Textile artist Darcy Falk explores reproductive rights with ‘Conversation Prints’

Jun. 30--The northern Arizona sun illuminates Darcy Falk's studio, casting a mid-morning glow through the window. She has a bevy of sewing machines and fabrics given to her by friends, family and acquaintances, and a paper-machete mannequin hangs on an old IV stand from the Flagstaff Medical Center. Mannequins are far more expensive than she thought, so the paper-machete mannequin is modeled after a plastic woman's torso that is hanging near a wall with pictures and a quote by French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette which reads, "You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."

Just above the quote are four words: tools, confidence, passion and creative. She said she wants to add a fifth: curiosity.

Curiosity. It's been one of the guiding forces in Falk's decades-long career as a writer and textile artist. At 60 years old, she's finally receiving a research and development grant from the Arizona Arts Commission to pursue her project, currently with the working title, "Conversation Prints/The Dress Project."

Falk first applied for the grant in 2014. Her application was rejected then and a few more times in the years that followed, but every time Falk rewrote the application, it became a little less vague. Nowadays, Falk's creative vision for the project feels more tangible.

"I think that made all the difference, even though it made me crazy to have to rewrite the grant so many times, but every time it just got a little better, a littler cleaner. The concept got more developed," Falk said.

With the $5,000 grant from the arts commission, which was awarded to 31 Arizona artists, including three in Flagstaff, Falk can pursue "Conversation Prints" in earnest. Although about five years in the making, the project began to truly take shape two years ago in Washington, D.C., at the first annual Women's March, a day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. More than 440,000 people participated in the march, and Falk, having flown out from Flagstaff, was among that ocean of protest when she had a realization.

"I said to myself, 'This is not the way things get done,'" she recalled. "One of the things that I know is that when policy does get made, it's often addressing a problem that's about 10 years old, so when they're talking about healthcare legislation, they're making legislation, not proactively, but retroactively. It's reactive legislation. So getting us out into the streets is a way to energize that and maybe shorten that timeline a little bit, but mostly what's going to shorten the timeline and get people to it is to be involved in the legislative process."

A graduate of Ball State University with bachelor's degrees in both journalism and political science--in many ways a response to the post-Watergate landscape--Falk began combining the political and the artistic only recently, typically focusing on women's rights and combating "ill-informed talk" on issues like reproduction, birth control and abortion. In 2012, Falk wrote a column in Flagstaff Live! about her decision to have an abortion, and after receiving an outpouring of support she finished work on an idea that had been developing since the 1990s: the Kevlar Kimono, a seven-foot-tall garment of silk and bulletproof fabric decorated with dozens of unique black-and-white collages made with photographs of individuals who support a woman's right to choose. The Kevlar Kimono later became the center piece for her 2018 exhibit, "Ultraviolet."

"Conversation Prints" acts as a continuation of that exhibit, which was on display at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany as part of its "Art in Action" series. "Ultraviolet" explored women's rights, sexual harassment, violence against women and maternal mortality rates.

What Falk hopes to achieve with "Conversation Print" is deeper insight into reproductive rights and individual decisions. She'll work with five subjects and design and screen-print fabrics to make custom garments, featuring birth control motifs in vintage designs, for each individual. As Falk is fitting each individual, she hopes to document their conversation, which will focus on the individual's reproductive histories and beliefs.

"When you fit a garment to someone it's a really intimate process and you're touching them, you're pinning, you're putting your hands where we don't usually put our hands on other people. That particularly lends itself to having these intimate conversations," Falk said. "I think for me the most important aspect of this is really about taking these conversations out of the realms of the private and putting them out into the public... I think talking about those things gives us more of a chance to influence policy."

To help become a facilitator of conversations, especially ones regarding serious sometimes sensitive topics, in 2017 Falk attended a three-day workshop in Boston called Public Conversations Project. Now referred to as Essential Partners, the workshop's participants included psychologists, social workers and university professors, but "nobody else was doing art projects," Falk said. "It helped me realize what I didn't know and how much more preparation needs to go into these conversations."

In many ways, Falk said, this project is unlike anything she's done before. From learning how to sew at 4 years old to learning Adobe Illustrator just a year ago, "Conversation Prints" will combine everything that has preceded it, 60 years of remaining resourceful, confident, passionate, creative and, of course, curious.

"It's kind of amazing. Everything that I've done comes to bear on everything that I do now in so many ways...You're just pulling stuff out of your quiver, you know. You've got all these things and that's the one huge benefit to doing this project sort of later in life. You can't acquire all that skill in a short period of time. It almost takes a lifetime," Falk said.

To learn more about Darcy Falk, visit www.darcyfalk.com

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