JULY 4, 2010: FO(U)R WOMEN
On July 1, 2010, I mailed a video entitled Fo(u)r Women to the White House.
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I placed it in a purple case,
inside a small purple envelope,
inside a purple folder,
inside a large purple envelope.
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Fo(u)r Women is my second LetterToObama.
Fo(u)r Women from M. Liz Andrews on Vimeo.
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ARTIST. STATEMENT.
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1/One
I performed and recorded the song, Four Women, by Nina Simone for this piece in a single take.
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2/Two
Vocal Tone(s)
Each verse of the song shares two lines: it begins with “my skin is…” and ends with “my name is…”
Visual Tone(s)
Each first line is layered with a “posing beauty” image and each last line with a “tree beauty” image.
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3/Three
Spiritual.
Historical.
Political.
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4/Four
While singing the last line of the last verse of Four Women for this piece…
A manifesto I co-created on art, education & social change caught on fire from a candle on my desk.
Without ending the song, I stood up and poured tea over the flames and extinguished it with the cup.
It had left a mark on a postcard with an image of Nina Simone that was sitting on my desk as I sang.
The spelling of the title Fo(u)r Women is a multiple entendre that I present as open to interpretation.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
M. LIZ ANDREWS is an artist, curator and educator. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 2005, Liz returned to her hometown of Denver and worked on several arts, education and social change initiatives. In May 2009 she completed an M.A. in Arts Politics at Tisch School of Arts, NYU where she conceptualized LetterToObama: a platform for people to present letters to the President… through pieces of art. She believes that art has a unique power to document histories, convey messages, envision change and incite action. She currently lives and works in New York City.
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Fo(u)r Women by M. Liz Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.LetterToObama.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.LetterToObama.com.
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