American Women in War

ARTIST STATEMENT

American Women—they are strong, driven, compassionate, and knowledgeable. Throughout the centuries, female roles within American wars are inspiring because the peace that has been created and sustained couldn't have been achieved without them. The Veterans Park Memorial, St. Augustine Beach, Florida, is a place of serenity and tranquility, built to honor those who served and fought for freedom. This park allows all who enter to embrace the freedom that was not given but rather earned. Women's intentions, actions, and power were built from the ground up over centuries and deserve to be known as those who also fought for peace and freedom.

For this "textiles in the landscape" project, I created a place within the Veterans Park Memorial for all American women who served alongside our American soldiers. With extensive research, colored felt, and typography, I recreated historical and present-day quotes from propaganda posters and protest banners. The technique and process of making the felt quotes helped me portray the creations of the originals and decisions women had to make throughout history — taking into account a multitude of time, effort, and patience that helped establish what we have to enjoy today's world. The intentional choice of material was felt, and it was correlated with the characteristics of women. Felt is flexible yet durable, and women are open-minded yet determined. I challenged myself to recreate each font to represent the historic/present-day periods from which the quotes came to reflect the different styles. The World War I typeface is a bold san serif and was the same one used for Uncle Sam propaganda posters. The posters were used to emphasize the need to band together and unite to win the war, thus making it a brand to be recognizable by all Americans who instantly knew the meaning. The present-day typeface is a little more free-handed san serif, highlighting our changed modern-day society and represents the ability to stray away from formal standards. The colors represent the transition through history and the growth that was achieved by American women. The colors of World War I, red and blue, symbolized strength and trust. The colors blue and yellow of World War II represented honor and loyalty. The yellow and pink of the Vietnam War highlighted positivity and harmony. The color pink used for present-day symbolized kindness and intuition. I used these colors accordingly to emphasize women and their impacts that helped bring peace to America. Gray was indicating the stability and reliability of women throughout American History. This project's purpose was to combine our American soldiers and women in tranquility, to honor their strength and patriotism, and to thank all those for fighting to give us a place of peace.