“From the ancient world to admiralty law today, ships invariably are referred to as feminine. If the state is a ship and the ship is female, then the polis and state are female as well. But sailors are male; women on board are bad luck. Seafaring under sail calls for ship and crew to interact constantly in productive tension, rudder and rigging, sails and ballast incessantly adjusted to manage and make the most of ever-shifting winds and seas to keep the vessel on courseâ€
– Norma Thompson, Ship of State, afterword.
The metaphor of ships as society has existed since ancient times. I believe that images themselves exist on a metaphorical plane where we understand the optical illusion as a stand in for the real object. This metaphor allows us to think much more about the meaning of the image and how it allows us to think about how the metaphor relates to our lives and to ourselves as spectators of the metaphor.
In the Ships of State series, ships are being wrecked as a further image and metaphor for disaster and decay. Living in a society so large and unwieldy as ours today, I am working to find a way in which to portray the way in which our society seems be breaking and at the brink of total annihilation.
The metaphor can be found even at the highest order of state speech. Presidents consistently speak at States of Union speeches in terms of “staying the course,†“tacking to the right,†“winds of change.†The metaphor is a powerful one, one that I believe holds in the image as well.
The Wonder Women project has allowed me the freedom and community to explore these notions continuously. I joined this project in the hopes of finding a real community of supportive artists with whom I could share and contribute ideas. I succeeded in finding just such a community that I hope continues beyond this project.
