A Yellow Rose Project
A Yellow Rose Project: Photographs by 100+ Women in Response to the 19th Amendment
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
1070 Bannock Street, Denver, CO 80204
Curators: Meg Griffiths, Assistant Professor of Photography at Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas, and Frances Jakubek, Director of Exhibitions and Operations at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City.
October 9-November 21, 2020
Admission: Free
Review by Mary Voelz Chandler
When you walk into the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC) to see the current exhibition, the gallery radiates with sunshine and is filled with photographs that tell an intimate story as part of the centennial celebrating the 19th Amendment.
Lisa McCarty, Suffrage Buttons 1920 /2020, unique cyanotype prints on 100 pound archival paper, varying sizes. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Lisa McCarty.
A pedestal offers each visitor the choice to take a button, which replicates those that promoted suffrage before women had the vote. Photographer Lisa McCarty created the pins for a project titled Suffrage Buttons 1920/2020. The one I chose says: “IF you don’t VOTE don’t GRIPE.”
How much more clear could that be, especially in 2020? It has been four long, tumultuous years since 2016, which opened a floodgate of art responding to the presidential election’s outcome. Locally, organizers of Pink Progression created three exhibitions in 2018 and two large-scale exhibitions in 2020. This year’s shows had different focuses, first as “Coalesce” and second as “Collaborations.” Works in both exhibitions were at times deliciously flamboyant, ranging from delicate to massive.
A Yellow Rose Project: Photographs by 100+ Women in Response to the 19th Amendment, the exhibition at CPAC, takes a different tack while reflecting a wealth of information. Themes include the fight against inequality and gender rules, and the importance of women’s roles and history through the ages. The curators built on this title in reference to the Tennessee General Assembly, which was the final state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and the yellow rose that became an emblematic symbol during this hard-fought debate.
Rania Matar, Kayla, 2020, archival inkjet print, 24 x 30 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Rania Matar.
A brief history of events is as follows. The Tennessee governor had called a special session in the summer of 1920. The process went on for days, because the vote bounced back and forth. As expected, the legislators were all men. Suffragists offered yellow roses to legislators who wanted to wear them on their lapel, signifying they were voting “yes”; those who voted “no” wore red roses. Apparently, it was called the War of the Roses, and at first, it hinged on one man whose mother had asked him to vote for women’s suffrage, though the vote still swung back and forth. Eventually, the final vote was totaled, and Tennessee was the 36th state on the right side of women’s suffrage to be part of the United States Constitution. [1]
That’s where the 19th Amendment began, but it had limitations. It took decades for Black women, Native American women, Asian women, and Latina women to gain voting rights. We celebrated the 19th Amendment on the centennial of August 18, 2020, yet we must remember that it was a beginning, certainly not a finale.
CPAC Executive Director and Curator Samantha Johnston made a good call when booking this exhibition. The images—more than 30—and the timing of the run-up to the 2020 election was perfect. The Yellow Rose Project curators—Meg Griffiths, Assistant Professor of Photography at Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas, and Frances Jakubek, Director of Exhibitions and Operations at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City—have created three iterations of the exhibit: at CPAC, the University of New Mexico, and Indiana University Bloomington.
After the back story, the works in the CPAC gallery focus on topics that reflect the artists’ interests in history, liberation, equity, freedom, shared power, the lives of women, and the rule of law applicable to all people in equal measure. With the information below, consider this a snapshot in time.
Katie Benjamin, Study 01, 2016, archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Katie Benjamin.
To begin, Katie Benjamin’s Study 01 focuses on a pink hand grenade, which seems perfect for our times right now, after many months of protests in 2020. Study 01 is pristine, carefully crafted, and presented in solitude. When the first women’s march was organized in early 2017, women knew they needed to speak out against power.
As mentioned earlier, Lisa McCarty has re-created buttons from the 19th and early 20th century, using 100lb archival paper and slogans printed with the cyanotype process. In Suffrage Buttons 1920/2020, each pin has a fastener on the back. McCarty learned that the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University reported that only 63.3 percent of eligible women say that they have voted. It is something to remember, as we all vote.
Patty Carroll, Flagged Down, 2020, archival inkjet print, 24 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Patty Carroll.
Katelyn Kopenhaver, Covered in Filth on the 4th of July, 2020, archival inkjet print, 24 x 30 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Katelyn Kopenhaver.
For a look at someone drowning in U.S. flags, Patty Carroll offers the photograph Flagged Down, which has numerous meanings. Do the flags lift us up, or drag us down? Rather than wrap up a person, Rania Matar creates the sense of serenity in Kayla, a woman dressed in yellow and holding a yellow rose. Never forgetting the reprehensible actions by Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged procurer Ghislaine Maxwell, artist Katelyn Kopenhaver packs a powerful punch in an image titled Covered in Filth on the 4th of July. In this image, a young woman has draped a large beach towel around her, with Epstein’s name scrawled on it.
Tami Bahat, Strung Along For Too Long, archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Tami Bahat.
Diane Meyer, Rochester, 2016, archival inkjet diptych of hand-embroidered photographs, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Art Center. ©Diane Meyer.
Harkening back to a century ago, Tami Bahat contributes an image titled Strung Along For Too Long. Button-up boots hang on a clothesline and present a view that reverts to a dark time in the past. Looking back, Diane Meyer offers Rochester, a diptych that presents the exterior and an interior of the home where Susan B. Anthony lived and worked, with overlaid text. Another historical reference portrays two women entering a building and both costumed as Rosie the Riveter. Titled To Be Heard, it radiates power and strength.
Nancy Baron, To Be Heard 5, archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Nancy Baron.
Susan Rosenberg Jones, Emily and Anne, archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Susan Rosenberg Jones
More subtle images included Susan Rosenberg Jones’ Emily and Anne, a married couple of two women living their lives. And a photograph from Hye-Ryoung Min’s series Yeonsoo focuses on a young niece at 7 years old who is learning about life and dealing with the future.
Hye-Ryoung Min, Untitled from the series Yeonsoo, archival inkjet print, 16 x 20 inches. Image courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. ©Hye-Ryoung Min.
A Yellow Rose Project at CPAC also includes a television monitor that shows the images from the other versions of the exhibit.
A visit to this exhibition is a quiet but not-so-quiet reflection of artistry, power, and grit. As 2020 comes to a close—a year that has been troubling and painful—the reminder of the power of art in this show does us good.
Mary Voelz Chandler writes about visual arts, architecture, and preservation. She held the position of art and architecture writer for many years at the former Rocky Mountain News in Denver. She has completed two editions of the Guide to Denver Architecture and was a co-author of the 2009 book Colorado Abstract with Westword critic, author, and historian Michael Paglia. Along with numerous awards for her writing, Chandler was honored by the Denver Art Museum in 2012 with the Contemporary Alliance “Key” Award, and received the AIA Colorado 2005 award for Contribution to the Built Environment by a Non-Architect.
[1] This saga was outlined in The New York Times in August by contributing opinion writer Margaret Renkl, who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/opinion/tennessee-19th-amendment.html.
