Marriage as a Primary Combat Training Unit

Glenna Stearman Park, 2005

Editor’s Note: Marriage as a Combat Training Unit is one of the most popular stories on the 1960 Reunion Website. It is being republished as one of the Top 20 in 2020.

Glenna Stearman Park’s career as an artist has brought awards, applause, notoriety, and occasionally outrage to her as well as grand pleasures to her family and friends. She is providing a selection of her work for publication on the Class of 1960 website. One of her favorite themes focuses on being female, a topic she has explored in multiple media including drawing and painting, theater, performance art, sculpture, and installations. Glenna’s creations about being female often combine Biblical references, family life, nudity, and fashion. An example, “The Egg and I,” which she has described for this page, was a wildly popular but totally unexpected installation in a show in Dallas. Sometimes, her work on being female is deliberately provocative, pushing audiences to think through the issues.

The installation in the photo below is entitled Marriage as a Primary Combat Training Unit.

Glenna commented, “I made the dress from a commercial pattern. The local fabric store had all the camouflage fabric in taffeta and thin printed netting. My boys found the toy grenade for the bridal bouquet. We also did a traditional bridal shoot around town at pretty locations.

“The wedding dress was exhibited in a gallery and at various locations in San Antonio. One woman wanted to buy it and get married in it. I convinced her that it was not a good idea.”

“The Texas Monthly gave it a ‘Bum Steer’ award, and it was published in a book, IN STITCHES, A Patchwork of Feminist Humor and Satire, Edited by Gloria Kaufman.”

Learn more about Glenna Park’s artwork by clicking on The Egg and I and Art as a Force for Social Change.