American Beer: Land of Hopportunity

From the Artist: Stuck at home under the stress of the pandemic, Americans turned to alcoholic refreshments a little more frequently to destress. Coworkers now had happy hour zooms on Fridays, friends
toasted virtually for special occasions. In states of emergency, trips to the liquor store to “stock up” are a common occurrence. Meanwhile, the quality of life in American outside the home rapidly deteriorated as American watched social protests, unemployment rise, hospitals overrun with COVID, watched political strife, and businesses and schools closed. The American dream and its sense of community, something often promised in beer advertising, started to dissipate. Beer is a food staple at the American dinner table and festive, social events. People toast to good health and each other, but who is really included and celebrated in American beer culture? For example, most brewmasters are men; beer is stereotypically a man's drink. With Sam Adams adorning a cold one, beer's ties to masculinity and American culture are undeniable. Likewise, embroidery is a stereotypically feminine craft done historically and exclusively by women. By cross-stitching a beer can, I am both highlighting gender disparities in American, consumer, and drinking culture and demanding a place in it. The artwork’s design references classic beer advertisements that appropriate American values in order to sell beer. The artwork’s uncomfortableness draws on how those marginalized by masculine, American culture are awkwardly expected to conform to the existing culture instead of it making space in it and accepting the marginalized person for their independent selves. The artwork toys between the concept of a glass half full and half empty – spilling onto its side. Is the beer can spilling over with plentitude or spilling over the floor wasted?