Cherry Picking

Medium Description

Media: Mixed Media; oil on canvas, embroidery, velvet, crystal beads I use the traditional feminine craft of embroidery, taught to me by great-grandmother, to discuss the generational trauma inherited by Fundamentalist women. Velvet, a common upholstery material for church pews and the gilt frame serve as religious iconography. The beads were bequeathed to me by my grandmother, hailing from her jewelry making practice, to highlight the long line of domestic feminine craft within my own family. 

Artist Description

This work addresses the hypocrisy of purity culture through the “cherry picking” adage, denoting the selective and acontextual use of biblical texts for justification of one’s actions. Under Fundamentalism, girls are kept naive to preserve their innocence, which is often, and not so coincidently, exploited by those who set the expectation. Cherries are symbolic of purity and the Virgin Mary, while the hemlock embroidered on the gloves is biblically symbolic of spiritual corruption and judgement devolving into injustice. Hemlock, commonly mistaken for Queen Anne’s Lace, is thought to be the poison responsible for the death of Socrates; this symbolizes the deceptive manner in which poison can masquerade as benign, and the inverse relationship between dogma and reason. White gloves, often worn by little girls attending church, are also commonly associated with cleanliness, religious rituals, propriety, and medical exams (such as the practice of checking whether a girl’s hymen is intact prior to marriage). Here, the illusion of propriety does not prevent one’s hands from becoming stained.