Artist Embroiders Catcalls Yelled At Her In The Street For Ingenious Cross-Stitch Project | HuffPost Life

What This Artist Did After Being Catcalled Is Genius

Rachel Moss— The Huffington Post UK

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When most of us get catcalled, we respond by rolling our eyes or sticking two fingers up at the (usually male) perpetrator, depending on our mood.

But one lady has decided to turn the sexual harassment she's received into delicate works of art.

Brooklyn-based artist Elana Adler creates cross-stitch samplers from catcalls in her ongoing project,'You Are My Duchess'.

"I get catcalled all of the time, most women do," Adler tells HuffPost UK Lifestyle. "I started cross-stitching them because I wanted to laboriously and painstakingly give attention to all this phrases that were verbally thrown at me in a moment."

Phrases Adler has embroidered range from the annoying "good morning good looking" to the downright disturbing "Baby you running away? Whatever, you couldn't handle this anyway. I'd F**k you up."

Adler says she considers catcalls to be a violation of a woman's personal space.

"You're walking from one place to the next and all of a sudden there is a whisper in your ear and someone's breath on your neck, accompanied by some ridiculous statement.

"Then you are immediately alone and left with an uncomfortable aftertaste," she says.

Story continues below slideshow....

Woman Embroiders Catcalls Into Cross-Stitch

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The 40 plus samplers Adler has created aim to "be provocative and evoke emotion." Although the project is a feminist statement against catcalling, she isn't always angry at the comments she receives.

"Depending on my mood in the moment of receiving a catcall, I will have a different reaction; pleasantly surprised, disgusted, upset, comical, invaded, confused to name a few. It interests me what must be going on in the cat callers brain," Adler says.

"It happens so frequently and quickly, it seems like the callers have a deck of cards they need to hand out as quickly as possible - who receives each card is not important."

You can view the rest of Elana Adler's work by visiting her website.

SEE ALSO:
Paralysed Man Creates Stunning Paintings Using Only His Mouth
How to Manage Catcalling

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