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Layered Voices / "Women Talking"
This framed print combines two craft techniques to represent the layered and assembled dialogues that structure Miriam Toews’s Women Talking (2018). The linocut print of a horse looking backwards is an illustration that the illiterate women draw when they gather for their first meeting, symbolizing their option to “leave” the colony (Toews 6). The typeset excerpt is the final two lines of a hymn that the women sing to remain unified in their shared trauma (29). Together, these elements merge different communicative forms to visualize the gathered voices in the text and how the voices come together in harmonious ways to create unity in times of uncertainty. The print is encased in a black frame, which signifies the limited nature of the women’s voices as they are mediated by August. While making this object, I considered the form of the novel and how perspectives are relayed to readers through August. EMMA SJERVEN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Women Talking by Miriam Toews (2018) explores the value of voice and connection in a Mennonite colony riddled with gender conflicts and violence. Female voices often go unheard in Toews’s fictional colony of Molotschna; Ona Friesen, a spinster impregnated by one of her rapists, acknowledges this fact as the women consider how to respond to the men’s assaults against them, saying, “We are women without a voice” (56). Yet the women’s meetings in the hayloft over two days reflect how the assemblage of dialogue and perspectives creates power and unity among the colony’s minority. Published as Toews’s seventh novel, Women Talking was praised for its commentary on feminist themes and religious traumas, establishing Toews as a profound former-Mennonite author. While some Mennonite scholars have praised Toews’s work as “reflective of Mennonite culture,” others note that her attribution of “modern attitudes and sensibilities to a group of women who are decidedly separatist” is concerning, considering that Toews is now an “outsider to the community” (Völz 101, Glista 97, Fernandez-Moralez 102). In this way, Toews’s work is somewhat polarizing because it may not accurately reflect the fierce religiosity usually found within women in Mennonite communities. In 2022, the novel was adapted into an Oscar-winning film directed by Sarah Polley, who deliberately excluded any mention of the word “Mennonite” in her film, as she believed the patriarchy is an issue that does not solely affect Mennonites (Glista 98). Polley also noted that both her and Toews’s characters would not “identify as feminist” because it is “outside their realm of experience and knowledge” (Fernandez-Moralez 103). Despite these contradictions from scholars and the film director, the pervasive theme of female power and unity against patriarchal standards remains central to Toews’s work (Oyler para. 7). When considering what to create for my final project, I reflected on my crafted objects created during our workshops and how these pieces may work in conjunction with each other. I considered my linocut print of a horse with its back turned, looking back at where it came from, and my typeset hymn that the women sing together (Toews 6, 29). I realized that these elements of the texts I once innocently created share a commonality: they are communicative forms for the women. Combining these objects helped me consider the novel’s form, and, as a result, my final framed print merges different communicative frameworks that appear throughout the novel to conceptualize the layering of voices that structure the text. While neither linocut nor letterpress printing explicitly appears in my novel, the history of women’s roles in these media is important to consider and contributed to the embodiment of my work. Linocuts have long been used as artistic media, often appearing in women’s works (Cassidy 18). Linoleum was a medium that was available to women and was used to create detailed coloured prints (18). Contrarily, women were historically less active in letterpress printing. As Claire Battershill notes, “women could run the feeding of a steam press, but not actually operate it” (9). As I created my typeset excerpt on the Vandercook press, I understood the irony with which I, as a female maker, was undertaking an activity that women, like those in Toews’s novel, could not. The embodiment of these crafts contributed to my understanding of my positioning as a female crafter connected to a text about women who are unable to read but can communicate in other ways. As I created my linocut during our workshop, I considered the way that my physical position as a maker—dominating, controlling, and configuring the lino—mimicked the physical actions of the men in the colony. At times, the aggression I used to remove the excess lino contradicted the symbol of hope and bravery that my carved object represented. As I etched a symbol drawn by the women, I understood that my embodied experience added another "layer” to my project and my interpretation of the text. Furthermore, the illustration of the horse carries a double meaning: it symbolizes power in that the women use it to represent their brave decision to “leave” the colony, but it also represents how the men view the women of Molotschna (Toews 6, 21). In various instances throughout the text, the women acknowledge how they have been treated similarly to the animals in the colony. One of the colony matriarchs, Greta Loewen, notices this comparison, commenting that they “have been preyed upon like animals; perhaps we should respond in kind” (Toews 21). By literally drawing a symbol to represent one of their options, the illiterate women repurpose the meaning of the horse, an animal, to associate its being with their personal voices and future choices. The excerpt of the hymn I chose to include appears in the final two lines of the first stanza of a hymn called “Work, for the Night is Coming.” Traditionally, this hymn is sung in religious contexts and signifies the work that man does for God before night falls (hymnstudiesblog). In the novel, the women sing the first stanza before they briefly adjourn during their first meeting: “The women join hands and sing…” (Toews 29). I chose to print the final two lines of the hymn because I interpreted them as hauntingly relevant to the women’s situation. The men’s “work” (raping the women) has been done, and they have left the women damaged. In their singing, and in the specific hymn they choose to sing, the women communicate a message of unity to one another that, despite the brutality they endure, sisterhood prevails. This interpretation of the hymn, like its inclusion in my final print, adds yet another layer to the text. While the women congregate in the hayloft under the agreement that the attacks they have endured merit vengeance, they deliberate their choices thoroughly, often disagreeing with each other about what their decisions mean and how their ultimate choice will be perceived by those around them. Salome Friesen, a woman who nearly killed her rapist in self-defence, vigorously defends the choice to “stay and fight,” asking her fellow women, “Is this how we want to teach our daughters to defend themselves—by fleeing?” (Toews 40). Her question is then contradicted by a clarification from Mejal Loewen, who points out that the women are “not fleeing, but leaving” (Toews 40). Such contrasting dialogues and perspectives structure the text and informed my final print. The text assembles the varying perspectives of the women about the same issue, layering them, which demonstrates how differing viewpoints can come together to tell one cohesive story. Similarly, my final object works to conglomerate these communicative forms into one print, symbolizing the cohesion of voices that emerge about a shared issue. The structure of the text itself “echoes oral features of Plautdietsch,” the traditional Mennonite language the women speak, operating as both “repetitive and additive” (Völz 101). I reflected on this aspect of the form of my text as I created my final object. My print is the product of three attempts at the placement of the linocut stamp and typeset print. To ensure that my print was of good quality, I repeatedly stamped my linocut; I could not achieve a print to my liking, so I had to try again, adding more ink one time, shifting my stamp a bit to the right the next time, and so on. I learned that, like the process of assembling my final project, the text itself is both turbulent and monotonous. The seeming unreliability of August as the narrator of the text (he often admits to missing parts of the conversation: “I am not able to hear or keep up with every detail” [Toews 22]) contributes to its instability, while the construction of the book (its entirety made of dialogue and a singular perspective) contributes to its repetitive nature. These contradictory elements work to form the text—and ultimately contribute to the formation of my print. While the horse and hymn represent different forms of communication, when combined, they represent communication throughout the novel as it is connected to the larger theme of unity among women. I used a black matte frame as a symbolic object to represent the framing device and voice that are used throughout the text. While the novel explores themes of feminism and centres the women’s perspectives and reactions to the attacks, August serves as the vessel for the women’s voices, keeping the novel’s perspective “deliberately limited” (Glista 97). The thick black frame both encases and looms over my print, serving as a reminder that though the novel prioritizes the voices of the women, patriarchal perspectives remain pervasive and dominate the colony. The completion of my crafted object allowed me to consider not only the structured form of the text (how it is told through a singular perspective and created mostly of dialogue) but also how illustrations and hymns are communicative forms that, once combined, create a cohesive work representing a central theme within the novel. Furthermore, completing this final object helped me understand that crafts themselves have voice—though not in the way that we traditionally think of voice. Illustrations via linocuts communicate the author’s thoughts about a particular subject, while hymns via letterpress printing resemble the unity that is found in song and words. Though the women initially believe they do not have a voice, my project demonstrates that the other media they engage with generate a sense of power among them (Toews 56).
[Macalister’s Fish] / "To the Lighthouse"
This lino printed fish with pieces cut out is overlaid on a printed quote from To The Lighthouse and attached with embroidery thread and tape. Woolf, in her novel, mentions a fish whose body was “mutilated” and “thrown back into the sea,” and this mention of the fish highlights the relationship between social relations and embodiment (Woolf 243). The cuts in the fish allow for viewers to peer through at the underlying quote, seeing a potential answer to the proposed question, “What is the meaning of life?” – a question that guides the characters in the novel. This project does not allow viewers to perceive Woolf’s tentative answer; rather, it prompts viewers to consider the question themselves and participate in the discourse Woolf posits in her novel.
The Wars Within / "The Bell Jar"
My crafted object, titled "The Wars Within," captures the essence of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. Inspired by Plath’s sketch bearing the novel’s title, the lino print of shoes, a traditional and often critiqued symbol of femininity, pairs with a carefully typeset quote from Chapter 15. This pairing amplifies the novel’s exploration of identity and autonomy, underscoring the protagonist’s battle against societal constraints and the conflict between external expectations and internal desires. A dynamic collage surrounds the linocut and the quotation, adding further depth and dimension to the piece. This layered design evokes “the wars within,” symbolizing women’s dual struggle: resisting patriarchal values imposed by society while looking inward to confront and reject these forcibly ingrained beliefs. The composition of the crafted object bridges the novel’s critical investigation of psychological and societal conflict, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring relevance of these struggles in the pursuit of self-determination. KALEV ADLER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, the American writer and poet’s only work of fictional prose, offers an evocative exploration of madness and the oppressive effects of social expectations on women. Deeply rooted in Plath’s own experiences, the novel reflects her struggles with major depression, suicidal ideation, and time spent in psychiatric institutions. Driven by a desire to articulate these experiences relating to mental illness, Plath published The Bell Jar in January 1963, just one month before her tragic suicide at the age of 30. At the heart of the novel lies the metaphor of the bell jar, a suffocating, transparent enclosure symbolizing Plath’s and her protagonist Esther Greenwood’s sense of isolation in mid-20th-century America. For the past three months, I have immersed myself in creating a crafted object inspired by Plath’s text. The project and process culminated in The Wars Within, a mixed-media piece combining linocut, typesetting, printing, and collage, deepening my comprehension of Plath’s work and its enduring themes. By creating The Wars Within, I realized the true extent of Plath’s investigation into the suffocating aspects of life for women in 1950s America, a period synonymous with conformity. Through my crafting, I gained a newfound perspective on the psychological toll of cemented cultural conventions directed at women and the struggle for autonomy in a world designed to confine. As author Janet Badia discusses in the first chapter of Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers, titled “‘Dissatisfied, Family-Hating Shrews’: Women Readers and the Politics of Plath’s Literary Reception,” Plath “devoted much of her writing time in early 1961 to her novel The Bell Jar. Having contracted for publication in October 1961, Heinemann released the novel in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas on January 14, 1963” (30). Plath chose to partner with the London-based publisher Heinemann after facing rejection from American publishers, likely influenced by the underwhelming reception of her earlier poetry collection, The Colossus, published by Alfred A. Knopf. Upon its initial release in England, literary critics met The Bell Jar with “a reception nearly as unremarkable as the one The Colossus had received” (Badia 30). It was only after her death that the novel started gaining traction, and, in 1971, eight years after Plath’s suicide, The Bell Jar finally made its way to the United States. In “A Note on The Bell Jar (1963),” Susan J. Behrens explains how “Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath, and Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, campaigned against publication of the US edition, … claiming that the identities of persons living and dead would be too obvious (and hurtful) all around” (239). Despite this publication delay, readers who had slowly become accustomed to her poetry in the years following her death flocked to pick up a copy. The delayed American publication coincided with the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and marked a turning point for Plath’s reception. Readers began to embrace the novel as a foundational feminist text that critiqued patriarchal social politics. Since its 40th anniversary in the US, The Bell Jar has sold “more than three million copies” and been taught in classrooms worldwide (Gould). My creation, The Wars Within, allowed me to profoundly engage with Plath’s The Bell Jar, reshaping my understanding of its themes and the lived experiences it portrays. At the heart of my mixed-media craft object is a linocut of shoes, an object traditionally linked to femininity, highlighting the societal values and ideals imposed on women in 1950s America and beyond. This linocut not only symbolizes these oppressive expectations but also Esther Greenwood’s struggle to break free from them, as shoes can represent movement and the march toward a liberated future. To further connect my work to the novel, I incorporated the poignant quotation “because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar,” capturing Esther’s inescapable sense of entrapment (Plath 236). The Wars Within, especially the collage elements, vastly enriches my dialogue with The Bell Jar by visually layering Plath’s protagonist’s multifaceted constraints. The fragmented domestic images, such as a set dinner table and a mother holding her child, underscore the overwhelming pressure of social models that historically and ridiculously defined a woman’s worth. These elements, deliberately fractured and overlapped, mirror Esther’s fractured psyche, symbolizing her mental disarray and rebellion against the relentless demand to conform. Through the combination of these images, alongside the quotation from the novel and the lino print design, the crafted object encapsulates Esther’s desire to reject social expectations and her inability to escape their pervasive influence. This interplay echoes Plath’s metaphor of the bell jar, with its transparent yet impenetrable walls, as the collage creates a visual representation of a world that defines and traps. Craft or multi-media object? Linocut, typesetting, or print? Choosing the correct term to describe The Wars Within is no simple task. While I previously referred to the collage elements within the object, The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 1919 definition defines collage as “An abstract form of art in which photographs, pieces of paper, newspaper cuttings, string, etc., are placed in juxtaposition and glued to the pictorial surface; such a work of art” (“Collage, N”). Therefore, to provide details of the history of my chosen craft practice, the term “Collage” accurately summarizes the process, the amalgamation of the linocut, typesetting, and printing of text onto one pictorial surface. Freya Gowrley, in the introduction to Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, highlights that collage “is an art form that has been produced across regions and cultures since the invention of paper” (9). Yet, despite its diverse and widespread practice throughout history, collage has often been narrowly defined, focusing predominantly on works from the West and their association with the rise of modernism. Gowrley recounts the example of Jane and Mary Parminter, who used collage as a decorative technique in their 1790s home, A la Ronde. Nevertheless, she notes that “thanks to the low status occupied by women’s craft practices in the art-historical canon, collage produced before the birth of modernism has consistently been overlooked in histories of the genre” (9). Instead, the invention of collage was often attributed to figures such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (9-10). This exclusionary framing mirrors Plath’s The Bell Jar, where deeply entrenched hierarchies subdue women just as the hierarchies embedded within art history diminish the influence and existence of early collage artists (10). Through its design and symbolism, The Wars Within challenges these hierarchies, pushing back against the limitations imposed on women and craft practices. As Hinda Mandell describes in Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats, “Craft can be accessible and complex, unique and diverse, intensely personal and powerfully linked to the greater world—just like the people who choose it to harness their own activist power” (xiii). Therefore, collage, and crafting as a category, is “a tool that transcends geography and time. It is a tool of change—and for change” (xiii). Creating The Wars Within has significantly intensified my appreciation of collage as a medium for artistic and social critique. Through its ability to contrast, fragment, and reconstruct, collage captures the essence of dissent, offering a powerful way for artists and makers to challenge established norms. Throughout the semester, I have developed a profound appreciation for the parallels between the act of crafting and Plath’s narrative of confinement and rebellion. The process of assembling disparate elements into a cohesive whole allowed me to reflect on Esther Greenwood’s internal struggle to construct an identity beyond the rigid confines of societal expectations. By immersing myself in the physical act of carving the linocut, arranging the collage, and typesetting the quotation, I engaged directly with Plath’s themes, experiencing firsthand the tension between self-expression and a lack of control over the outcome. As a medium and a metaphor, collage powerfully underscores the novel’s critique of the restrictive roles imposed on women while simultaneously offering a space for redefinition and reclamation. The Wars Within serves as both a tribute to Plath’s work and an exploration of the enduring struggle for autonomy and self-definition, demonstrating how the concept of making fosters understanding and provokes meaningful dialogue. Through this project, I not only came to understand the timeless relevance of Plath’s far-reaching critique but also recognized the transformative potential of crafting as an act of resistance.
Carried Stories / "The Song of Achilles"
This series of linocut prints and blocks represents the act of retelling and reinterpretation as undertaken by Madeline Miller in The Song of Achilles. Each print depicts themes or scenes from the novel, each on a different type of “urn” or carrying device. The series aims to depict how stories are a method of carrying stories physically and through space, allowing readers to give them new life.
Three Cups of Tea / "Under the Whispering Door"
I combined both letterpress and linocut techniques to create this piece. Both art forms use ink and paper to create impressions. My final piece relied on formatting the quotation’s text on the letterpress first. I chose 24-point Tiffany font for the quotation because it first appears in the novel handwritten on a chalkboard (Klune 44). Located above the quotation is an image of my hand-carved linocut of a teacup on a plate decorated with intricate leaves. On the teacup is an elk’s outline, which is a symbol used throughout Under the Whispering Door to represent death. Using an ink roller, I applied black ink to the surface of the linoleum block then carefully laid the paper down onto the inked surface and applied direct pressure. This piece is meant to reflect the careful attention to detail that Klune practiced when developing character relationships within his novel. KYRA HETHERINGTON ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: In T.J. Klune’s fifth standalone novel, Under the Whispering Door, the author explores concepts of death and grief while reflecting on what it means to be human. The protagonist, Wallace, is initially depicted as a coldhearted “monster” (9), and his ex-wife describes him at his funeral as a man who was “obstinate, foolhardy, and cared only for himself” (19). When Wallace arrives at a teashop that acts as a waypoint for “those who have left one life in preparation for another” (55), he notices a chalkboard that reads: The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you are family. (44) This quotation outlines Wallace’s growth throughout the novel and defines the quality of the relationships he fosters because “when you take tea with someone, it’s intimate and quiet” (326). The quotation in my print is an anchor point for Wallace’s character growth. However, it is essential to note that the quote does not originate from this novel. Frequently, it is attributed to Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time (2006), which was partially the inspiration for the title of this print. In Under the Whispering Door, Hugo, the ferryman, informs Wallace that it is “a Balti quote” (Klune 326). It is difficult to find an origin source for this Pakistani proverb; it serves as a reminder of the importance of slowing down to prioritize relationships and others. It is not solely about drinking tea. Instead, offering tea is important for those with few resources because it is a small sacrifice made to show hospitality to strangers and honour to friends. I attributed the quote to T.J. Klune in the “Three Cups of Tea” print to focus on the quotation’s physical appearance in the novel. The quotation “written in spiky and slanted letters” (44) on the chalkboard in the teashop appears in a different font in the physical text of the novel. My chosen font emulates the description of the letters as they appear handwritten, with a slanting, scratchy quality. By selecting the Tiffany letterpress font, I hoped that my print of the quotation would embody a personal, handwritten quality. The teacup block print above the quotation incorporates the whimsical quality of the hand-drawn “little deer and squirrels and birds on the chalkboard in green and blue chalk” (43) surrounding the quotation. The linocut image also serves as a reference to the broader theme of death in the novel, featuring a stag in the center to represent “the manager,” a character who appears in the form of a large stag with “flowers hanging from the antlers, their roots embedded into the velvet, blossoms in shades of ochre and fuchsia, cerulean and scarlet, canary and magenta” (261). This character is a “grand thing that oversees life and death, delegating the responsibilities to others” (267) and serves as a tool for forward momentum in the novel. The initial success of Under the Whispering Door was partially due to the popularity of T.J. Klune’s previous works and his ability as a queer author to portray positive queer stories accurately. The novel was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and featured on “Buzzfeed’s Best Books of 2022” due to its later release in September 2021. Regarding critical reception, this novel tends to fly under the radar. The novel appears to have a small but passionate fanbase admiring that it “is a tender story that nimbly touches on the many facets and stages of grief without feeling too saccharine” (Quinn 2023). However, it is considered one of Klune’s lesser-known works. As a contemporary fantasy novel, Under the Whispering Door is didactic, and the story’s moral is transparent. The characters’ interactions provide a humorous respite from otherwise complex subjects (grief and death), and, overall, the novel offers a straightforward message about the value of life and time. The final form of the linocut block and letterpress print reflects the novel’s characteristic simplicity while concurrently representing the time and energy required to produce art—in any format. “Letterpress is the oldest of the traditional printing techniques” (Britannica) and the foundation for the modern-day digital printing presses that produced the physical copies of Under the Whispering Door. To print the quotation on paper, I needed to assemble the text letter by letter, line by line, with small lead pieces to create an ink-bearing surface. In practice, this process is like writing a novel, where each word is thoughtfully written, carefully checked, and evaluated before going to print. Producing a contemporary quotation through a 15th-century art form highlights the consistent nature of human progress that still relies on previous technologies and understandings. Without the practice of the letterpress, there would be no modern novel as we know it. Making the linocut block portion of the print image was similar to process of letterpress printing. Artists began using linoleum as a medium to produce relief prints starting in the 1890s (Fowler). Before this time, artists used wood blocks or stone, but the mediums were unwieldy and difficult to carve. I used a smooth, flexible linoleum and the necessary carving tools, which I easily ordered from Amazon, to create the image. Carving the linoleum still takes time and effort, but the accessibility of the craft makes the process much smoother (and safer) than in earlier eras. The design of the final inked image is deceptively simple, but the process of creating it from start to finish took upwards of four hours. This time included drawing, carving, and quick touch-ups to avoid transferring unwanted ink portions onto the page. Through the creation of my “Three Cups of Tea” print, I reflected on how similar the processes of writing a novel, carving linoleum, and assembling letters can be. All three crafts require an intense dedication to detail and demand time, patience, and effort from the artist. All three art forms appear deceptively simple, and it can be easy to disregard the work required to produce them. The final print version of “Three Cups of Tea” took me 10 hours of active work to complete and could be read and understood in a handful of minutes. Similarly, novels take countless hours to create and finish (including editing and printing time). Creating this print helped me connect the character development in Klune’s novel to my understanding of contemporary forms. While the final product can make the process seem deceptively simple, there is typically a tremendous amount of physical and mental energy required to produce something that leaves a lasting impression.