Nancy Morrow

42 Years/42 Jobs, Mix & Match, #1-20
mixed media on paper
55 x 39 in.

Having grown up a girl in the 60s and 70s in this country, and socialized to be a combination of the self-promoting and the self-sacrificing, I find myself at times walking a thin line between embracing and rejecting traditional gender roles. An exploration into the issues of gender and gender stereotyping, my work presents ideas through a layering and juxtaposition of images, both found and invented.

As a child I had a friend named Penny, Penny’s brother went by the name of Bucky. Their dad explained to Penny that they were named as such because “a girl’s worth a penny and a boy’s worth a buck. “42 Years/42 Jobs, Mix and Match” came about as a way to chronicle and pay homage to the many jobs I’ve had. In 2003, I turned 42 years old and realized that I could easily list at least 42 jobs I’d held, counting all part-time, free-lance, temporary and simultaneous employment. This life style is not necessarily uncommon to anyone in a creative field, but it occurred to me that as a woman in a creative field, I perhaps felt the effect of low wages more than my male counterparts.

Parodies of Freudian psychology, Greek mythology and popular culture lace their way through my autobiographical content. When I begin a piece, the meaning is often open. As I work, images are drawn, redrawn, covered up, and replaced with other images, mimicking the loops of self-editing in my mind.

My work is about self-definition on a personal level, but is relevant I feel, on a generation level.

© Nancy Morrow