Can you Imagine Art and Life Without Women

"Women's Rights are Human Rights" - HRC, painting by Teddi-Jann Covell, 16" x 20", oil on canvas
“Women’s Rights are Human Rights” – HRC, painting by Teddi-Jann Covell, 16″ x 20″, oil on canvas

Art without Women

March is Women’s History Month. Today is International Women’s Day and it’s “A Day Without Women Strike”. Today, women, if possible, are to remain home, not work or shop so that the world can realize the impact without women on our lives. Today, if one must go out, people are to wear RED in solidarity for women. What’s all the fuss? What’s all the ruckus? Think about it for a moment. Women equal life. Especially, during this Lenten season, where would we be without Mary? In art, think about Leonardo da Vinci’s painting: “Mona Lisa” with male eyes on the visage. How about the marble statue of “Venus de Milo” standing in the Louvre as the opposite gender? Closer to home, think about the Statue of Liberty America’s symbol of Freedom with a shapeless form and Ms. Elizabeth Phoebe Grisom’s stitchery on yards of woolen fabric that created America’s red, white and blue banner. And as Hollywood finally dramatized, think about the brilliant minds of women who created the beautiful numerical sequences at NASA. Films without women, who would watch? Yes, our lives would be very different, physically, aesthetically, educationally, and philosophically without women working, playing and creating!

Aphordite of Milos by Alexandos of Antioch, photo coutesy of The Louvre

Aphrodite of Milos by Alexandos of Antioch, photo courtesy of The Louvre

Lessons of Life 

Can women have it all? Are women underpaid, disrespected and held to a different standard? Just look around and with all the technology available the answer is clear. I hope there are people like my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Moores, at Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono, whom in the 1960’s, I adored. She came to work everyday with a soft buttoned up sweater, slim pencil skirt and low black pumps, with her brown hair in a neat bob. I was stumped because our assignment was to find someone famous to focus on for a project. I remember being discouraged, I couldn’t identify with anyone on the book shelves. She found the perfect book, then encouraged me to read the biography of Ameila Earhart. It was like a window was opened and a fresh air was breathed into my heart. I devoured the story and I remember making paper-doll cutouts in a shoe-box of the scenes for my project. I was inspired! Thank you Mrs. Moores and Ms. Kitty Atkins, my art teacher from Waterville High and Ms. Carole Noel/Baldwin, my field hockey coach. If you all had not worked in education and touched my life, I would not have had the confidence and ability to work as an artist and now president of the Bangor Art Society, or as an art teacher and later as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration.Thank You ladies, you motivated my youth!

Red the color of Love 

Please appreciate and support all the women in your world. There were and still are many roadblocks for girls and women. Support the women in your life today by wearing red, crimson, magenta, fucshia, or dark pink !

My website is Teddi-JannCovell.com for prints and paintings.

 

Teddi Covell

About Teddi Covell

Teddi-Jann was elected as President of the Bangor Art Society May 2015. In this capacity she complied member’s drawings to form a Bangor Art Society Coloring Book, organized, two members’ art shows and one Paint-out with a wet paint auction, October 2015 & 2016.