The Big Idea

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Angela Elsworth Pantaloncini (Hilma) detail
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The Big Idea

Deeds Not Words: Women Working for Change

January 8 - April 16, 2021

Coinciding with the centennial of ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Deeds Not Words celebrates the many ways—both seen and unseen—that women have worked for social change. The project takes its title from the slogan of British suffragettes who, like many suffragists in America, decided that direct action rather than rhetoric alone was necessary to secure women’s suffrage. The project looks back at some surprising history (including Idaho’s decision to grant women the vote in 1896) and explores the way women give voice to power today.


image: Angela Ellsworth, Pantaloncini: Group IV, The Ten Largest No. 6, Ahead (Hilma), (Detail) 2020, 40,180 pearl corsage pins, colored dress pins, fabric, steel, courtesy the artist


Museum Exhibition

The visual arts exhibition includes work made in response to the history of women activating for social change. It looks at different ways women have fought for suffrage, dress reform, civil rights and economic equality.


SVMoA has commissioned Portland-based artist Pat Boas to create an installation in response to the history of women’s suffrage in the United States, with a focus on Idaho and the American West. It includes a new body of paintings, artist-designed wallpaper and a broadside featuring excerpts from a 19th-century speech given in support of women’s suffrage in Idaho that visitors may take home with them. The installation honors the women who worked for the right to use their voices at the ballot box.

The exhibition also features two sculptures from artist Angela Ellsworth’s series Pantaloncini. Inspired by bloomers, Ellsworth crafts these works with fabric, steel and tens of thousands of pearl corsage pins and colored dress pins. The sculptures allude to the history of dress reform, which freed women from confining garments like corsets, and feature patterns that refer to the early modernist works of Emma Kunz and Hilma af Klint, innovative artists who received little attention in their lifetimes.

With support from a Guggenheim Fellowship, artist Elena del Rivero has produced a series of suffrage flags celebrating the centennial of the 19th Amendment. SVMoA joins institutions around the country in flying these flags, which are modeled on dishtowels and refer to the public work women undertook in pursuit of suffrage as well as their private activism within the domestic sphere. The exhibition also includes del Rivero’s Domestic Landscapes, works on ledger paper featuring abstract patterns made with ink, thread, spices, coffee and other materials of domestic life.

For several years, the artist Lava Thomas has been making large drawings of women who have worked for racial justice. The exhibition includes Thomas’s portrait of the abolitionist Harriet Tubman and two portraits made from the mugshots of women who participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 1950s, Audrey Belle Langford and Ida Mae Caldwell. Thomas’s portraits honor women who risked criminal prosecution, imprisonment or worse while advocating for the rights of Black Americans.
 
Also included are reproductions of drawings that the architect Alice Constance Austin made in the early 20th century as a member of Llano del Rio, a socialist intentional community in southern California. Austin believed architecture could activate social change, and she envisioned Llano del Rio as an egalitarian city of kitchenless houses that would free women from their work in the home and allow them to pursue any profession they chose. Alongside Austin’s drawings are reproductions of photographs of daily life at Llano del Rio and a selection of artist Kim Stringfellow’s photographs of what remains of the failed community today.

The Deeds Not Words BIG IDEA project was made possible, in part, through generous support from The Ford Family Foundation and Jeri L. Wolfson. The conversation with Azar Nafisi has been generously sponsored by Jane P. Watkins and with additional support from Marcia and Don Liebich.

Associated BIG IDEA events

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Lectures & Talks, Exhibition Tours & Events
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Pat Boas, Sentinels (shield), 2020

LIVESTREAM ARTIST TALK with PAT BOAS

Hosted by Courtney Gilbert

6:00 PM

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Film
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Beyond the Visible - Hilma af Klint

FILM: Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (First Showing)

4:00 PM

Magic Lantern Cinemas
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Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
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Angela Ellsworth, Pantaloncini - Backwards Hilma

(SESSION 2) EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: Deeds Not Words

Women Working for Change

5:30 PM

The Museum
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Film
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Beyond the Visible - Hilma af Klint

FILM: Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

Magic Lantern Cinemas
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For Sama Film Screening

FILM: For Sama (First Showing)

4:00 PM

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For Sama Film Screening

FILM: For Sama (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

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Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu, 1928, oil on canvas, collection of Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA

LIVESTREAM ART HISTORY LECTURE: Making Art, Making Change: Women Artists in Latin America

with Courtney Gilbert

6:00 PM

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Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. film screening

FILM: Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. (First Showing)

4:00 PM

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Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. film screening

FILM: Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

Magic Lantern Cinemas
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Lectures & Talks
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Let There Be: A Conversation with Alan Pesky, Sarah Sentilles, Anna Fidler and Heather Watkins

LIVESTREAM TALK "Let There Be:" A Conversation

with Alan Pesky, Sarah Sentilles, Anna Fidler and Heather Watkins

6:00 PM

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Film
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Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am Film Screening

FILM: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Hailey Screening)

7:00 PM

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Featured Speaker Lecture: A Livestream Conversation with Azar Nafisi

FEATURED SPEAKER: A Livestream Conversation with Azar Nafisi

presented in partnership with The Community Library

7:00 PM

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93Queen Film Screening

FILM: 93Queen (First Showing)

4:00 PM

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Elena del Rivero

(SESSION 1) EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: Deeds Not Words

Women Working for Change

4:30 PM

The Museum
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Exhibition Tours & Events, Lectures & Talks
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Elena del Rivero

(SESSION 2) EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: Deeds Not Words

Women Working for Change

5:30 PM

The Museum
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Film
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93Queen Film Screening

FILM: 93Queen (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

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Faith Ringgold, The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles, 1991, Acrylic on canvas with fabric border, 74” x 80”

LIVESTREAM ART HISTORY LECTURE: Breaking Traditions, Modernist & Postmodernist Artists as Activists

with Kristin Poole

6:00 PM

Livestream from Home
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Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am Film Screening

FILM: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (First Showing)

4:00 PM

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Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am Film Screening

FILM: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

SOLD OUT! FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 1)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

2:30 PM

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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

SOLD OUT! FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 2)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

3:30 PM

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Sarah Sentilles

CANCELLED: ADULT CLASS: A Thousand Words—Guided Writing About the Art You See

with Sarah Sentilles

6:00 PM

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Artemisia Gentileschi, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1615-17, Oil on Canvas, Collection of National Gallery, London

LIVESTREAM ART HISTORY LECTURE: Two Women Artists of the Baroque Era

with Elaine French

6:00 PM

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Billie Film Screening

FILM: Billie (First Showing)

4:00 PM

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Billie Film Screening

FILM: Billie (Second Showing)

7:00 PM

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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 1)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

2:30 PM

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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 2)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

3:30 PM

The Museum
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Youth & Families
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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 1)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

2:30 PM

The Museum
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Youth & Families
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Afternoon Art Family Program presented by Sun Valley Museum of Art

FAMILY PROGRAM: Afternoon Art (SESSION 2)

(for families & kids ages 5–12)

3:30 PM

The Museum
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MugshotPortraits_AudreyBelleLangford

(SESSION 1) EVENING EXHIBITION TOUR: Deeds Not Words

Women Working for Change

4:30 PM

The Museum
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