February 3, 2010

Mary and J.D. 2010 This piece is a portrait of a friend who is an astrophysicist. She stands atop the ladder tower alongside Mary Poppins. They are putting gingerbread stars back in the sky, which is an image from the book by PL Travers. Periodically in my work I examine images of powerful women in children’s literature: my last examination of this kind was of the female protagonist in the song, “she’ll be coming round the mountain”. I generate the imagery intuitively, and look for connections afterwards: in this case, my friend saw the piece and told me stories of The Computers, women who worked at the turn of the 20th century doing calculations for male astrophysicists at major institutions. Major advances in the field of astrophysics can be attributed to work and research done by The Computers, who were barred from more powerful researcher positions.

Mary and J.D. 2010

This piece is a portrait of a friend who is an astrophysicist. She stands atop the ladder tower alongside Mary Poppins. They are putting gingerbread stars back in the sky, which is an image from the book by PL Travers. Periodically in my work I examine images of powerful women in children’s literature: my last examination of this kind was of the female protagonist in the song, “she’ll be coming round the mountain”. I generate the imagery intuitively, and look for connections afterwards: in this case, my friend saw the piece and told me stories of The Computers, women who worked at the turn of the 20th century doing calculations for male astrophysicists at major institutions.
Major advances in the field of astrophysics can be attributed to work and research done by The Computers, who were barred from more powerful researcher positions.