tawdry trappings: I [heart] Roller Derby: Feminism on Wheels

I recently had the reception for my very first solo show at Blackbird Tattoo & Gallery. I chose to create an ode to my favorite sport and some of my favorite ladies in the world, the Nashville Roller girls.

Artist Statement:

The women of roller derby are tough, but graceful; strong, but elegant; aggressive on the track, willing to take and inflict pain, and yet gentle & supportive of their derby family and willing to give of themselves to the community. All of these coupled with the savvy and determination that it takes to start up and maintain an organization like a Women’s Flat Track Derby league are only just a small part of what moves me about this sport and the women who participate in it. Women from every walk of life sacrifice their time, money, mind and body to participate in a sport for nothing more than that, sport. They are not paid, they are not given endorsements or accolades, they merely want to be better than they are, to compete and have fun doing it. I find myself enthralled with these larger than life women, their personalities and their abilities. They often take on alter-egos, or at the very least, monikers before they take to the track, which for me adds to the mystique. To me they are like super heroes, dressed for battle, but without sacrificing their personal style, sexuality and femininity. To my knowledge, never has there been a sport that belonged so completely to women, having no male counterpart to lead people to automatically disparage and diminish it as the “girl’s” version and therefore somehow watered-down or inferior.

I have chosen to create representations of some of the players using vintage dolls, as I enjoy the juxtaposition of what is traditionally considered to be a representation of not only female beauty and frailty, but of the expectations of what they should be and want for themselves. Rarely do you find such a pure representation of feminism and empowerment as you do in modern roller derby. Not only do they carry the responsibility of training themselves, keeping themselves healthy and achieving their competitive goals but they take on running the business end of such a large and complex operation. It is not merely fishnets, lipstick and brute strength; it is business acumen, tenacity, creativity and know-how. These ferocious amazons give of themselves in so many ways for the entertainment of the masses, but they are so much more than athletes & business women to me. I find them to be patron saints in a woefully under-populated pantheon of female role models.