Thank Heaven for Little Girls: Girls' Drawings as Representations of Self

Abstract

In this article, I consider ways in which young girls’ self-initiated drawings re-veal how they negotiate meanings and construct sometimes-contradictory selves through their production of visual images. This inquiry is developed from my experiences as a young woman teaching elementary art. In their drawings, girls’ representations of self serve as both repositories of pleasure and desire and as projections of possible and multiple identities. The drawings disclose aesthetic preferences, make social relationships visible, and challenge the dominant positioning in visual culture of girls’ identities as inevitable. Through their production of visual images, young girls position themselves as social agents and as producers of visual culture. In this study, I interpret the use of girl icons, look at expressions of social relationships, and consider whether the girls’ gaze is a form of agency in three artworks: (a) my own childhood make-over drawings, (b) a drawing of a first communion, and (c) a reinvention of a popular television show, Survivor. I problematize my methodology for this study with the concept of girls’ private space referred to as bedroom culture, and the dichotomy between the public and private spaces of girls’ lives and productions.