Books > Veilings
VEILINGS, the hat veil sample catalog that inspired this artist’s book, was produced mid-20th Century for the garment industry by David Dubin, Inc. Its pages feature real hat veils, handwritten item numbers, and stapled labels with specs for each sample.
My artist’s book, a look at the intersection of neurodiversity and femininity, re-imagines VEILINGS as a catalog of best practices for appearing normal and being attractive. Each veil has a label attached advising a practice that must be layered on top of one’s natural behavior in order to fit in and be liked by neurotypicals. The advice was culled from two types of source material:
1) Masking tips shared by high-functioning neurodiverse individuals in 21st Century discussion groups and publications, &
2) Dating tips from women’s magazines published in the mid-20th Century. [more below]
30 images / 60 pages. Catalog with stapled, letterpress printed labels, wrapped in custom printed tissue paper inside of a 12” x 8.5” box with letterpressed title and colophon.
Edition of 24 copies. $1100.
There is a striking amount of similarity in the advice derived from these two different sources: many of the tips appear nearly verbatim in both (“Be a good listener,” “Feign or cultivate an interest in what interests others,” “Don’t give unsolicited advice.”)
Learning to put ones’ own needs and instincts aside for the comfort of others is useful whether you are trying to land a husband in a world that devalues women’s contributions, or trying to escape classroom bullies as a neurodiverse kid in a neurotypical setting. Both scenarios take a psychological toll on the person suppressing their own natural behaviors, interests, and personality traits.
This book, printed on translucent paper, visualizes what it looks like to layer dozens of these “best practices” upon one another. For a neurodiverse person these are all things that need to be learned, remembered and practiced, which is overwhelming and exhausting considering the sheer number of “tips” one must learn.
The veils pictured in the book have irregularities in their patterns where they were pressed for decades in the original sample book, now standing in as metaphors for the neurological differences inherent in minds all over the “spectrum”… even those of neurotypicals.
Girls (and other high-masking individuals, generally those who risk more by not “behaving”, such as minorities or the economically disadvantaged) often fly under the radar of childhood autism screening. Diagnostic criteria have been developed based on the more obvious presentation seen in boys’ behaviors and at the more acute end of the autism spectrum.
High-masking adults diagnosed as autistic later in life have often lived for years with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and/or substance abuse. Receiving a diagnosis does not in itself alleviate these effects, but once received, the decision to embrace one’s differences rather than trying to hide them — or at least to balance “fitting in” with honoring one’s true nature — can be healing.
My goal with this book and the conversations it may spark is to promote the idea that brains work all different sorts of ways and that is a beautiful thing. A culture that is accepting of difference will encourage each person to add what they are uniquely able to contribute, which in turn will help us thrive collectively and individually.
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Thanks to Ian Kahn and Suzanne Hamlin of Lux Mentis, for access to and photography of the original VEILINGS sample book, which they are currently offering for sale.