Diana Weymar, “I cried” (2024) (all images courtesy the artist)
Editor’s be aware: This story was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the Financial Hardship Reporting Undertaking (EHRP). Diana Weymar’s stitched quotes are taken from reproductive justice reporting by EHRP journalists, co-published by EHRP and The Guardian, Literary Hub, Teen Vogue, and In These Occasions.
After I was a woman, my aunt would carry house flower-printed handkerchiefs as a gift for me from her European holidays. I nonetheless have a couple of tucked away in a drawer — so candy, so delicate, so filled with nostalgia I can’t carry myself to make use of them. I’ve a small assortment of classic printed or embroidered hand towels and tea towels, too … It’s so female to make one thing pretty and fanciful out of one thing sensible, meant for use, dirtied, stained, and discarded.
Diana Weymar’s abortion embroideries play on the identical duality: there’s girl as charming woman, plying her needle, and girl as, properly, girl, together with her secret lifetime of blood, womb, vagina. These creatures would appear to have nothing to do with one another, however after all, they’re the identical individual.
“Subversive” is a a lot over-used phrase within the artwork world, however there’s positively subversion at work when a flowered hankie is embroidered “pro-life is pro-death” or “Abortion is about a patient’s hopes and dreams and how they want to be in the world.” It jogs my memory of all of the seemingly typical ladies I’ve met who would inform me about their abortions after which say they’d by no means instructed anybody. There are loads of untold tales hiding in these hankies, loads of non-public braveness in ladies who appear demure and obedient. Let’s hope they shock us on Election Day! —Katha Pollitt
Diana Weymar, “Google says” (2024)
Diana Weymar, “Abortion is about” (2024)
Diana Weymar, “In places like Texas” (2024)
Diana Weymar, “The US now bears” (2024)
Diana Weymar, “Pro-life is pro-death” (2024)