Inside this month:
Staff Spotlight - Sena talks about her passion for photography, human rights and puppies!
Making Women Feel Beautiful - T&T VIP and Putney Local Melanie Daly shares her experience of cancer and recovery.
Phenomenal Females Leann takes a brief look at some truly inspiring women and their amazing achievements.
Review: Guerilla Girls
Who are these simian activists and what do they want?
Greetings T&T VIPs!
Welcome to our special March issue celebrating all things female! International Women’s Day, first held in 1909 is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the progress made and the distance left to travel towards a more equitable future for women in all walks of life.
I was always stunned that “back in the day” women were not allowed to vote. I learned all about Kate Sheppard (above) whose leadership and determination brought universal suffrage to New Zealand in 1893 – the first country in the world to do so.
This month the wonderful Leann St Clair has assembled an inspiring collection of women to share their experience, struggles and achievements. Thank you to everyone focused on improving the lives and opportunities for women and respecting the enormous contribution our mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters & daughters make to all of our lives.
RK March 2017
Staff Spotlight - Sena Aydin
I am originally Turkish, I moved in London over a year ago to improve my English and continue my education.
Initially it was a short-term plan but then I just loved London and decided to stay. I studied anthropology, so culture has always been a very interesting subject to me, I guess this is why I love London and working at Tried & True. You meet, greet, discover, work with people from all around the world and learn something new about their culture every day. Finally, London is a place that shows us we can all live together in peace and harmony.
Working at Tried & True has helped me not only meet different people and cultures giving me the chance to see the variety and the similarities among them, but also the chance to play with puppies which I adore!!
On my days off, I usually paint or go out to take photographs while recently I started volunteering for a charity helping asylum seekers and refugees. Human rights was always my concern especially after the eruption in the number of people seeking political asylum to different countries, having to leave everything behind in order to be able to build a new life. There was no way for me to see those people suffer like that and do nothing. Now I try to help refugee women in their English classes and also at workshops in order for them to adapt easier to a new way of life.
Last month, I had a chance to visit one of the refugee camps in Athens, Greece. I took some photos in there and decided that with every purchase of a photo, 25% of the purchase price will be donated to UNHCR. I hope that by selling my photos I’ll contribute to the organisation that helps refugees around the world, along with saving some money for my master’s degree which I’m planning to get by next year. If you like to help you can check the photos on: https://flic.kr/s/aHskVb3SGx or contact:
sena.aydinn@gmail.com
Making Women Feel Beautiful
By Melanie Daly
As a qualified make-up artist living in Putney, I offer all the usual make-up services for weddings, photo shoots and special occasions of every kind. And as a cancer survivor, I am particularly passionate about giving something special to fellow cancer patients. I am also a guest blogger giving make-up and beauty tips for the Breast Cancer Care charity and a regular make-up artist for the Look Good, Feel Better charity, which offers advice and workshops to women undergoing treatment.
Everyone has a story and here is mine.
It was in September 2008 when I found a lump in my breast, but because I was so healthy I did not for a split second think it was anything sinister.
Unfortunately that was not the case, and after a trip to the Royal Marsden hospital on the 15th October 2008, I was diagnosed with grade 3 breast cancer. It was a total shock as I had always been such a fit and healthy individual. But I believe that everything happens for a reason, even the dreaded Big C, and I strongly believe that in my case the reason was so that I could help others in the future.
Thankfully I have now been in remission from breast cancer for 8 years, but I still remember clearly how going through cancer treatment can take away your identity and leave you lacking in confidence because you just don't feel or look 'yourself' anymore. I was very fortunate to have had the skills to create the look of eyebrows and eyelashes that chemotherapy took away from me and to be able to contour my face when the drugs caused it to become bloated.
However, so many women and teenage girls going through chemotherapy do not have make-up artist skills and, sadly, spend this time not only dealing with life-saving treatment but also losing their self confidence, femininity and identity.
Once you have looked death in the eye, you can’t help but embrace life when you are given a second chance. Therefore it is extremely important to me to offer a unique one to one service for cancer patients, giving them the opportunity to learn the necessary skills in order to make themselves feel beautiful again.
I have created two special packages to allow those going through or having completed chemotherapy to regain confidence in their appearance. Both packages teach women and teenage girls the skills to apply their make-up, allowing them to gain valuable confidence whether they are returning to work or school after treatment or have a special occasion coming up for which they want to feel their best. Knowing that I have also been through cancer treatment myself, they will have the reassurance of knowing that I completely understand their worries and concerns. I would also encourage them to look at their skincare products and make-up with me during the session where I can show them how to achieve the look at home with their own products so they may continue cultivating the skills that help make them feel beautiful.
The details of these two packages and all my other services are on my website:
Remarkable Women - passionate, powerful and phenomenal females
In this proudly female-focused installment of the T&T newsletter, I set out to draw attention to women who have had remarkable lives and made notable impacts on our world. In the spirit of the bestselling novel and Oscar nominated film Hidden Figures, I hope to shed light on a handful of the hundreds of historic women who deserve to be in the spotlight. Here’s a list of passionate, powerful and phenomenal females, alike in their greatness and wondrously diverse in their legacies.
Edmonia Lewis was a groundbreaking sculptor of African-American and Native American descent who was the only black woman to participate and be recognized in the artistic mainstream at the end of the 19th century. She spent most of her career in Rome, Italy and was the first woman of her ancestry to achieve international fame in fine arts.
George Sand was the pseudonym for Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, a novelist and memoirist who started her own newspaper when the 1848 Revolution began. Her romantic affairs with artists such as pianist Frédéric Chopin, along with her smoking tobacco and wearing of men’s clothing in public, awarded her a scandalous reputation.
Maud Stevens Wagner performed in traveling circuses as an aerialist and contortionist and the first known female tattoo artist in the United States. She and her husband were two of the last artists to tattoo by hand and are credited with bringing the artistry of tattooing inland, away from coastal cities.
Sarla Thakral became the first Indian woman to fly an aircraft in 1936 after earning an aviation license at the age of 21. She accumulated over 1,000 hours of flying before becoming a painter, businesswoman and designer.
Josephine Baker was a dancer, singer and cabaret star in Paris after moving to France in the 1920s. She later renounced her U.S. citizenship despite being active in the American Civil Rights Movement. She was the first person of African descent to star in a major motion picture and become a world-famous entertainer.
Margaret Hamilton is an American computer scientist who was the lead software engineer of NASA’s Apollo space program for which she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Here she stands beside the code she wrote by hand which was used to take humanity to the moon in 1969.
Flannery O’Connor was an American writer known for her Southern Gothic style who penned thirty-two short stories and two novels before her death at 39. She won the National Book Award for Fiction for her collected works, which many consider to be the best book to have ever won the award.
Billie Jean King is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player and an advocate for gender equality and social justice. In 1973 She won the Battle of the Sexes tennis match against Bobby Riggs who’d claimed women’s game was inferior to men’s. She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Sportswoman of the Year lifetime achievement award. LSC
Review: Guerilla Girls Is it even worse in Europe?
In the cultural mecca that is London there seems to be a gallery on every corner, a new hit show every week, and an (over) abundance of art in every direction. Rather than wade through this sea of sensory stimulation, I tend to skim along the surface until a glimmer catches my eye.
This time that glimmer was a Guerrilla Girls show- their first in the UK- at the Whitechapel Gallery. The anonymous/feminist/activist collective, which began in the 1980s in New York, wears gorilla masks and adopts female artists’ names to protect their identities and fights to expose and challenge sexism and racism in the art world.
As Frida Kahlo of the group has said, “our work has always been about trying to transform the system rather than just point our fingers at it and say this is bad.” Which is why their latest installment Is it even worse in Europe? makes museums the target of their crusade to reveal the underrepresentation of women and artists of colour in contemporary and modern art.
Following up on an anecdotal poster made three decades ago, they sent a questionnaire to 383 European museum directors whose answers (for those who responded) make up the entirety of this most recent retrospective. Questions included “What percentage of artists in your collection are women” and “how many people in your collection are gender non-conforming?”
The 75% of institutions that did not reply are listed on the floor with an open invitation to walk over them.
The exhibit itself was surprisingly text-heavy, like stepping into a life-sized infographic. I expected to see eye-catching visuals but instead it was loaded with statistical data, lined in completed surveys and littered with lists of institutions by country.
Based on the results it is pointed out that Poland has achieved the most artistic diversity within its walls, however the grim details expose what is clearly a world-in-progress; a slow revolution in the road to equality.
Beyond the humorously titled installments (‘Female Trouble,’ ‘Genderosity,’ and ‘Complaints Department’ to name a few), the mission and heart of the show is to start a dialogue and propel that conversation into the mainstream, to the cultural consumers.
Why did so many institutions refuse to participate in the survey? For how long will social hierarchy and wealth dictate what is representative of our culture? This isn’t another dose of art amongst the rest. It’s activism; a social commentary and truthful display of where we are now and how far we still need to reach.
LSC
T&T Spotify Playlist - All Female Talent
Soko – First Love Never Die
Karen O – The Moon Song
Fiona Apple – Hot Knife
Simone White – In the Water where the City Ends
Soley – Pretty Face
Santigold – The Keepers
Kelsey Lu - Waiting
Le Tigre – Friendship Station
Kaki King – The Surface Changes
Ibeyi – River
tUnE-yArDs – My Country
Listen here https://goo.gl/T1K3Pn