Valerie Mann
The Real Cinderella Dress and other Recent Work

October 22 – November 30, 2013

Opening Reception
Friday, November 1, 7 – 10 pm

Artist’s Statement

“I’ve been making work from re-purposed/recycled materials since… …I can’t remember – long before it was hip or cool.  Long before a big deal was made about it, anyway.  But I’ve been thinking lately that I should put words on why it’s important to me.  

The re-purposed materials I use are significant to me on many levels.  

Ethically, they are  important to me because they are simply raw materials, being put back into use and not discarded.  I look at the materials more for what they can be, not what they are.

Personally, it’s a way of material use that is an extension of my frugal, farm-raised heritage and it’s a mode of working I’ve always employed.

Metaphorically it’s symbolic of my personal feminist theory.  Oftentimes, women are the ones left to stitch together a meal, a life, a family, a home, a culture….from scraps….scraps of food, of time, of fabric, of 
psyches…”

— Valerie Mann