Miriam Schapiro: Painting on Glass

Miriam Schapiro, Painting on Glass with vtireous paints, 8 x 10"

__________________________

This is the first painting on glass with vitreous paints of the 2011 Spring semester. I am hoping through the semester to make good headway on this installation piece that is evolving on my Uomini Famosi. Inspired by my mentor artist's work with transparent and translucent layering, I have been playing with process and underground layers on the glass through sand etched treatments of the glass, prior to painting and after the painting and firing of the glass has been completed.

_____________________________________

Miriam Schapiro: Biography

Born in 1923 in Toronto, Ontario.

Schapiro found success early as a hard-edge geometric-style painter. Influenced by the feminist movement of the early 1970s, she changed her style radically, embracing the use of textiles as symbolic of feminine labor. She is credited with establishing the movement called Pattern and Decoration (or P & D). This art movement challenged traditional Western European art by foregrounding decorative patterns and textiles from other cultures such as Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Mexican. Schapiro coined the term "femmage," which stands for the female laborer's hand-sewn work (such as embroidery, quilting, cross-stitching, etc.) that rivals and precedes the "high-art" collage. Schapiro often combines pattern with painting. Schapiro comments, "I felt that by making a large canvas magnificent in color, design, and proportion, filling it with fabrics and quilt blocks, I could raise a housewife's lowered consciousness." Her involvement with consciousness-raising efforts, for which she traveled nationwide encouraging women to form support groups and emerge from isolation, earned her the nickname Mimi Appleseed.

For more about Miriam Schapiro visit : http://www.nwhp.org/whm/schapiro_bio.php