The Blue Orchid

Felt, cotton, marble

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𝓘 𝓪𝓶 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓪𝓯𝓻𝓪𝓲𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝓶𝓼 , 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓘 𝓪𝓶 𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓱𝓸𝔀 𝓽𝓸 𝓼𝓪𝓲𝓵 𝓶𝔂 𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓹
- Amy March

March the 8th is Women's Day, it is the international day in which a homage is paid to women. A symbolic day, a reminder, which reminds us that the position of equality that women have laboriously achieved and which they continues to chase in many areas has not been taken for granted. A tribute to the resistance of women in centuries and centuries of subordination, where more
explicit and where more implicit. A tribute to the women of the past, but also of the present, who, even if crushed, locked up, caged and imprisoned, have never let themselves wither, but have gained an awareness, a certain dose of tenacity to grow full of will and strength. "little Women" in reference to the novel by Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration to her teaching and the value that a small novel of 1868 still has for the purest pre feminism manifesto that it represents.

Four flowers that must find their place in a world in the hands of men, four flowers with ambitions and desires, but also flaws and worries. A story that teaches us that it is right to follow one's aspirations, and that all the aspirations that a woman chooses are valid and never wrong if done with her own head and heart: from Meg who chooses to give priority to family and to devote herself to it, to Beth who in caring for others - -anything but self-denial- find a cure for herself, to Amy full of artistic ambition who for a long time says she wants a rich man because "that's how it's done" , and then instead choose to marry for love, up to Jo who aspires to the coveted "male" roles in an attempt to refuse that femininity that made her so socially limited, only to discover
that an individual femininity is the greatest strength.

A story that makes us understand the weight that these four flowers have to bear, responding with daily sacrifices, small and large, which are dictated by a situation in which the role of women is lower, and therefore all the difficulties they entail: Meg regretting not being able to have her own salary to buy what she wants, Amy who can't fulfill a real artistic career, Jo who has to work twice as much to be a writer and to be considered credible, and to use pseudonyms or anonymity in publications.

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This "burden" (how it is called by Alcott) for Jo is represented by her nature and temper, which she herself defines for a long time indomitable: it is for this nature that she cannot accept and adapt to the social aspirations that force women to believe that 'being loved by a rich man is the the only thing a woman can aspire to', this nature that leads her to refuse a socially easier life but without freedom, that purse in conflict with herself, only to finally understand that this nature of hers has nothing wrong with it. Indeed, that we would need more Jo in the world, because the burden of women is real and a free and indomitable nature is a form of resistance.
Little Women is story of "domestic" sacrifices but precisely because of its being a "common" story, it has so much to teach us about female resistance and will, which is not afraid of storms, if one learns to sail the boat.