FEMICIST
During my graduate seminar in 2024, I assumed the role of an underground “femicist” (pharmacist meets feminist). I replaced H. Jackson Brown’s instructions from Life’s Little Instruction Book with my own prescriptions, accompanied by placebo capsules filled with floral matter. The pill bottle labels feature original disclaimers—some witty, some serious—responding to the original “doctor’s” insensitive and patriarchal orders.
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I begin to make floral arrangements, specifically in context of female funerals. I research mourning and memorialization customs across cultures.
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I collect inanimate objects commonly found in female life: tampon, pill bottle, jewelry box, and undergarment. I assemble a dried rose to each.
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I’m drawn to the contrast of the contemporary pill bottle and traditional rose. I create prototypes and incorporate H. Jackson Brown’s “life instructions” on pharmacy labels.
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I refurbish a medicine cabinet to store the bottles, spray painting it entirely black. The cabinet has a mirrored interior and is crowned with an overgrown floral arrangement.
23 x 6 x 30 in. Dried flowers, glass, metal, paper, plastic, silk, and stone
Prescriptions suggesting vanity. Bottles with floral filled pill capsules
Overgrown, silk flower arrangement to juxtapose pharmaceutical sterilization
Array of pill bottles on Femicist's shelves
Prescription suggesting the struggle of mortality
Supporting pieces inside medicine cabinet
In progress medicine cabinet inside spray paint booth
Pill labels with "little instructions" and original disclaimers
Pill capsules containing ground, dried floral matter
H. Jackson Brown, The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book (1991)
Photos courtesy of Tom Wood, Women (2013)