ARTIST STATEMENT
“Everything old is new again” means that things that were once popular or common will eventually return to relevance. It suggests a cyclical nature of trends and ideas, where what was once considered outdated can be rediscovered and embraced in a new context. This phrase is often used to describe the return of old fashions, styles, or even historical events and problems that seem to repeat themselves. This saying can also be applied to historical events or social problems, suggesting that humanity tends to repeat past mistakes or face similar challenges in different eras. According to BBC News on May 1, 2025, US President Donald Trump said US children will maybe “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” as he addressed possible shortages due to tariffs on China during a cabinet meeting. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally,” he added. The president celebrated the first 100 days of his second term that week and had asked for more time on the US economy as it contracted for the first time in three years, stoking recession fears. Today, the Dow closed sharply lower on Monday, July 7, as Trump announced hefty tariffs against Japan, South Korea and other trading partners. This photomontage depicts myself in late summer of 1959 in front of my rural Nebraska farmhouse, when I was 5 years old, holding my two Christmas dolls. Indeed, history does repeat itself in the gender-based oppression of the new brutish Trump regime.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
RHONDA URDANG (nee Thomas born 1953 Wahoo, NE) is an interdisciplinary artist who has been inspired by the intersectional feminist and peace movements. She has had a varied and interesting career since the early 1970s. Rhonda has worked as a typesetter, museum gallery attendant, apprentice dot etcher and journeyman color separation artist on high-fashion catalogs in the graphic arts industry in Omaha and Phoenix. Since leaving academia, the patriarchy and pseudoscience behind, her ingenuity has flourished. Her visionary art responds to historical and world events, when painting and the female artist are still being diminished, silenced, marginalized, and erased. Rhonda is interested in making art that challenges the narrative. The feminist art movement has argued that re-appropriation and re-signification is a cross-cultural process by which disregarded or oppressed individuals can reclaim artifacts that were previously used in a disparaging manner and uplift them in a way that brings about socio-political empowerment for under-represented womyn. She stays true to her instincts and is always authentic. Her thought-provoking works have been shown in local, regional, national, and international shows in 42 states, She has lived and worked in Northern Arizona spanning four decades where stargazing has become a crucial aspect of her world on the Colorado Plateau. Rhonda continues to push boundaries with her artwork, inspiring meaningful dialogue and social change. For more than one decade, Flagstaff Feminist Art Studio has championed the work of countless artists, regardless of gender, while providing a platform for creative expression, social discourse, and femme empowerment.
© Rhonda Urdang