reviews of storm clouds over party shoes

delivering a sermon on the etiquette mount

“Sheila Norgate’s hilarious, twisted retro take on self-improvement propels Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes: Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman” Toronto Star, Saturday January 31, 1998

“In-your-face-etiquette manual by a self-confessed ‘recovering nice girl’ and visual artist…a very nice ironic blending of text and art, a nineties sensibility at work on a fifties agenda”. The Globe and Mail, February 14, 1998

“Forget those Girlfriend books. Forget all that mushy pap passing for female bonding experience. Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes: Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman is the real thing – in so many ways. Vancouver artist Sheila Norgate has culled quotations and art from vintage etiquette books and magazines to create this little gem. It’s such a simple thing, but by showing the codes that have restricted 20th century women rather than telling how they have oppressed us, this book clears a path to a wonderland of truly individualized behaviour”. Kathleen Hickey, Georgia Straight. November 13-20 1997

“Combining images from women’s magazines from the 1920s to the 1950s with insidious behaviour-modifying rules from etiquette books of the same era, Norgate presents a catalogue of female perversions that are at once riotous and appalling. Norgate who for years has explored the dichotomy of Nice Girl-Bad Girl in her work, allows Storm Cloud’s gems of oppression to indict themselves, seldom labouring the point with additional narrative.” Lisa Peryman, Quill and Quire, December 1997

“Pop art takes on propriety in the funny and ironic Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes, Etiquette Problems for the Ill-bred Woman…Influenced by pop artists Andy Warhol and David Hockney, conceptual artist Suzanne Lacy and infused with the spirit of the activist Guerrilla Girls, Norgate has been gaining North American notoriety since her first art exhibitions in 1986.” Charlie Cho, Profiles, Fall 1997.

“As recently as 30 or 40 years ago, ‘women’s work’ generally meant housework and raising kids. Lest we forget this fact, in a sassy little book called Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes, Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman, Vancouver Artist Sheila Norgate has cleverly juxtaposed images from pre- and post-World War II magazines with actual passages from etiquette manuals of those eras to paint a picture of women’s place in and outside the home.” Betty Keller, Coast Independent, May 18 1998

“Many of you would like to appear well-bred, well-mannered and generally pleasing to those around you. The rest of us break into snorts of laughter at the mere thought. If you’re a Nice Girl, you might want to skip Sheila Norgate’s book Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes, Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman. It’s a feminist treatise on so-called proper behaviour for women. The book has been called ‘The Anti Rules’ a reference to the cloying anti-feminist bestseller.” Lindor Reynolds, Winnipeg Free Press, Friday April 17 1998

“…The result is a success on many levels. On the surface it can be taken as a glance back at social expectation for women… Probing deeper, Norgate’s work shows that the lack of gender equity may have been more blatant then, but the ramifications of silencing women are still being felt today. On a purely artistic level, her artwork is balanced and engaging. Norgate should be congratulated for packing so much dynamite into her book and letting the reader strike the match”. Elizabeth Millard, Independent Publisher, January/February 1998

“Sheila Norgate allows her material to speak for itself in her imaginative juxtaposition of etiquette rules from the 1920s to the 1960s with her own cut and paste illustrations. Norgate’s examples of exhortations and admonitions are astonishing not so much for the values they espouse but for their plain language.” Carellin Brooks, Xtra West, February 19, 1998.

“An intriguing mix of barbed feminist wit and the Ladies Home Journal, Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes, Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman by Sheila Norgate is both a hybrid ‘zine/book’ and a strong piece of sociology. Norgate has gone to great lengths to find and re-frame some of the most insane gender propaganda of this century.” Jane Farrow, Girlfriends, November 1998