Can't Keep Sweet Andrea Mary Marshall
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ANDREA MARY MARSHALL ANDREA MARY MARSHALL Can’t Keep Sweet Andrea Mary Marshall Artwork and Interview Andrea Mary Marshall Text Alexandra Weiss A few years ago, artist and self-portraitist Andrea Mary widespread abuses within the community. As part of her research, Marshall was walking through the Tudor Room in the National she met former FLDS member Sarah Allred, and Tonia Tewell, Portrait Gallery when she came upon a painting of King Henry the founder of Holding Out HELP, a non-profit in Utah that helps VIII. Standing before the image, she began to think about its those trying to leave polygamist communities. Allred, who was subject and his six wives. Quickly, her mind jumped to the married to a polygamist at 18 and had her seven children taken Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, away from her before being excommunicated nearly seven years a controversial Mormon denomination, and a photo she’d ago, became one of the many voices Marshall hoped to amplify seen of its now-incarcerated leader, Warren Jeffs. In it, Jeffs is through her project, the title of which emphasizes “individuality surrounded by his doting wives—over 50 of them—wearing of expression over conformity,” she says. “I am not just another their traditional FLDS uniforms of modest pastel dresses over face in the crowd, I am not easily replaced with another wife, I four to five layers of undergarments, their long hair brushed am not interchangeable as a woman. I am a woman with rights, sweetly into conservative buns. and not vice versa.” That image, in a weird way, then reminded Marshall of ANDREA MARY MARSHALL—What was your life like in Versace’s iconic Fall/Winter campaign from 1994, in which the FLDS? supermodels including Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Stephanie Seymour and Christy Turlington, posed in their SARAH ALLRED—Women were there to serve their husbands own long-sleeve pastels. While the similarities between the and to have children—I had known that since I was young. But two images may be tenuous, their contrast is stark: in the when Warren Jeffs came into power, that’s when they really Versace photo, the women are powerful, sexy, unguarded— started telling us the details of what we should wear, when we the queens of their own reality—and their clothes are just one should wake up, what we should pray for, what we should eat— manifestation of their unencumbered force. In Warren’s, the basically controlling our whole lives. women look small, their smiles either disguising their fear or serving as proof of their blind faith, their garments a reminder AM—What was it like being a woman in the community? of their mandated modesty and utter lack of free will. SA— My whole life I was told that I just didn’t matter, that my That dichotomy, and the empathy she felt for the women in the voice didn’t matter. ‘You’re just a girl, what can you do?’ You’re FLDS community, became the inspiration for Marshall’s latest there to be seen and not heard. If you had a question, you had to series, Not Vice/Versa. In it, the artist wears traditional FLDS really ponder on whether it was worth asking or not, because dresses and temple garments while mimicking the models even a question would get you in not good standing. If you asked in the Versace ad, her goal being to raise awareness about the too many questions, or if you asked the wrong question, or even 140 141 ANDREA MARY MARSHALL ANDREA MARY MARSHALL in the wrong way. I think that’s why a lot of women just don’t mom and that I wasn’t worthy to be in the community, so to wear a slip that did not fit the form, and panties that were faith— you were treated like you were possessed by the devil speak. With me, it felt like my kids were how they controlled they no longer had any use for me. I’m glad now, because full-figured, meaning they had to fully cover up your body so you because you had a sickness. Or if you were a mother and had me, because if you don’t conform to everything that’s required of my greatest trial became my greatest blessing. But at the couldn’t see any skin, even if you didn’t have a dress on. And of a child that was sick, you did not exert enough faith for them you, then your children will get taken away. time, it wasn’t my choice and it took me a couple of years of course we had to wear a bra, but it got to the point where the bras to be healed, so you were not a good mother. I had a daughter hell to actually get over it. had to be specially made—they couldn’t be made by the church. who would often get really sick with high fevers of 105 degrees. I AM—Which is what they did to you, right? We had to wear like, four layers of clothing every day. didn’t know what was wrong, so I called the ambulance once and AM—After you left? got reprimanded for it. They sent the ambulance home, and sent SA—Yes, they did before I finally left. They had been taken away AM—What education did you receive in the community? What a group of men over, then they just prayed for her, and in their from me six times, and each time they were taken away, it was SA—Yes. I was still so brainwashed. It wasn’t until I was gone for were you taught about the outside world? prayers, it was just about fixing the mother’s faith so she could anywhere from six months to two years. But it was for no reason, two years that I took off my underwear, unplugged the recorded be healed. But there’s so much more to the story. I eventually, except for that they felt like they couldn’t control me anymore. readings and Warren Jeffs’ teachings and just stopped. It was like SA—We were taught that the outside world was wicked—that rebelling to the consequences of getting punished, got her tested, an addiction or something—it was like he was plugged into your they would harm us. We were taught to fear it in every way. When and she had one kidney that had stopped functioning, it was killing TONIA TEWELL—Or they said you were not fit to be a mother, head at all times, so you didn’t know what your heart was telling I was growing up, we could freely go shopping, and went to fairs, her other kidney. Because I went and had them take care of her which is what they told a lot of my other clients, as well. you, and even if you did, you didn’t dare listen to it. For me, it and carnivals, and to the lagoon. But as we got older, partaking with surgery to remove the kidney, I was called rebellious and got was like an ‘aha’ moment, where I wasn’t going to take this crap in anything of the outside world made it so you were not in good shunned. I also got my other children taken away, and received a SA—Yeah, that’s ultimately what they told me. That, and anymore. I could either die of a broken heart, or loneliness, and standing. It got to the point where you could not even step foot message from Warren Jeffs that I was of the devil, because I didn’t that my children were meant for greatness and that I wasn’t let them win, or I could stand up. I saw around the world that in the outside world, wear any clothes, or eat any foods that were lean on my own Heavenly Father for my child to be healed. worthy to raise them. women were being powerful and it was very inspiring for me. made or processed outside of the community. It got so bad that they said if you were to even walk into a store and glance at the AM—Did you have anyone you could confide in? AM—Were there certain things you did that made them start to OFFICE—Why did they kick you out? newspapers or tabloids or whatever, the devil would take over take your kids away, or did they do it just to exert their control? your mind and body, and you would be excommunicated. They SA—I kept it all in, because that was the way that it would always SA—My oldest daughter was being groomed for Warren Jeffs, told us in church about a man who read the front page of a news come back and bite you. My half-sister, I would kind of confide SA—To exert their control. I remember most of the time, I was and I realized that when he went to prison. Going back to when article and got his family taken away. in her, because she was the person I trusted most. But even then, so baffled—I didn’t understand what I had done or if I had even she was a young girl, his whole family—everyone—just knew I wouldn’t really dare, because I was afraid that I would get in done anything. Sometimes you were given a reason, sometimes that she belonged to him. But when she was six years old, Warren AM—This was around the time Warren was in trouble and on trouble for feeling that way or she would be ashamed of me— you weren’t.