an artist reaches out to her generation
misty k. ericson

As the flame dims and extinguishes over the lights of so many of our founding mothers these days, it signals a time for the ushering in of a new generation of young women, artists, and activists, who will lend their voices to the critical issues of our time: women of vision, and of conscience, who posses an innate rebelliousness that is the hallmark of feminist leadership.

One such young woman is San Francisco based photographer Denise Parsons. There is perhaps no other single artist on the rise whose work poses as strong an inquiry into Post WWII feminist thought and activism and its impact on the generations of women that has followed. Subtle, yet provocative, Parsons' images are a commentary on the social constructs of femininity in the modern age of the “liberated” woman.

Born and raised in Illinois, Parsons was a Psychology major at Arizona State University. Following graduation in 1990, she returned home. Her interest in photography developed in the late 90s after enrolling in a semester elective course at Chicago's Columbia College, where she found the freedom that came with the invitation to envision her surroundings in a different way a welcome surprise to the rigid, analytical style of her science curriculum. “It was an escape,” she says, “It forced me to look at the world in a new way. I felt I had been given new sight.”

She found this ability to withdraw from the everyday particularly useful in coping with the pressures of her budding career as an executive recruiter. Following her graduation from Columbia in 1999, Parsons accepted a position with a firm in San Francisco. Photography continued to play a significant role in her life, serving as a quiet retreat from the strenuous hours and backhanded office politics so typical of corporate environments. Eventually tiring of the industry, Parsons made the decision to leave the recruiting business behind and pursue her art full-time. She enrolled in the San Francisco Arts Institute as a Fine Arts graduate student in 2004.

Free from the pressures once exerted upon her by her corporate job, Parsons struggled to find meaning and purpose in her artwork. A chance encounter during a lighting shoot provided new focus.

“I found her intriguing,” she says of the porcelain figure that would begin her study of women and feminine identity. “Her legs were broken and she just looked liked she was saying, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’” Shooting in a private home, Parsons says the anonymity of the surroundings allowed her the freedom to ponder the possibilities of the figurine's history. This ultimately led to questions about the stagnant roles women often take in society—particularly mature women—and how those roles develop.

With renewed energy and purpose, Parsons rummaged through San Francisco's Mission District shops in search of other figures for study. “I was afraid of becoming known as the doll lady,” she says, laughing, “but there was something about their expressions that captivated me. I was drawn to them.” The dolls began to take on human personas as Parsons related to the emotions she saw revealed in their molded faces and paint-chipped bodies. She says it was the “weight of femininity,” the idea that one must continually submit oneself to the processes of maintaining and beautifying, that became the focus of interest. To be sure, the subjects of many of her photographs are damaged or tired-looking figures, which Parsons says is her attempt at commenting on the socially accepted standards for being a “woman.”

“I just don't understand,” she says. “You have to keep doing this, and you have to keep doing that: What's it all for?”

Her work titled, Remember When (2005) strikes at this and other common stereotypes. A layer of thick makeup and eyelash extensions hang like a mask over downcast eyes, while a headscarf wraps gently over a perfectly set up do. A spot of red set against matronly cheeks marks the forlorn downturn of a mouth frozen, as if from a lifetime of forced forgetting.

The juxtaposition of the perfectly manicured features to the figure's empty stare alludes to the incongruous nature of the beauty myth, and implores us as viewers to question the very roots from which we define femininity.

In Wear Pink AND Be Taken Seriously (2005), Parsons investigates the conflicting images of women in the workplace. Whereas the power suit of the 80s seemed to signal the ascension of women to a long-awaited position of empowerment, the unexpected backlash of the 90s hailed women's quest for a life outside the home as the source of failing marriages and the general dissolution of moral values in American society. This resulted in a return to a softer, more “feminine” appearance for women.

“But what does this mean for women's credibility in the workplace?” Parsons asks, an air of frustration and concern taking over her warm and comfortable smile. “Have we become too comfortable? Are we regressing?”

Not everyone, however, is so easily convinced of such a crisis. In fact, it was Parsons' husband, Chris, who first questioned her assumptions. “He's much more Gestalt than me,” she says. “He said, ‘How do you know everyone else feels that way?’” To eliminate any measure of doubt, she developed a survey designed to get an idea of what “liberated” women were really feeling.

Distributed to a number of friends and acquaintances in the United States, as well as to a sampling of women in Europe, the survey consisted of five questions: 1) How do you define yourself? 2) How do you define femininity? 3) Which historical events do you feel most influenced our ideas about femininity? 4) Would you define yourself as feminine? 5) Name the top three things about you that are feminine.

The results, she says, were shocking, with a vast majority of women exhibiting difficulty in formulating a definition for femininity. There was an equally disturbing trend with women's uneasiness in identifying themselves as feminine. Some women excluded themselves completely, citing shortcomings like failures at becoming a mother; or, conversely, for being a stay-at-home mother not earning a living outside the home; and some for having jobs in traditionally male fields. “They read like apologies,” Parsons says.

There were a handful of respondents, however, who seemed to have moved beyond the need or concern for constructs. Parsons says the responses from women in Europe suggested a higher level of comfort in both providing a definition for femininity, as well as with self-identification as feminine. “Their answers were longer and much more developed.”

Other interesting findings included the tendency to associate femininity with ideals of courage and strength, despite the conflict presented by descriptions of diminutive physical stature as a standard, and the overwhelming influence accorded a mother's personal style and opinion. Parsons, who was raised by her father, admits that her relationship with her own mother helped shape her ideas about feminine identity. “I admired her classic sense of beauty,” she says. “I wanted to be like her.” The truth, she concedes, is that she didn't have an interest in dolls and that her greatest aspiration was to beat a boy. “Being a woman,” she says, “should be anything.”

Parsons latest work is part of a new exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute's Diego Rivera Gallery. I Want to Feel Clean is a compilation of raw video footage clips shot in the privacy of her very own bathroom. Through a series of random inquiries made while bathing, she shares her innermost feelings and thought processes.