Artist's Statements About Individual Works

Big Burden (from the “no ’-elle” series) • 2006

Oil and oil pastel on canvas • 30 x 24

A continuation of what seems like a one-person campaign against so-called “feminine” suffixes. Language is power, and adding cumbersome suffixes to job titles serves only to imply that the root word is somehow inherently male. In the English language, especially, such a designation is usually irrelevant and almost always unnecessary (every word in this painting exists without the suffix); and, in the U.S. workplace, adding the suffix translates into lost dollars: job title + “feminine” suffix - 27% = women’s wages. Women have borne the big burden long enough.