Excellent Women: The Design Porn Edition

    Meow Rouge- £60

Having only just become a member of the Domestic Sluttery team at the beginning of this year, I'm as gutted as I'm sure you are to hear that the site is coming to a close. I had so many more excellent women to tell you about! More on that later - in the meantime I've decided to go ahead and publish a post I had planned anyway - a look at some of my favourite female artists. I've stuck to people who make affordable screenprints, as there's nothing worse than discovering an artist that you love and realising that unless you sell a kidney, you're never going to be able to have their work on your wall.

First up is Cassandra Yap. Sexy, retro art to make your bedroom feel really 'phwoar'. Cassandra works with vintage pin-up photographs to make gorgeous new images like 'Meow Rouge' above. I'm also a huge fan of her Erotic A-Z. Get your initials. Or your whole name. Or a rude word.

Mean Girls- £40

One of the things I love about artists who work in screenprinting is that they tend to be huge geeks. Start a conversation with one about fonts. Go on, I dare you. They're also fantastic at using popular culture in their work- Hattie Stewart is really the poster girl for taking something mainstream and making it infinitely cooler - see her 'Mean Girls' poster above. Or her alternative magazine covers.  Or the video she illustrated for Kylie's Sexercise where she basically makes a montage of Kylie's best bits a whole lot more fun with slightly trippy, dancing bananas and hot dogs and subtle stuff like that.

           Kylie Minogue: Sexercize by Hattie Stewart from Chandelier Creative on Vimeo.

I also love Jess Wilson's fantastic homage to the dance scene in Napoleon Dynamite - you can buy the poster on the Print Club London website. PCL is actually where I discovered screenprinting, it's a lovely studio run by yet another excellent woman, Kate Higginson, along with her husband and their creative director, artist Rose Stallard. Go along and try a workshop- there are honestly few things more satisfying than learning to use a squeegee.

Napoleon Dynamite- £40

If you're after something more classical, I can't recommend anyone more than Rosie Emerson. She  combines my love of vintage photography and hugely OTT headwear in her gorgeous portraits. I'm in love with her new series of cyanotypes. The Marlene Dietrich number below is available in her Etsy shop.

Marlene Dietrich £125

The Secret of England's Greatness £85

And if you want something classical but with a modern edge? The Secret of England's Greatness is still one of my favourite prints by artist Twinkle Troughton.  And I adore Tinsel Edward's revolutionary slogans which she paints in beautiful typography onto found items, from old jewellery boxes to shields and doors. Tinsel and Twinkle were actually childhood friends and have grown up often working together - they've done some brilliant projects, including kidnapping a banker.

So that's it - my final post is almost over. I'm working on my own project dedicated to excellent women so do follow me on Twitter for more updates. I wanted to leave you with some more sources of excellent women, so here are some sites that I regularly turn to for inspiration. 

• BUST- I so, so wish I'd had this magazine when I was a teenager. Same for Rookie. And pre-teens? I wish I'd had Amy Poehler's amazing Smart Girls site.
• Clothes, Cameras and Coffee Maybe if I'd had the sites above I'd have been as cool as Rosalind Jana when I was only 19? I doubt it though. Her blog is a lovely mix of lovely fashion pics and actually, really well written, brainy editorial content.
• Libertine magazine- 'for interested women'- their slogan says it all really. See also The Gentlewoman, whose cover stars include the likes of Angela Lansbury and Vivienne Westwood. Legends. Take a look at our guide to independent magazines for more reading material.
• Want to hear about excellent women in music? The Girls Are has it all.
• And excellent women writing and reading books? For Book's Sake is what you're after, run by Jane Bradley who was once deputy editor of this very website.
• Women on film? 'I am Dora' hosts great screenings and talks.
• Inspirational feminists? Try Bryony Kimmings, Gaggle and Nadia Kamil for starters. They'll lead you to others and that's exactly as it should be.