Out of the bathroom, into the gallery for an artist working with menstrual pads

Menstruation will affect half the human population at some time in their lives, but the products that make it comfortable usually remain out of sight, outof mind.

St. John's artist Ainsley Hawthorn wants to change that with her latest exhibit, which usessome of those products menstrual pads and pantyliners as the fabric for embroidery artworks.

"To me it's about making familiar objects unfamiliar, and that allows us to kind of look at them with new eyes and consider them in a different way," said Hawthorn, whose exhibit Formative can be seen at theCraft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador's art gallery in downtown St. John's until the end of March.

In addition to her work as a writer, Hawthorn is a textile artist who works in embroidery, one of many textile art forms traditionally done by women.

"At some point it occurred to me, another fabric that is very intimately involved in many women's lives is pads and pantyliners, which many of us use regularly," she said in an interview with CBC Radio's Weekend AM.

She thought that familiarity would make menstrual products an interesting textile to play around with as an artist.

'An invisible part of our culture'

Hawthorn said she used the subtle patterns in the menstrual products as the inspiration for the embroidery in each artwork.

One pad with a repeating hexagonal pattern reminder her of honeycomb, so she added bees.

Another has subtle star and floral shapes that she brought together with silk thread.

Hawthorn asked friends to bring in some of their own supply in order to get a variety of textiles, with different patterns, to work with.

The menstrual products themselves, as things madeto be used once and then discarded, added their own challenges, she said. The cottony material on the top is often delicate, she said, and she couldn't get them wet.

From Weekend AM: Listen to AinsleyHawthorn describe her work in this podcast

This segment begins at 22:10.

"I did a lot of handwashing while Iwas doing this product, just to make sure Icould keep them in excellent condition."

Hawthorn said she hopes people who see the exhibit take the chance to acknowledge and admire objects that are commonly usedbut usually hidden away something ignored at best, a source of shame at worst.

Hopefully people can think about why they have different feelings about menstrual pads than, say, toilet paper, and think about why those feelings might be negative in a way they hadn't before, she said.

"It's like an invisible part of our culture, that they're always around us but we really don't acknowledge their presence."

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