Habit

Julia Sherman, Habit Layers: Self-Portrait as Discacled Carmelite Nun, 2010. C-Print. Courtesy of the Artist.

Habit

Julia Sherman

My recent work delves into the contradictions and spiritual practice of female monastic communities as metaphors and case studies. My collaborations explore the lines between art, commerce, and devotion, while considering the role of gender in these Utopian societies. Epistemological ripples result, as meaning is re-purposed, labor re-contextualized, and the value of my authorship challenged. The role of gender in the communities’ successes compels me, as the presence of positive, inter-generational female relationships is scarce in popular media. Current debates over convent attire resonate with debates in the feminist movement at large. The empowered voice of the few has changed history but cannot account for a future in which women re-appropriate the fraught symbols of past oppression.

I began with a simple question: what is the status of the Nuns’ Habit and how are they produced? The Habit is both ceremonial uniform and wedding dress, complete with veil and gold wedding band. Each component is meaningful and associated with a prayer. The early Habit evoked the robes of peasants and women in mourning, but was reformed, by turns, with aristocratic ornamentation and ascetic simplification. But as they moved beyond the cloister, feminist Nuns fought to modify or abandon the Habit, discarding ornate designs. But they could not predict that, decades later, women seeking religious life would see the Habit as a symbol integral to their commitment. Many say that robes make them feel elegant as reminders of their lineage. The Habit has been reclaimed.

The Cross in the Woods Nun Doll Museum in Michigan houses 525 of dolls dressed in historically accurate Habits, which I photo-archived last December. These images boldly reveal the interior layers of holy garb that we might never otherwise access. During this work, I met an Abbess who is starting a new community of Sisters and needs of a distinctive Habit for her order. We approached New York fashion label JF&Sons and are currently collaborating on the design of the new Habit. The items will be available in the boutique, marketed as garments with meaning beyond fashion. The Sisters are eager to have a Habit that expresses their identity and to have pride in their appearance, eschewing suggestions that this is contradictory to their purposes. Simple on the exterior, the garments are lined with the Triquetra, a pre-Christian Celtic symbol of the stages of a goddess’s life as virgin, mother and crone. The image, which also appears on Led Zeppelin cover art, makes one think of Nuns asmysterious, super-powered, other-worldly women.

I also collaborate Benedictine Nuns on branding their line of beauty products, Monastery Creations. The body, shrouded by robes reemerges in decadent body scrubs, pastries, and scented lotions. Monastery Creations’ new packaging applies the language of late capitalist branding to the products of a market economy, appealing to a world far beyond the cloister. My intervention is framed as a conceptual gesture but functions outside of an art context as well. The soaps can be found on my website, www.workandprayerbeauty.com.