Taking Up Space

Do we have the potential of taking up too much space, we women and other-gendered?

Are they afraid we would crowd them out or hem them in with the weight of our untapped wisdom?  The volume of our unheard words?  The massiveness of our ignored resources? The expansiveness of the fresh perspectives and renewed spirit we would bring? “They”, of course, is our not-always-so-beloved Church hierarchy, and I think we all know this is absolutely at least a part of what they fear. And perhaps they should!

What would our taking up our rightful space look like?    

I highly recommend a current art exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia that answers that very question and, even better, inspires us to ask more. If you can see it in person before it ends on September 5, you’ll be dazzled – and proud.

The exhibit is titled: “Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale”. Women and other-gendered artists take up whole walls and large parts of rooms creating a majestic presence. They confront us with new ways to see the world in which we live in our gendered roles or just as the magnificent humans we all are. They proclaim and claim – and they celebrate – the space our bodies, minds, and spirits take up, and ask all to do the same.  

The show’s title was inspired by a triptych portrait by the artist, Deborah Willis. In art school, she was one of three women in her class. Her teacher challenged her right to be there, saying she was “taking up a good man’s space” in his class. He went on to claim that all she would do when her schooling was finished was get pregnant and raise her child. “Meanwhile,” said the professor, “a good man could have been in that space.” Willis’ triptych shows her in three stages of her pregnancy with her son, and its tongue in cheek title is: “I made space for a Good Man!” 

As witty as that title is, she remembered also how much what he said hurt and then angered her: “He wanted to stop my future, to shut me down as a woman and a creative person.” We all know that kind of hurt and anger. But Deborah Willis found better instructors, graduated, and did get pregnant. She also received a MacArthur grant, a professorship, many awards, and became known as the “Dean of Black Photography in America.” She showed how, once again, when we do resist and persist, we triumph.

Another of the numerous striking portraits in the exhibit is one of Janie Martinez painted by Clarity Haynes. Janie is a very large woman. Her nude torso not only envelopes the canvas but pushes against its sides. Haynes explained that Martinez’s image is purposely meant to be formidable. “Janie was a fat activist. Embodiment is really important for social empowerment. If you don’t feel comfortable in your body, or like you deserve to walk through the world, you’re not going to feel comfortable doing a whole variety of things in the world.” Haynes also asked Janie Martinez to write something for the work. Janie wrote:

I was here.

I was alive.

I took up space.

I was somebody.

How sad, in our Church, in our world, we still have to proclaim those words.

Of all the paintings, sculptures and installations, I was most affected by a huge watercolor titled “Riding Places” by Elizabeth Colomba.

I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, I was awed by the majesty of the woman, her commanding stature, her poise, her nobility, and her position in the world, a finally rightful position, I thought. But something gnawed at me, too. Why was she in such constricting clothes?  Why did she seem so mannered? Subdued? Was she a servant, or, heaven forbid, slave, dressed in this garb as further subjugation? As play-acting for some master’s amusement? 

I was glad I had not read the NPR interview with the artist before I saw the picture myself which is why I inserted it before I quote her remarks. 

I wondered if the magnificent rearing horse wasn’t more her true self? As beautiful as the woman was, showing that beauty mixed with the fire and spirit the horse represented is what brought out her full power and commanding presence. For we who have been reduced or subdued or miscast or forced into prescribed roles all of our lives, the possibility of such beauty and fierceness and power released into all our spaces was irresistible.

According to the interview by Susan Stamberg of NPR, artist Elizabeth Colomba had something different in mind than what I wrote above. She wanted to put “different faces in old-fashioned trappings.” Colomba herself described her watercolor as “taking what has been historical space, and making room for representation of black actors. I want to create a different narrative, Black characters leisurely taking their own space.” Stamberg comments: “If the rider were white, Black men likely would be shown as servants — bringing out the horse, holding reins for the mistress. Re-casting race in paint — does it mean the same thing, Colomba wonders. Do people have the same reactions to it?” 

“No, they don’t,” Colomba declares. 

“No, they don’t,” we declare, too, and that is why we must keep looking – and talking – and learning – to create our own new and transformational narratives.