Diane Meyer

Rochester I and II are hand embroidered photographs taken at the Susan B Anthony house in Rochester, NY. I happened to be in Rochester in October 2016, just a few weeks before the election. I visited the Susan B Anthony house while I was there, which felt particularly poignant immediately before, what I presumed would be, the election of the first woman president. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the air amongst the volunteers and staff at the museum which I imagine continued right up until results began to come in on election night. On the day of the election, over 12,000 people visited Susan B Anthony’s grave in Rochester and many put their “I Voted” sticker on her gravestone. After the devastating election results, I thought about how the excitement that could be felt at the museum weeks earlier must have been replaced with the grief and disappointment I myself was experiencing as I worried what would become of our democracy. One of the most tragic aspects of the election is the fact that over 100 million eligible voters did not vote- which likely impacted the outcome of the election. These two images form a diptych in the style of a traditional embroidered sampler- created by women in the 18th and 19th Century and seen as an example of “women’s work.” The images speak to how Susan B Anthony dedicated her life to fighting for women’s suffrage and the contrast of the sad fact of so many Americans not voting- whether by choice or because of voter suppression.

Votes for Women Long Branch is a piece from what will ultimately be a larger body of work consisting of acrylic paint on archival photographs. By painting over the image, some of the original context is taken away allowing the viewer to focus more on interactions between the figures. In this piece, I wanted to emphasize the act of working together and the power that comes from a collective group coming together to demand change.

Maxine is a piece that was not created specifically for this project, but I thought I would include as it may be relevant for the Yellow Rose project. This is a piece based on Maxine Waters, my congresswoman in Los Angeles. The piece was originally created for a group exhibition in 2018 at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York in which artists were asked to make a piece on a progressive female candidate running in the midterm elections that year. I feel very fortunate to live in Maxine Water’s congressional district, the 43rd district of California. She has dedicated her life to public service for literally as long as I have been alive- she entered the California State Assembly in 1976, the year I was born. While I have always found her to be inspirational in her resolve to fiercely advocate for important social justice issues, I have found her continued and passionate determination to speak truth to power and to call out the current administration, more forcefully than any other person in Congress, to be a consistent source of hope in these dark days following the 2016 election.  She has shown that she is unafraid to speak her mind and will not be silenced. I feel that Maxine Waters has become a symbol of the rising tide of female voices that have powerfully emerged since the election. This has been especially notable in the field of journalism, a traditionally male dominated field, and I have been heartened to see rising strength and number of women’s voices emerging as the resistance. Given Maxine Water’s strength and unapologetic outspokenness in raising the moral and ethical impunities of the current administration and her consistent calls for impeachment,  I wanted to create a piece that references  her recent media appearances- especially as her voice has become inspirational for a growing, younger generation. My piece centers around a quote from Maxine Waters from a television interview with Chris Hayes of MSNBC: “I’d like to say to women out there everywhere, don’t allow these… dishonorable people to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are. Do what you do.”