Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman ArtistThrough the Flower was my first book (I've since published nine others). I was inspired to write it by the writer and diarist, Anais Nin, who was a mentor to me in the early seventies. My hope was that it would aid young women artists in their development and that reading about my struggles might help them avoid some of the pitfalls that were so painful to me. I also hoped to spare them the anguish of "reinventing the wheel", which my studies in women's history had taught me was done again and again by women, specifically because we have not had access to our foremothers' experience and achievements-one consequence of the fact that we still learn both history and art history from a male-centered bias with insufficient inclusion of women's achievements. I must admit that when I re-read Through the Flower, I winced at some of the unabashed honesty; at the same time, I am glad that my youthful self had the courage to speak so directly about my life and work. I doubt that I could recapture the candor that allowed this book to reflect such unabashed confidence that the world would accept revelations so lacking in self-consciousness. And yet, it is precisely this lack that helps give the book its flavor, the flavor of the seventies, when so many of us believed that we could change the world for the better, a goal that has been-as one of my friends put it-"mugged by reality". And yet, better an overly idealistic hope that the world could be reshaped for the better than a cynical acceptance of the status quo. At least we tried-and I'm still trying. Perhaps I'm just too old now to change. Judy Chicago 2005 |
Contents
My Childhood | 1 |
Making a Professional Life and | 27 |
Back to Painting Getting Married | 54 |
Fresno and the Womens Program | 70 |
Returning to Los Angeles | 93 |
WomanhousePerformances | 112 |
Finding My Way and Discovering Womens Art | 133 |
Learning from the Past | 160 |
Getting It Together | 178 |
Appendix | 207 |
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Common terms and phrases
able allowed Anaïs Nin Angeles anger Arlene art history artmaking asked audience Barbara Hepworth became began Cal Arts cunt decided develop discussed emotional environment experience express face fact Faith Wilding fantasy father felt female art community female role feminine Feminist Art Program Flower Archives Fresno friends frightened gallery human ideas images involved Jerry Jerry's death Judy Chicago knew learned Lee Bontecou lives Lloyd look male art male artists male culture male-dominated men's Mimi Miriam Schapiro mother moved needs never paintings perception performance Photo courtesy piece point of view realize relationship responsibility Rosalba Carriera Sarah Grimke sculpture seemed sexual Sheila society structure struggle studio subject matter talk Tampax things thought tion told trying values Virginia Woolf Waiting wanted woman Woman's Building Womanhouse Womanspace women artists women's art women's movement Woolf writing