28th State to Ratify | Nevada | Lisa Jean Allswede, Artist
Her Flag Artist, Lisa Jean Allswede
A 100 years strong, the Nevada stripe honors the plethora of women it took to set our nation on the right path to equality.
The suffragists strength and devotion forged open doors and created opportunities for much needed change then and now.
My textile piece is made of black and white images of women, logos, sage brush (the state flower), and stars to capture the historical character of the Battle Born State. Although there were prominent women that lead the charge in Nevada, I chose to select random women from across the United States to depict the migrant nature of the state during this period.
With the exception of the “Nevada” font, the imagery was machine stitched onto a red gouache background painted onto paper. Because I believe there is strength in messy knots coming together, layers of entangled machine embroidery adorn the stripe to honor the imperfectly perfect feminists who came before me. The “Nevada” font was hand lettered to mock the Moulin Rouge hotel casino sign created by Betty Wills in 1955. I brought in this stylized detail as a reminder, that even after the suffragists fought valiantly to gain equal voting rights, inequalities continued on 35 years later and still today. We have so much to celebrate, but the fight is not over until equality is reached for all humans.