Opening Reception/ popup show on 10/7, 6-8 p.m.

Satomi is a contemporary art jewelry maker as well as creates drawings, printing, and performances. 

(University of Iowa, MFA Jewelry and MetalArts 2006) 

Satomi Kawai was born and grew up in Japan, where a women’s virtue has been modesty, obedience, and harmonizing with her family and society. When she moved to the US, she found new opportunities to examine and explore the qualities of womanhood, including physical, mental, emotional, and psychological layers as well as muscular appearances. The change in the external environment and time added flexibility to her conceptualization of femininity. Her experiences sparked curiosity: did others have similar transformations after moving to the USA. Satomi is exploring not only her personal perception but also other women’s perception as a woman.  She creates wearable objects, drawings, painting, printing, and performances. She has exhibited her artwork nationally (Cedar Rapids, Chicago, New York) and internationally (Netherland, Switzerland, Germany.)   

Instagram: satominart

Website: satomikawai.com

Satomi’s responses to seven women’s interview clip consist of two parts. 

The first part is the 7 pieces of body adornments (brooches and necklace forms) from the “Rooted” series. Rooted is a metaphor for their life: they were born in their mother country, have moved to a new environment, have adjusted themselves, and have been developing each in their way. She has seen the way that they’ve become better people and contribute to society. 

The second part is in the form of a short performance, titled “For a Better Place,” and performed by “DS MOVES,” a performance unit with Douglas Baker.  Satomi’s voice was recorded with her word choices from 7 interviewees and her thoughts on their life experiences. Then Douglas manipulated the recorded audio with his own creativity. 

In this collaborative performance, Satomi and Douglas wear their original garments: Satomi is a representation of the 7 women and Douglas is a messenger to send the 7 women’s voices to the society. 

Douglas is a professional dance accompanist.  He is currently employed at the University of Iowa Department of Dance and Community Dance School.

(University of Iowa, BA in Piano and Japanese Language 2015)

I had two main considerations when creating the soundscape of “For a Better Place.” 

The first was that there is often a lot of accompanying “noise” when we, as a society, try to tackle complex topics.  The topic of gender expression and, by extension, womanhood have been in my mind for some time. Someone’s relationship with gender can be labyrinthian, and it can also be simple, but it’s always personal. It’s for this reason, among others, that Satomi’s voice makes up the entirety of the audio.  

The second consideration was translating just how much of an impression the interviews had on Satomi.  When she relays the stories of all these women, about their inspirations and aspirations, you can hear the impact they’ve made on her. The echoes in the audio represent the idea of “resonating.” Conversations that stick with someone. Memories that float in and out. Thoughts that get stuck on repeat, and all things which take root in someone’s mind.

NOTES: Douglas is Satomi's performance collaborator  as a performance unit, "DS MOVES." 

Janis is a writer, editor, and educator  (University of Iowa, MFA English/Writers' Workshop 2008)

 Janis Bultman is the author of Legacies: Interviews with Masters of Photography from Darkroom Photography Magazine, a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of 2018.

Her work has appeared in Forbes, Rolling Stone Press, American Photographer, The Sun, San Jose Studies, Pacific Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a recipient of a New Jersey Arts Council Fellowship for Fiction and a Pushcart Prize nomination. 

Website: janisbultman.com

This is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress called One More Song About Moving Along that explores some of the topics discussed during the Women: hood Second Edition interviews including marriage, parenthood, divorce, domestic violence, sexual politics, class, entitlement, and faith.

EVERYONE has a story, and this one is mine. I’m getting older, and I haven’t achieved the things I believed I would achieve. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me. I’ve lived a good life, and I’ve never wanted for anything material. When I was poor, I was poor by choice, and when I wanted to stop being poor, I met and married Danny. 

      Danny came from money. When I met him, he was self-employed, but then he got a good job and then he got another, better one with a big financial firm in Manhattan, and we settled down in a starter house in an all-white suburb of New Jersey. We had two daughters. All my closest friends were new mothers. A few years later, the big financial firm sent us to live in London where we became members of a group of expatriates that included some of the wealthiest people in the world.

       During the brief periods when I blame something for my failure to achieve what I believed I would achieve, I blame two things. First, all the grown-ups in the all-white middle-class California suburb where I grew up told me I could be anything I wanted to be, and I believed them. But it wasn’t true, and as my life played out, I’ve had to accept that in many ways, women are secondary to men in this unfair world, and it’s a genuine limitation.

        The second is a corollary of the first with a wider sweep: Logic doesn’t always prevail. It should, but it doesn’t, and it wasn’t something I’d encountered much in my privileged life until after we moved from London to Portland, and I ended my eighteen-year marriage to Danny and struck out on my own again. The illogic I encountered—especially in Family Court and as a single mother—never ceased to flummox me. It didn’t make sense. It was wrong. I wanted to fix it. I fought against it, and sometimes I prevailed, which is an achievement I hadn’t anticipated and one of the reasons I’m telling my story—albeit from a certain place of acceptance.   

Dani creates feminist objects, including ceramics and paintings.    

(University of Iowa, BFA with Honors in Ceramics 2008)

Dani Sigler is originally from the East Coast and currently resides amongst the fields of opportunity, in Iowa City, Iowa. She creates feminist objects, and she is a reproductive justice activist, and can be contacted directly for inquires about purchasing her art.

Instagram: BigRedClit

website: www.danisigler.com

This series of watercolor paintings explores topics discussed during the Women: hood, 2nd Edition interviews. Topics include abortion, education, pollination, borders, leadership, and strength.

Vero is a visual artist, musician, curator, and educator.  (University of Iowa, MA Art History 2014)

Vero Rose Smith now lives and works in Chicago, IL but has deep ties to Iowa City, Iowa, where she earned her first graduate degree and where she taught and curated for nearly five years post-graduation. She pokes at the barrier between the quantitative and the qualitative through data-driven paintings, installations, and performances. Please contact the artist directly for purchase inquiries.

Instagram: VeroRose.Smith

Website: verorosesmith.com 

We can never truly know the experience of another. Active listening is a form of translation, of synthesizing someone else’s words into your own experience of the world. While watching the interviews for women: hood 2nd Edition and editing the transcripts for the videos, I kept returning to thoughts of shared experiences through shared language. I wondered how I might invite the words of those interviewed to move through and infuse me - heart, mind, and body. I followed this thought literally and transcribed each interview by hand, looping words on top of words until a dense thicket of pattern emerged.

Maria is a Chicana poet, community activist, and amateur rabble-rouser.  (University of Iowa, College of Law, JD, 1983)

Maria Cano Bribriesco is a proud Chicana from Mercedes, Tejas.  She has a law degree from the University of Iowa.  She is a retired government attorney.  She is a community activist and a rabble rouser.  She ran as a Democrat for the Iowa House of Representatives and the Iowa State Senate in a solid, red district.  She is a Mother, Grandmother, Sister, Aunt and Wife who loves to dance, garden and be with people. 

 I attended public schools in South Texas, in a small town that prided itself with having a Confederate Air Force base.  I wrote “Nuestro Despertar” (“Our Awakening”) from a deep desire and sense of urgency to express my anger when I learned about “manifest destiny”.  I needed to tell that I and others in my situation can learn … become aware of the psychological oppression of racism and that we CAN break free! My optimism and belief in the people’s power to change our lives for a better future had to shine through.  I could not ignore my feelings and had to write.