The Salt Lake Tribune | Article | Becky Jacobs

Utah artists add to Her Flag project celebrating women getting right to vote

(Jeremy Harmon | The Salt Lake Tribune) Artist Marilyn Artus sews a stripe created by Jann Haworth onto the Her Flag project during an event at the downtown library in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019.

When Marilyn Artus realized that the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment — which gave women the right to vote — was coming up in 2020, she knew she wanted “to do something big to celebrate.”

The Oklahoma artist decided to collaborate with others around the country in a project she called Her Flag. She asked a female artist from each of the 36 states that ratified the amendment to design a stripe, and is traveling to meet the women and add their work in their states’ capitals.

The only stipulations Artus gave was that the stripe should be red or pink, and that it should include a positive message.

Jann Haworth, a Salt Lake City artist known for designing The Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, created the addition for Utah, the 17th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

She featured a line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day,” which reads, “What is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” “It’s such a beautiful phrase,” Haworth said.

On Wednesday afternoon at the downtown Salt Lake City Main Library, Artus leaned over her sewing machine as three girls from Rock Camp SLC performed Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”

“I just finished the last stitch, you guys!” Artus said to cheers.