Portia Munson’s Functional Women drawings are an ongoing series of over one hundred works on paper documenting manufactured functional objects in the form of women or parts of women’s bodies. In carefully meditative drawings Munson studies objects like nutcrackers whose teeth sit between a woman’s legs, lewd salt and pepper shakers, souvenir boob mugs from beach towns, little-girl bells that have to be shaken by the head for the clapper to ring in their skirts, and dripping vaginal candles. Some of the objects suggest violence, like pin-cushion women who have pins stuck into their skirts, porcelain women with cavernous openings for flowers to be kept, ashtrays inviting smokers to flick hot ashes onto the distorted and naked body of a woman, lighters with a flame coming out of a headless and perfect beach body, and dishes made of severed hands humbly offering candy. Munson finds the objects at flea markets, thrift stores and free piles where they would otherwise be forgotten and discarded, and focuses on each one in individual drawings to investigate their subliminal messages. These objects initially seem like a humorous and slightly shocking anomaly, showing the commodification of women’s bodies in tchotchkes, but accumulated together the sheer amount speaks to deeper issues surrounding society’s view of women as accessories. 

Each Functional Women drawing is graphite on Strathmore 100% cotton rag acid free paper, 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 ins., 2017-2023 (ongoing).