. The stirrup vessel is phallic by itself, as any pot with a spout, and using
this type of pot the Moche had the perfect form to start with to create these graphic,
sexual, erotic pots, fig. 19.
“The very fact that these objects are always pots is significant. Pots are
the objects of containment, meant to be penetrated, filled, meant to
preserve and protect, to feed and nourish and to generously provide, in
themselves metaphorically gendered with female openings and male
spouts” (Mathieu, 24).
Sexual acts are found on pots prior to this time, as I have mentioned earlier with the
Egyptians, but the majority of sexpots from early civilizations are from the Moche
period. The Moche celebrated their sexual impulses and needs with these pots.
Almost any sexual position or act imagined is represented by the sexpots of the
Moche. The most common would be female to male fellatio. There are pots where a
male figure is masturbating, pots with female masturbation, fig. 20, intercourse between
men and women, and homosexual intercourse including lesbian sex, fig. 21. There are
46
Figure 19, Vessel, Peru, circa 600
47
Figure 20, Moche Culture, circa 100 AD
48
Figure 21, Moche Culture, Homosexual Anal Penetration
49
pots where a man is performing cunnilingus on his partner. There are pots that represent
intercourse between women and mythical animals and pots with non-mythical animals
having sex together. There are pots with scenes of women giving birth. Any act one
would consider to be private is exploited on these pots. There are also pots that are
representations of a man‟s penis. Although some of these pots show homosexual acts,
most of them are heterosexual acts between two humans and 80 per cent of these pots
show heterosexual anal intercourse.
It is clear to see that whether from behind or from the side or from the front, the
vagina is much defined. It is without a penetrating penis. The penis is penetrating the
anus without intimidation. For many years, it was thought that this type of sexual act,
considered taboo, and unacceptable with most religions, was a form of birth control.
These pots have been found in tombs of adults and children, so a correlation between the
life of the deceased and the pots are unlikely. A Belgian archaeologist and historian
named Anne-Marie Hocquenghem has made an interpretation of a vase that was recently
unearthed, fig. 22. The drawing on the vase consists of figures; many of them are
skeletons, in two strips. The figures are dancing and playing the flute. The horizontal
line, considered to be the ground, has a figure, alive, being pulled through by the
skeletons to below the earth. There is a couple engaged in heterosexual anal intercourse
in the top left hand corner.
“Hocquenghem‟s interpretations suggest that there was a special time of

the year, within the natural cycle of growth and regeneration, planting and
harvesting, in the life and death of plants and nature, when for a period of
time, the dead were believed to come back to life and resurface to share
the space of the living. During that special time, the natural order was
reversed and all activities had to be reversed likewise, particularly all
sexual activities. Only anal intercourse was permitted. This ritual
50
Figure 22, Moche Culture, Day of the Dead Myth with Heterosexual Anal Penetration
Ritual
51
prescription was essential for the natural order to be restored and for the
dead to return to the underworld. This practice of various reverse can also
be found in other American aboriginal cultures” (Mathieu, 27).
When we put our lips to something, it is intimate; a kiss, a sexual act, or, I think,
placing your lips to a rim of a vessel is also an intimate act. It is especially intimate when
the vessel you are putting your lips to is supporting a large penis with an erection. Some
of the vessels created by the Moche were of cadavers with large erections fig. 23. The
penis is like a straw one would drink, or suck from. The top of the pot is pierced to make
it impossible to drink from the rim. In my early work, these pots were of great influence
to me. I created a drinking vessel that forces the user to drink from a phallus, fig. 24. As
discussed earlier, there were no erotic paintings in history designed for sexual enjoyment
for women. These cups from the Moche culture and my vessels are designed specifically
for this purpose. Women can take a liberating role in participating in the erotic. These
types of pots also amuse. One pot named “El Clinton,” fig. 25, by the archeologist who
found it is particularly funny. It was found at the same time the Monica Lewinsky
scandal was being exploited in the news. It has a woman on her knees performing
fellatio on a man that is obviously a ruler of some sort. The woman‟s head moves back
and forth like a bobble head doll you would buy in a toy store. Other examples, from the
Moche culture, of forms representing sexuality in which you become intimate are female
forms where the vagina is the opening for drinking. But most pots that represent the
female body are bowls. Bowls are a form of containment; like the female breast. Marie-
Antoinette had a milk bowl commissioned and it is believed to have been formed from
her breast. As written earlier, it is believed the first bowl was modeled from Helen‟s
breast.
52
Figure 23, Moche Culture, Cadaver with Erection
53
Figure 24, Gayle Shaw Clark, Flower Cup, 2007
54
Figure 25, Moche Culture, Fellatio Scene with Articulated Female Head
55
Looking at past ceramic pots and contemporary pots, there are more representations of
the male genitalia than of the female; except from the Moche culture. One example is of
a female figure bending over exposing her vagina, fig. 26. She has her hands pulling her
buttocks apart to expose a very detailed site. Her clitoris is clearly defined. “This shows
the amazing, clinical and precise knowledge of anatomy and the power of descriptive
observation on the part of the Moche potters, and that female pleasure was considered by
the Moche as an integral part of sexuality” (Mathieu, 35). The sexuality of women in this
culture was not to be hidden away like in most Western religions; there are no fig leaves
here. Women were not used to give pleasure to men visually or physically. Like the
Catalian beliefs of the power of the vagina, the Russian folklore, and Egyptian
mythology, the vagina is also being celebrated in the Moche culture. The construction of
female sexuality here is far different than the western artworks discussed earlier in this
paper. This pot where the woman is showing us her vagina reminds me of Courbet‟s
Origin of the world. This figure, like Courbet‟s Origin, is showing where all creation of
humans come from.
Not all of Moche pottery represents sexuality. There are thousands of pots and
around 800 pots use sexuality as content. Among these 800 pots, there are some that
show venereal diseases, fig. 27, like the artworks highlighted earlier such as Peter
Breughel the Elder‟s Syphilitic with Couple, fig. 3, William Hogarth‟s Luetic Viscount
Visiting the Quack, fig. 4, and Goya‟s The Family of Charles IV, fig. 5. However, I don‟t
believe this pot‟s intention is to show death and disease caused by women as in the
paintings listed above and discussed throughout this paper.
56
These pots created by the Moche culture give us an understanding of the
constructs of female sexuality in their society.
57
Figure 26, Moche Culture, Woman Offering Herself
58
Figure 27, Moche Culture, Venereal Disease Vessel
59
Greek Sexpots
Greek vessels are studied in the history of art. Although the regard of the potter
was more than that of the painter, they are not studied as three dimensional forms, or as
an art form in itself, but studied for the drawings or paintings on the surfaces. Surviving
paintings from the Greek and Roman Empire are in poor condition. Therefore historians
have relied on vase paintings to decipher the lifestyle of these people. These drawings
depict scenes from everyday life and the scenes on the pots entail great myths which
illustrate their culture and lifestyle. Even though they are quite beautiful with their
intricate drawings, they were functional, used in everyday tasks. “Virtually none of the
vases was created for artistic display, as opposed for use” (Johnson, 75). The Oinochoe,
a pouring vessel, fig. 28, has a drawing of a man urinating into a vessel held by a young
boy. It is like a sugar container with the word sugar written on it which is a bit
humorous.
The Greek artists who made these pots also use sexuality as content in their work.
The Cleansing Scene, 4th century BC, fig. 29, is of two women engaged in the very
intimate act of bathing each other. Is this drawing used for the fantasies of women or of
men like Courbet‟s Sleep, fig. 1? Perhaps because homosexuality was readily accepted in
Ancient Greece and depicted on many of their vessels, the images painted on the vessels
do indeed allow women to experience the erotic visually. In the Seduction Scene, 4th
century BC, fig. 30, the drawing on the vessel portrays a man and a young boy engaging
in a sexual act. The man and boy face each other and place their penises between each
other‟s thighs where ejaculation transpires outside of the body.
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It is more common for the vases to have two boys fondling each other with no intercourse
depicted than of a man and boy engaging in sexual acts.
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Figure 28, Greece, Oinochoe (Wine Tub), circa 480 BC
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Figure 29, Greece, Cleansing Scene, 4th Century BC
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Figure 30, Greece, Seduction Scene, 4th Century BC
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Sexual Content in Modern and Contemporary Ceramic Artworks
There are many artists and potters with high regard that have used sexuality as
content in their work. One artist that everyone who has ever been in a classroom
centered around art, or has walked the face of the earth, is familiar with Pablo Picasso.
But they are familiar with Pablo Picasso, the famous painter.
However, not many know of his fascination with ceramics. “The most influential
contemporary ceramics were those of Pablo Picasso” (Clark, 273). His enthusiasm of the
medium was sky-scraping. His art dealer overheard him trying to „reel in‟ another artist,
Henri Laurens: “You ought to go into ceramics! I made a head. It is amazing and you
can look at it from all angles, it‟s flat. Of course it is the painting that makes it flat. I
also did something else: I painted on rounded surfaces. I painted balls” (Copland, 7).
After the Second World War, Picasso began working quite a bit in clay. His
mastery in the medium did not include working on the wheel. He did not throw, but he
designed the forms, with some being influenced by the Greek vases and pre-Columbian
pottery. He has much eroticism in all of his work but the work in clay actually influenced
his eroticism in his paintings. He is credited with thousands of pots that he created over a
span of about fifteen years. Two examples are shown in figures 31 and 32.
The art history of pottery is rarely tied to the development of the avant-garde.
Pottery has tended to be an evolutionary rather than revolutionary medium. Through the
years there has been exceptions” (Clark, 157) One of the people that Garth Clark is
writing about is George Ohr. “He was an innovator with a repertoire of ideas and forms”
(Clark, 157). At the time when
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Figure 31, Pablo Picasso, Priapus, 1964 Figure 32, Pablo Picasso, Head, 1948
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he was working, Ohr‟s pots were considered ugly. They were broken, torn and twisted.
Today they are admired at with great appeal.
He was known as the “mad potter from Biloxi” and a bit eccentric. In 1896 he
photographed himself working in his studio that had burned down two years prior. He
was working among all of the charred remains with his children running about. He put
his children into large vessels and photographed them as well. “The act of putting his
children inside his “clay babies” or “fixings,” as he called his pots, evidenced a
symbolism in which Ohr saw the act of potting in terms of divine creation” (Clark, 165).
Ohr said that no two pots are alike just like there are no two men alike. “Ohr considered
his pots as a dual metaphor that linked them with anthropomorphic and theosophical
traditions” (Clark, 165).
George Ohr made many pots using sexuality as content. His twisted forms suited
the sexual implications of his forms. He made this line of sexual pots, along with other
novelty items to sell at county fairs. He made one piece of special interest to me called
Vagina Bank in 1900, fig. 33. This piece influenced my piece Pocket Book, fig. 34, and
both are about the power of sex and money and desire. In the contemporary world,
women‟s beauty and sexuality are power. Power is how one gets things done. It is one
way women compete to get ahead in a world where resources are so limited for our
gender.
Warren Mackenzie is another great potter who has made work that deals with
sexuality. His Vases for a Gynecologist’s Office, 1970, fig. 35, are two pots that
represent gender; there is one female and one male pot. These pots are so beautiful and
simple. The female pot of course has similarities to a vagina and the male pot is of a
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Figure 33, George Ohr, Vagina Bank, 1900
Figure 34, Gayle Shaw Clark, Pocketbook, 2006
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Figure 35, Warren Mackenzie, Vases for a Gynecologist’s Office, 1970
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cylindrical shape with a small hole in the top of it. They are not the „in your face‟ type of
sexpots that I have been discussing so far in this paper. I am drawn to the simplicity of
these forms. My current work, which I will be discussing later, has some similarities in
the way that these forms represent sexuality in a more subtle nature.
Earlier I discussed how we become intimate with ceramic objects by touching
them, fondling them and so forth. I want people to want to touch my work. Although my
new work is sculptural, I want the observer to feel the variations on the surface and how
the outer lines of my sculptures create a sensual mass. I want the viewers to be drawn in
by the curves of the forms and the clean white surface. My intent with my forms is to
create an intimate, sensual feeling. Ceramic artist Kim Dickey has created objects that
deepen the intimacy between the ceramic object and the user in a totally different way.
She has created functional objects that fit very close to the female body. These pieces are
inserted between the legs and allow a woman to urinate standing up, fig. 36. They are
actually contemporary versions of an 18th century bourdalou. The bourdalou was
invented for women to use during church services at Versailles because the Priest, Abbe
Bourdalou, would go on for so long.
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Figure 36, Kim Dickey, Pissoirs, 1994
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CHAPTER 8
FEMINISTS EXPRESSIONS
During the late 60s and 70s, many different types of art were being practiced and
created.
“The 1970‟s were pluralist with a vengeance. New styles and new media
included conceptual art, crafts as art, earth art, feminist art, pattern and
decoration, performance art, among many others. The pluralism of the
1970‟s clearly sprang from the political and cultural upheavals of the late
1960‟s. Women, for instance, achieved quantitatively larger
representation in the art world than at any previous period in history”
(Atkins, 147)
“Many women sought forms through which to valorize women‟s experience. The
early 1970‟s saw an explosion of work which reinserted women‟s personal experiences
into art practice” (Chadwick, 321). Judy Chicago is probably the first noteworthy artist
of the feminist art movement. She and Miriam Schapiro founded the first feminist art
program at California State University, Fresno and helped to create WAR (Women
Artists in Revolution). “Of special concern to feminist theorists was the historical bias
against craft vis-à-vis high art” (Atkins, 93). At this time, both female artists, Chicago
and Schapiro changed from creating work with geometric abstractions in sculpture and
painting to works specific to women‟s experiences and bodies (Chadwick, 321).
Chicago answered Linda Nochlin‟s question Why Have There Been No Great
Women Artists by saying “What has prevented women from being really great artists is
the fact that we have been unable to transform our circumstances into our subject…to use
them to reveal the whole nature of the human condition” (Lippard, 17). Art critic Lucy
Lippard states “There is no reason why strong women artists cannot emerge from a
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feminist community to operate in both spheres, [private and public art] why they cannot
in fact, form a trialectic between the female world, the art world and the real world. That
is where I would like to be. How to get there is the question” (Lippard, 40-41). Lippard
explains the difference between the two spheres by stating “Private art is often seen as
mere ornament; public art is associated with monuments and money, with “high” art and
its containers, including unwelcoming shit-walled galleries and museums with classical
courthouse architecture” (Lippard, 124).
Judy Chicago joined together 400 women-crafts persons, who worked on an
installation for six years finally completing The Dinner Party which opened in 1979 at
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, fig. 37. Chicago said
“I began to think about the piece as a reinterpretation of the Last Supper

form the point of view of women, who, throughout history, had prepared
the meals and set the table. In my “Last Supper,” however, the women
would be the honored guests. Their representation in the form of plates set
on the table would express the way women had been confined, and the
piece would thus reflect both women‟s achievements and their
oppression” (Chicago, 11)
The Dinner Party has toured many cities and has been seen by more than a half a
million people. The work consists of a large triangular table with thirty nine place
settings. Each place setting commemorates a famous woman, her accomplishments, and
is comprised of a chalice, embroidered table cloths, ceramic eating utensils, and ceramic
plates referencing a vagina. Chicago writes “These abstract portraits of women of the past
were part of my personal search for a historical context from my art” (Chicago, 8).
Chicago goes on to say “I thought images on plates would convey the fact that the
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Figure 37, Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979
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women I planned to represent had been swallowed up and obscured by history instead of
being recognized and honored” (Chicago, 8). Great women, no, most women have been
eaten up throughout history, some women knowing and others unknowing.
I believe that the historical facts and theories about women discussed in this paper
have constructed us sexually and otherwise making it compulsory for us to compete.
John Berger wrote, “A woman must continually watch herself. From earliest childhood
she has to be taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to
consider the surveyed and the surveyor within her as the two constituent yet always
distinct elements of her identity as a woman” (Chadwick, 322).
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My Early Work
I have many early works using sexuality as content and have drawn influences
from many places. For this paper I am including only a couple of early works for
detailed discussion because these works entail beginning thoughts of how I could visually
represent the constrictions women have placed on them and how society has constructed
us. One piece is functional and the other is sculptural. Sexuality and beauty are recurring
themes in my work. For me, flowers signify beauty which is desire, love, and power. In
the functional piece, which I briefly discussed earlier, fig. 24, I have created a form with
clay that represents or encapsulates a botanical image. This flower cup is influenced by
the Moche culture and blatantly forces the user to become intimate with it in a sexual
way. For women in America and other cultures, exhibiting sexuality is considered taboo.
Sexual expression is forced when one fondles and puts their lips to my “flower.” This is
a liberating experience.
This artwork consists of three separate pieces. There is the cup, where she has
made the top uneven to represent the petals of a flower. It is also formed like this to
make it difficult for the user to drink from the rim. I want the user to drink from the
stamen, a removable straw, which clearly represents a sexual act when in use. The saucer
where the cup rests also has a flower-like feel completing the piece. I have fired this in a
salt kiln giving it a worn appearance which also defines the texture on the stamen, around
the bottom of the cup and in the center of the saucer. This repeating texture through-out
helps to unify this piece. Any time one uses a ceramic object, they become intimate with
it by touching it with their fingers or their lips and tongue but I want to take this intimacy
to another level; a conscious sexual act.
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Figure 24, Gayle Shaw Clark, Flower Cup, 2007
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My corset series, the one here called Undressing, fig. 38, was inspired by Manet‟s
Nana, fig. 18, page 39. The corset, which constitutes the placement of constrictions on
women to fit into the ideals of society, was of great influence to my thoughts and
expressions. Explored earlier in chapter six, Manet‟s Nana, is a modern woman wearing
a corset. Underwear, including corsets, was a focus of sexual interest in the nineteenth
century. It is for me also about how women and their bodies are supposed to be perfect
and the lengths one has gone and will go to achieve society‟s image of beauty.
Contemporary ceramic artist Kristin Kieffer creates feminine undergarments and
lingerie using the medium of clay as well, fig. 39. When I heard her speak about her
work, she keenly referred to her pieces as “architecture holding up beauty.” While our
intentions of expression and styles differ, her methodology influenced how my corsets
were constructed and surfaced. From hearing her talk about her techniques and looking
at her extremely intricate work, I was influenced to manipulate and alter thrown forms
and to use slip to create patterns on the surfaces of my work.
My corsets are empty vessels because the person on the inside is invisible and
without regard because we have become, what Nancy Friday declares, the society of
empty packages. We wrap ourselves up in beautiful clothes and make-up to be given a
high score of morality and beauty on a scale created by society. Society keeps us as
women bound up in the ideals of perfection. My corsets are mostly blue, and blue is one
of many colors that were considered in the nineteenth century to be worn by deviant
women. Although we may know the story behind Manet‟s Nana, the blue corset still acts
a visual clue as to the identity of the woman. She is a prostitute. As I have written
earlier, only women who wore white corsets were considered to be decently dressed.
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Figure 18, Édouard Manet, Nana, 1877
Figure 38, Gayle Shaw Clark, Undressing, 2006
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Figure 39, Kristin Kiefer, Two Sparrows, 2007
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CHAPTER 9
PRESENTAION OF CURRENT WORK BY THE ARTIST
My corset and cup series, discussed in chapter eight, were the true starting point
for my new work because they were the first visual expression of my ideas of social and
cultural constructs which were sparked by Linda Nochlin‟s Why Have There Been No
Great Women Artists? This article made me look into our past which has led me to
discover why women compete and have to compete; why beauty is so important and how
sexuality is power. I stated earlier that life is one beauty pageant after another.
I want to express visually all of the readings and research that has enveloped
much of my time and has evoked much interest to me. The research complied to create
this thesis and body of work has stirred emotions and feelings I thought were absent in
myself. I always felt inadequate as a young girl, through my adolescence and into
womanhood never realizing that there is nothing wrong with me but what is wrong is
society. I never knew women‟s past history. I never knew the full extent of sexual
constructs, the inequality and the misogyny which have been constituents of my gender
since the beginning of time. I just cannot read enough about my past as a woman, a
sexual being and as an artist. It is not possible for me to express in written format how
unveiling women‟s history has made me feel. We may have come a long way, but there
is still a long road to travel.
For the female gender, society demands excellence physically. We are all judged
from appearances. For girls with inadequate looks, Friday exclaims “Only a daughter
raised with a sense of her own identity, lovingly encouraged to find it and wear it, will
grow into a woman who can look uncritically into a piece of reflecting glass” (Friday,
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47). I was a fat child and a fat young woman picked on by others and never chosen.
Although I am now of average size I will never have the confidence of a thin, beautiful,
talented, intelligent woman. “To enter adolescence without looks can be a reversal of
such proportions, that many women never recover from their sense of inadequacy. Looks
may arrive ten years later, but the reflection is never believed” (Friday, 228).
There were the “chosen” girls I went to high school with that entered all of the
beauty pageants and had the dates with the sports elite. Although these girls were smart
and funny, in my world growing up, it was more important for one to win a beauty
contest than to be valedictorian. I was not of the same visual caliber and could not
compete. I never had problems with these girls; many were my closest friends. However,
just because I liked them, doesn‟t mean that I didn‟t secretly want to trip them.
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Tripping the Beauty Queen: Competition Between Women
Tripping the Beauty Queen is the title to my newest body of work. My thought
processes while creating this work entails many issues and ideas expressed in this paper. I
have created fifteen beauty contestants to be put on display under bright lights for
spectators to view. My aim for this body as a whole is to create a spectacle. This is a
competition; something most women and girls have experienced in different aspects of
life because of societal rules which, as I have discussed throughout this paper, were
created long ago. We are all judged and I have always felt that my identity has been
predetermined by my appearance. My sculptures which represent women are all
beautiful and sexual. I hope John Berger would say that each one of my pieces can call
their sexuality their own like Courbet‟s and Manet‟s women can. My contestants hold
the confidence to compete and compete fairly. Using clay, I have created flower forms to
represent my beauty contestants. None are perfect; they all have flaws that can be seen
under careful examination but from afar, all wrapped up in a pure white layer of “skin,”
they appear to be perfect. Even thought they are flawed, they still have what it takes to
stand under the bright lights and be judged.
According to the rules, one must give an appearance of perfection to be allowed
to compete. Nancy Friday writes in The Power of Beauty that women are not taught how
to compete. Pat Heim, Ph.D and author of In the Company of Women agrees with Friday
and states, “We‟ve learned not to fight-but we haven‟t learned what to do with stifled
angry feelings if we feel slighted” (Heim, 105). We know how to use our beauty in
competition, but the doctrine of the second wave of feminism rebukes the use of our
beauty and sexuality for advancement or achievement. “Women don‟t allow ourselves to
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get high on our beauty because of the instilled rules against competition, but men have no
such fear” (Friday, 418). She goes on to say “From the beginning of life, nothing arouses
competition among females as does beauty, and nothing is more forbidden than open
rivalry over it” (Friday, 489).
In the past, women‟s competition might be focused on clothes, husbands, children
and lifestyle but now we‟re also competing at work, politics, and sports, with increasing
pressure to have it all and to succeed in every field (Barash, 43). Because of the
injustices women have faced throughout history and today we are forced to compete.
Today, there are sixty-four million women in the work force and only make seventy-six
cents to the man‟s dollar. Our resources are limited and women don‟t want to bring other
women up with them. Lucy Lippard wrote in the early seventies that
“The rare woman who has made it into the public eye tends to reject
younger or lesser women artists for fear of competition, for fear of being
forced into a “woman‟s ghetto,” and thereby having her work taken less
seriously. She is likely to say, “I made it on my own, as a person, why
can‟t they?”; at the same time she will occasionally acknowledge how
rough it was to make it as a woman” (Lippard, 45).
Twenty-five years later Friday says this is still the case. “We hesitate to bring one another
along as we advance up the ladder, fearing our assist may open the possibility of the other
woman becoming our equal, even outstripping us. Our anxiety is based on the belief that,
unlike men, we have limited resources and limited opportunity” (Friday, 375). Women
compete in ways that are hidden or out of the public eye because we are always under
scrutiny. Men compete at work and call it business, but many women can‟t seem to leave
things at the office. We don‟t know how.
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Women have learned from childhood to be nice. “Consequently, when they get
into a squabble, girls are repeatedly admonished to “get along and be nice.” These are
code words for “avoid conflict at all cost”” (Heim, 97). My women are competing
openly and unafraid of conflict. They are out to be evaluated.
In creating these pieces, these flowers, I referenced images of actual flowers. I
used these images as the general idea of flowers and manipulated them into my own
visions. I was also greatly influenced by Georgia O‟Keeffe. She said she was not
painting sex, but based on my visual interpretation, it looks like she did. I use flower
forms to symbolize women by reason of their similarities in the model of beauty and
sexuality. These pieces all have sensual qualities but my goal is not to portray women as
purely sexual beings but to expose the beauty that all women inherently own. Our beauty
may not be on the outside, but on the inside; it may be the ability to talk to people,
intelligence, or our presence in a room. No matter what our beauty entails, we are
playing the game. Everyone wants to be accepted.
The skin of white represents purity and morality. As a society, I agree with
Friday that we have become the society of empty packages. My women are not empty
packages. Their forms are strong and need no decoration. They stand with flaws wrapped
up in purity and morality; something that has been lost along the way while trying to
conform to society‟s demands. Discussed earlier, we wrap ourselves up in beautiful garb
to distract people from seeing our true identity. It is like a package under a Christmas
tree; an object covered and disguised. We are inside the paper that someone will
eventually rip open. We are full of fear because the people who unwrap us may be
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disappointed with what is inside not unlike children Christmas morning that are
heartbroken when not receiving the gift they highlighted on their lists sent to Santa.
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Methodology
Each piece in this body of work was started on the wheel. I threw parts to create
large forms and attached them together at the appropriate time. After the basic form was
put together, I used hand building techniques such as coiling and slab construction to
complete the form. On some of the sculptures I have added slip to create a raised texture
or pencils, sticks, stamps or other tools to create a more subtractive texture and to add
variation to the surface. I also wanted to use the wheel for these pieces to have the throw
marks incorporated in each piece. The throw marks remind me of something having been
wrapped up with a wire or heavy string. I wanted to use this element created by the
process of throwing to create an implication of constriction. Working on a large scale is
new to me. I have used the flower motif throughout my graduate career but mostly by
carvings or surface decoration. In the past, I used other forms to represent beauty and its
constructs, first by making corsets, fig. 37, and then by creating girdles fig. 40. One of
my professors asked me at my thirty-hour review what my idea of beauty was and how
could I represent women in a different way or a more beautiful way because all women
are beautiful. I replied flowers because they are the most beautiful things in the world to
me. Flowers are how I represent women now. One of my graduate colleagues calls me a
flower. Beauty is found in many places. The places I find beauty are in the women my
flowers represent; they have beautiful souls, they are powerful, and confident. They have
the confidence to stand under the bright lights and be judged with flaws. These flowers
hold in themselves what I want to hold.
Each flower in this body of work is strong enough visually to stand on its own but
work together as a complete body of work. I want people to interact with them. I want
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people to want to touch them. I want people to experience the need for touch like I feel
the need for touch. I need to create artwork made from clay. Touch is the reason I use
clay.
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Figure 40, Gayle Shaw Clark, Girdle, 2006
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CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION
I would like to note my admiration for the artists that were discussed who
portrayed strong women; the ones who could control and turn down the volume of the
masses shouting the demands of conformity and turn a blind eye to the gazes of
objectification. My look into our sexual past and the constructs that have been placed on
women and it‟s rendering through images along with the changes of the representation of
women in the latter part of the nineteenth century has given me an energetic surge to
continue down the path that started when I first read Linda Nochlin‟s Why Have There
Been No Great Women Artists. “What is important is that women face up to the reality of
their history and of their present situation, without making excuses or puffing
mediocrity” (Nochlin 1989, 176). Rooms may still have glass ceilings where
competitions of beauty and power are at play and where societies rules are ever changing,
but hopefully the doors are starting to open where we will not have to hear “…and the
crown goes to…”
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Images of Work from Tripping the Beauty Queen
Created by Gayle Shaw Clark
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Figure 41, Gayle Shaw Clark, Contestant #2, 2008
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Figure 43, Gayle Shaw Clark, Contestant # 8, 2008
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Figure 49, Contestant #21, Gayle Shaw Clark, 2008
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Georgia Southern University

Digital Commons@Georgia Southern

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of

Sexuality: Social and Cultural Constructs of Women

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd

REPRESENTED THROUGH ART

GAYLE SHAW CLARK

(Directed by: Elizabeth Jane Pleak)

Life is one beauty pageant after another. There is always competition, be it

physically or mentally. Societal rules have always determined the constructions of

INDEX WORDS: Sculpture, Ceramics, Sexuality, Gender, Women, Constructs

GAYLE SHAW CLARK

BFA, Georgia Southern University, 1992

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

Gayle Shaw Clark

All Rights Reserved

GAYLE SHAW CLARK

Major Professor: Elizabeth Jane Pleak

Committee: Julie McGuire

Electronic Version Approved:

home. He has been my foundation; my rock.

Moulton for their assistance in my journey throughout my graduate career here at

talent and inspiration, I would have never known my potential.

LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………….. viii

2. The Depiction of Women in Western Erotic Art……….. 4

6. Nude and Naked………………………………………… 29

7. Sexuality as Content in Ceramics……………………….. 41

The Moche Culture……………………………… 46

Sexual Content in Modern and

9. Presentation of Current Works by the Artist…………… 81

Tripping the Beauty Queen: Competition

Images of Work from Tripping the Beauty Queen,

Figure 1: Gustave Courbet, Sleep, 1866………………………………………. 5

turn a blind eye to the gazes of objectification. However, with my experience as a

been constructed by society. My identity lies somewhere outside this circle.

objectification. The construction of gender begins at childhood as we are taught to be

am completely prepared to put on a skirt, especially since all I have to do is to open a

prolific scholarship on this issue.

feminine „accomplishment‟”(Chadwick, 142). Nochlin states that in the nineteenth

specifically for the male erotic fantasies.

My research on the construction of gender consistently reveals this dichotomy of

of research and creative expressions throughout my graduate career.

THE DEPICTION OF WOMEN IN WESTERN EROTIC ART

given, both critically and on its popular basis (Mahon, 16).

fantasized about. As Nochlin states:

of organized western religions.

According to Judy Lombardi‟s definition of social constructs, they are designed to

never to be understood. Sander L. Gilman also writes in his book, Sexuality an

40). The lion tamer is conformity and order.

ideal, one to be desired.

of the individual” (Gilman, 203).

Another example depicting the disease is portrayed in Goya‟s The Family of

the reign of King Charles IV.

her genitals is bound up in sex, pornography or images of women in accommodating

covered; left undiscovered. It is a symbol of embarrassment and shame; something to

people of a particular society without having an understanding of the mythology”