Hockey Dresses by Sandra Brown. Mixed Media, 2011
Hockey is Canada’s baby, the beloved spawn of our long, freezing, godforsaken winters. We’ve all grown up with hockey in some form, and Canadians especially understand its distinct language. I am interested in how language and symbols are used in our society and how they permeate gender politics. We can see how the choice of National Hockey League team names and symbols reveal certain sentiments, like a pride about civic and regional history and identity, an honouring of local industry and labour, identification with local geography, climate and the natural environment. It’s a language about the exaltation of male athletic excellence, strength, power, pride, violence and the need to compete, as seen in symbols like thrashers, sabres, hurricanes, flames, avalanches, predators, senators, lightening, sharks, bruins…etc. Hockey speak permeates all aspects of our culture with terms like, team play, key player, game face, timeout, take one for the team, blow the whistle on someone, etc. used especially in the workplace and in politics. As a woman I struggle to articulate what it means to be female, innately, on feminine terms, because women of my generation, who grew up during the 1960’s, could only see ourselves through a very narrow male lens. As a female artist, I pose the challenge…. how can I articulate my experience in this female body, and how can I communicate that experience and be heard and understood in this male dominated culture? Borrowing the familiar language and symbols of the NHL, and mixing it up with some humour, vintage dresses, and mixed mediums, I’ve created a series of hockey dresses and related memorabilia that attempt to give honour, exaltation and a visual presence to the dissimilar culture of women and what it feels like to be in a female body in this part of the world at this time in history.
I was first drawn to this project idea by my own personal experiences as a young athlete. I wore many team uniforms for various sports. Later in life, after experiencing the birth of my first child, I felt like I finished a sporting event, sweating and in pain having pushed my body beyond its limits, but also euphoric with accomplishment. In my experience as a stay-at- home mother of two, I engage daily in physically arduous work with little societal reward or recognition. My mind seems to flip into athletic challenge mode whenever I am participating in something physically challenging, like long hours on my feet, or the strength required carrying squirming children and groceries at the same time, or getting through a day on very little sleep. Anyone who’s camped in a tent with small children for a weekend would come to see it as an extreme sport. I felt that since women participate in physically gruelling events like these daily, it would be humorous to create uniforms, teams and athletic glory associated with these practices. I wanted to honour all the invisible work of women with the same fervour that we give to professional sports. Some of the pieces also address bodily experiences I’ve had that are common to women like menarche, pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause. These dresses honour the feminine energies associated with the nurturing of children, women’s work, environmental healing, and female dominated professions like nursing and teaching. I am trying to communicate what I value as a member of the female gender, and articulate how much of our time and our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical energy is spent on these activities.
