"Heirloom"
November 4, 2022 - March 3, 2023
West Shore Community College, WSCC Downtown Manistee Education Center, Old Kirke Museum, Ludington Area Center for the Arts (LACA)
Opening Reception: Friday, November 4th, 5-8pm
at Ludington Area Center for the Arts - 107 S Harrison St, Ludington, MI 49431
“Heirloom” is an exhibition of four generations of female labor, members of a family rooted in Manistee and Mason counties for over 100 years. Here, symbols, text and images drawn from the lives of my mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother are manifested via the materials and processes of the blue collar part of my life as a union apprentice sign painter. Painted banners, cut vinyl decals and drawings on canvas drop cloths tell a family history of horticulture, of cattle and evergreen farming at Rosenow Farms, and of factory work at the Manistee Shoe Manufacturing Company.
Rather than drawing a straight line chronologically through our family history, the works in “Heirloom” are presented more fluidly. As the exhibition’s title suggests, the focus here is rather what remains and sustains over the course of time. Like the unique genes of an heirloom variety of tomatoes, this exhibition parses out the possibilities of what might be present in each woman, what sort of characteristics, values, experiences and ways of seeing the world can be identified as specifically ours. I’ve chosen to highlight this inquiry through our labor history in order to pay homage to those characteristics that are so often dismissed in women: grit, tenacity, ambition, and intelligence.
-Robin Dluzen
2022
The exhibition is a part of West Shore Community College 's Humankind Series. This year's theme is the "future of work" and the curatorial response is centered around the idea of acknowledging female labor as a starting point to look at the future.
The exhibition is presented at five locations throughout Manistee and Mason counties:
WSCC’s main campus (Gallery and Tech Center), 3000 N Stiles Rd, Scottville, MI 49454
WSCC’s Manistee downtown education center, 400 River St, Manistee, MI 49660
Old Kirke Museum, 300 Walnut St, Manistee, MI 49660
Ludington Area Center for the Arts (LACA), 107 S Harrison St, Ludington, MI 49431