Praise for the Female Mechanics Calendar 2007
and the Female Mechanics Calendar Project
Excerpts from emails, articles, and letters
Hi, Sarah,
Enjoyed your article in the BMW magazine. You may not think of yourself as a role model, but I wish women of all ages had more women to emulate like you (and fewer like LiLo).
Walt
Gray, Tennessee
I imagine that there are female home/shop mechanics all over the english speaking world who would like something relevant on their garage/workshop wall that didn't come from Pirelli and/or graphically depict the dangers of excess silicone, and for 2007, I think that so far your calendar is the leader in a field of one!
Ken
Carmarthen, United Kingdom
Hello Sarah.
Applause to you for putting the women mechanics calendar into the world! Really appreciate the project and am quite impressed by the finished product. Like very much that your portraits bring the viewer right into the scene - doesn't LOOK posed, but like we were invited into the garage and share a moment in the middle of a work day. Very handsome color and photo quality. I am a fan.
Kim
Writer, Carpenter, Educator, Motorcyclist
Montpelier, Vermont
Got the calendar yesterday, very nice! It finally started snowing here this week, so I guess I won't be riding my bike for quite a while yet. In the meantime, I'll be looking at the calendar, dreaming of warmer days to come. Thank you, and good luck.
Morten
Bergen,Norway
Hi Sarah,
Brisbane calling! I'm so impressed by your beautiful photographs and truly inspiring calendar. Congratulations.
Jan
WIMA
Australia
This calendar idea just rocks, it's absolutely inspiring.
Thanks!
Grace
Heavy Machine/Truck Driver
Ontario, Canada
Sarah,
I was greatly pleased to receive the calendar that you sent. BRAVO! You did a wonderful job!
Your adventure, while creating the project, was absolutely fabulous. Kudos to you for bravely "going where few have gone before".
...thank you so much for the calendar and for sending me one. You did a great thing and a great job.
Margie
My Favorite Mechanic, Inc.
Long Beach, Washington
Hi Sarah,
The story about the ride alone is very inspiring for anyone with a dream to travel on there bike! It proves you do not need a $20,000 BMW to travel, just GUTS, and lady you have that!!!! ...Your Calendar touched a spot in my heart for the obstacles all women face when trekking into what was always thought to be a man's world. These women have more heart for what they are doing because of the crap they have to endure to prove they are just as good or better than there male co-workers....
Paul
Jet Airplane Mechanic
Louisville, Kentucky
Sarah,
The calendar is superb! I'm very impressed. Very high quality. You should do well with this. You could easily get some national exposure.
I think you're on to something. Good luck with it!
Sincerely,
Genevieve Schmitt
WomenRidersNow.com
Sarah,
I am absolutely DELIGHTED with the calendar. Thank you so much for taking on this project. It is the PERFECT gift for my mom who inspired me =).
Jennifer
Riverside, California
hey sarah,
i received the calendar yesterday. and i just have to tell you that you did a fantastic job. the whole calendar is just too cool for words and i am grateful that i got to be apart of the experience. just wanted to say congratulations and thank you!!!!
Vanessa Capadonna
Chrystler Jeep Mechanic
"Ms February" Female Mechanics Calendar 2007
Florence, Kentucky
The calendar is a wonderful collection of what the title says: Female Mechanics. Not the typical Mechanics calendar with women wearing daisy dukes who don't know what MIG stands for (metal inert gas), but real female mechanics in their shops working. Seeing is what is at the heart of photography, but it takes an act of exploration to create something more, Sarah's work does this.
...I just wanted to take a little time to highlight another artist who is looking at the world a little differently, and showcasing the importance of a girl who knows her tools.
Jess
Photographer and Artist
The Flaming Lotus Girls
San Francisco, California
Addressing her "Women and Work" class at Centre College:
The 2007 "Female Mechanics Calendar" provides a unusually apt opportunity for us as students of women and work in the United States to consider what has and hasn't changed over 200 years. The charged nature of her subject, which touches on women in workplaces as workers, outsiders, stereotyped sexual objects, and the culture that continues to gender work as "male" or "female," which sometimes intersects interestingly with sexuality itself, comes through in the portraits of 14 working women mechanics across America.
Emily Bingham
Writer, Educator, Activist
Louisville, Kentucky
From a feature article in Nebraska Trucker:
Founding a tribe
You might assume that creating wall calendars of female mechanics is a bit of a lark -- flattering for those highlighted and a great excuse for a road trip to practice your other area of interest, photography.
But there's something deeper at work. Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, a developmental psychologist and president of Spelman College in Atlanta, wrote a book exploring why high school and college students of the same race tend to stick together. To oversimplify her thesis a little, young people at that age are exploring their place in the world in terms of identity, values and future vocations. They stick together as a way of establishing and affirming their identities before moving beyond the group to experience what the larger world has to offer.
Because not many high school girls have ever met a female mechanic, they affirm an identity that doesn't include that option. Only the strong and independent will venture beyond. Lyon did, and now she's pulling together a tribe of her own invention.
As the Lyon tribe grows, they will become more and more visible as role models for young women with a knack for fixing machines. In the long run, that translates into more diesel technicians available to fix your trucks.
Nance Harris
Nebraska Trucker Magazine
Lincoln, Nebraska
It is a fun project, I think. I like the reactions I get when I say I've
got a female mechanics calendar in my cube. They always expect something
like the Rigid Tool calendar.
Lyle
Yamaha Triple Owner and Enthusiast
I learned about Sarah Lyon's calendar about a week ago, ordered a copy and am enthusiastically recommending it to you for your kitchen, garage, or office. ...This calendar is what young kids need to see so that more girls will be inspired to pursue this kind of career - real women mechanics working in their shop environments.
Cecilie's Motorcycle Journal
Cool Project: the 2007 Female Mechanics Calendar
Sarah Lyon, a photographer and biker, has put together this beautiful 14-month wall calendar of professional female gearheads in their natural environments -- their garages! Every one of the women photographed is a career technician, representing a range of specialties from hot rods to race bikes to diesel trucks; there's even an aircraft mechanic in the mix. They also hail from all over the country; one of the coolest aspects of this project is that it was shot entirely by Lyon while she was riding across the states on her `78 Yamaha XS750, so it represents a quintessential American road story as well as an awesome collection of photographs.
Looking through these pages of smart, happy, and very dirty women up to their elbows in engines, I'm a little nostalgic for my last garage job -- though I remember how awfully isolating it can sometimes be for a chick in that field. As Lyon says about her experience as a motorcycle mechanic, "I didn't mind working in environments with only men but I often was treated as an anomaly during my initial experiences in the workplace and sometimes even throughout the duration of the job."
The Female Mechanics Calendar eases the alienation we're sometimes made to feel, depicting women mechanics as a strong and dedicated community, ready to take on the challenges of the shop environment right alongside their male colleagues.
Jen
Editor of CarDomain.com