Crenshaw House art show showcases variety of perspectives

Alex Trihias

Contributing Writer

This past Monday, VCU’s Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies held an art opening at the Crenshaw House on Franklin Street to display art that portrayed a resistance to “institutionalized systems of violence and oppression.”

The first level of the Crenshaw House was filled with VCU students, faculty and others in the VCU community who contributed their writing and artwork to the cause. The artwork ranged from the representational to the purely abstract, with photographs portraying the fight against the war on women, as well as self-portraits. A quilt displaying the words “you deserve better” greeted visitors at the door.

Melody Milleker, an art education student at VCU, was among the many artists who participated in the event. Milleker described her artwork as “an ink illustration of hare skeletons trapped in swirls of pink lines and sand,” entitled “No Man’s Land.”

“The piece I made for the opening has a lot more to deal with my struggles trying to find myself as a woman in a society that sends so many mixed signals about what I should be and do,” Milleker said. “My artwork for me is very cathartic, and I feel that my best work comes from my worst experiences.”

Some of the writers took the liberty to put up pictures of tattoos they had gotten on their bodies. These writers then told the story of what the tattoo means to them and why they got it. The artists who participated in the show came from a variety of different artistic backgrounds, but they all came together for the same message.

The writers also came from different backgrounds, displaying poetry, short stories and letters. The majority of the writing was displayed in a large room where the artists, writers, department majors, faculty and visitors sat to mingle with each other. The poetry ranged from inspirational to sad to happy with different different forms of poetry. The short stories spoke of various personal experiences, such as tattoos or a person who helped the writer in the past.

The letters were written to several different recipients, including past lovers, parents and inanimate objects. One particularly interesting letter was addressed to a bird that laid its nest on a wreath on someone’s door. Another letter was addressed to the writer’s mother, thanking her for all she has done.

There was also a table of shirts, patches, underwear and other articles being sold with a graphic of a uterus. The proceeds from these items go to “the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project to help low income people pay for abortions, abortion care, counseling, transportation to clinics and childcare during procedures,” according to the company’s Tumblr page.