Ellen Lesperance
Congratulations on Every Section of Fence Ever Pulled or Cut Down, on Every Minute in Police Custody, on Every Day in Prison. (Worsted Weight Yarn)
2018
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Ellen Lesperance
Congratulations on Every Section of Fence Ever Pulled or Cut Down, on Every Minute in Police Custody, on Every Day in Prison. (Worsted Weight Yarn)
2018
Physical Qualities
Opaque watercolor and graphite on tea-stained paper, 42 × 29 1/2 in. (106.7 × 74.9 cm.)
Framed: 47 7/16 × 35 5/16 × 1 1/2 in. (120.5 × 89.7 × 3.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Object Number
2019.154
Part of an ongoing series, this painting pays tribute to women of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (active 1981–2000) who protested the storage of U.S. nuclear cruise missiles in Berkshire, England. Collecting archival images of women at the camp, Ellen Lesperance translates photos of their handknit sweaters into paintings using Symbolcraft, a symbol-based method of conveying each individual stich in a specific knitting pattern. Emblazoned at the center of this work is a double-headed axe known as a labrys. Historically linked to matriarchal societies, this symbol was adopted in the 1970s within lesbian communities to herald feminist strength. The work’s title is drawn from a letter addressed to a camper, which Lesperance asserts as “a reminder that there is honor to be given to people who disrupt routine civic life in order to make injustice known.”
The artist book nearby tells the story of Lesperance’s research into this activist history and provides additional information to interpret the symbols and images in her paintings.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2019; Derek Eller Gallery
Ellen Lesperance: Velvet Fist
Contemporary Wing Rotations 2025
