Agency: Feminist Art and Power by Karen M. Gutfreund

MUSEUM OF SONOMA COUNTY

AGENCY: Feminist Art & Power

JA N UA RY 2 2

J U N E 5, 2 0 2 2

425 SEVENTH STREET SANTA ROSA, CA 95401 707.579.1500 WWW.MUSEUMSC.ORG

Artwork on front cover (left to right): Mickalene Thomas, Holly Ballard Martz, Nancy Youdelman Kristine Mays, Sally Edelstein, Cat Del Buono

Artwork on back cover (left to right): Martha Wilson, Vanessa Filley, Ria Brodell Ceciley Blanchard, Winnie van der Rijn, Dotty Attie

Copyright 2021 by The Museum of Sonoma County and Karen Gutfreund Art. The book authors and each artist here retains sole copyright to their contributions to this book. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without prior permission in writing from Museum of Sonoma County, Karen Gutfreund Art and the individual artists. ISBN: 9798786941693, printed by and available on Amazon.com Catalog designed by Nick Reichert (nick@nextrev.net); organized and edited by Karen M. Gutfreund, www.KarenGutfreund.com, @karengutfreundart

Cover designed by: Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro, Arc and Line Communication and Design www.arcadline.com, https://wordpress.hermelyn.com and @rhermelyndisilvestro

MUSEUM OF SONOMA COUNTY

AGENCY: Feminist Art & Power

ntroduction

2020 marked the centennial of the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. Our museum had plans to celebrate and honor women throughout that year, and recognize the countless achievements and contributions by women to global society over the last century and beyond. We recognize that while we take stock of the advancements for women, we must also recognize the continuing challenges that have led to #MeToo activism, the largest worldwide protests in history, and other ongoing battles for women’s rights in this country and worldwide. Now, almost two years later, after international shutdowns due to the Covid 19 pandemic, we are very pleased to present Agency: Feminist Art and Power. As I write this message, the legal and ethical battles being waged for women’s rights in state legislatures and the Supreme Court have brought the issues of women’s rights, power, and ‘agency’ into full focus. It is fortuitous that this exhibition is presented now, concurrent with the most intense and divisive debate about women’s right since the passing of Roe vs. Wade almost half a century ago. The Museum of Sonoma County is committed to providing a platform for the presentation and exploration of topical themes such as social justice, the environment, and consequential issues affecting our community and society. With this in mind, we are grateful to our guest curator Karen M. Gutfreund for her thoughtful and intelligent selection of artists and artworks; we are deeply thankful to the artists for their vision and articulation of complex concepts and content through the creation of outstanding works of art. Additionally, we truly appreciate our collaborator, The Feminist Art Project, for invaluable contributions to the research and content of the exhibition. Finally, I am most grateful to the Museum staff for their hard work and dedication, and for the support and encouragement of the Museum’s Board of Directors and Art Committee, who helped to bring Agency: Feminist Art and Power to the viewing public. Jeff Nathanson Executive Director Museum of Sonoma County

bout the Museum of Sonoma County

Located in Downtown Santa Rosa on Seventh Street between A and B Streets, the Museum of Sonoma County (MSC) presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art and local and regional history. MSC is open year-round with changing exhibitions, public programs, school tours, and education programs. MSC preserves and manages a regional art and history collection of over eighteen thousand objects, the region’s largest object documentation of Sonoma County’s history and culture.

Mission The Museum of Sonoma County (MSC) engages and inspires diverse populations of our region and beyond through art and history exhibitions, access to collections, and public programs that are inclusive, educational, and relevant to local, state, and national audiences.

Smithsonian Affiliate MSC has been a Smithsonian Affiliate since 2009. Smithsonian Affiliations establishes longterm partnerships with museums, education, and cultural organizations to facilitate the loan of Smithsonian artifacts and traveling exhibitions, as well as to develop innovative educational collaborations locally and nationally. Created in 1996 by an act of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, the program is overseen by the Smithsonian’s Assistant Secretary for Education and Access and is one of the pillars of the Institution’s national outreach efforts. There are more than 200 Smithsonian Affiliates in nearly every state, Puerto Rico and Panama. Affiliates represent the diversity of America’s museum community—size, location and subject—and serve all audiences. More than 8,000 Smithsonian artifacts have been displayed at Affiliate locations for the past 20 years.

Installation artwork by Donna Brookman

essage from the Board Chair

It is an honor to serve as Chair of the Museum’s Board of Directors knowing that our institution has not only talked about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but has made a real commitment to presenting exhibitions and programs that honor and celebrate the contributions of women and people of color to society and our immediate community. I am proud that the Museum of Sonoma County has been able to not only survive through the challenges of COVID and the economics of the past two years, but to thrive, so that Agency: Feminist Art and Power can be presented to the public.

Nancy Glaze Chair, Board of Directors Museum of Sonoma County

Installation artwork by Kim Anno

ften bestowed as privilege, self-determination over one’s body and mind is a right of every human being. Although social constructs such as class, religion, gender definitions, ethnicity, and others, influence our ability to exert power and authority, it is through these lenses that each of the artists in Agency: Feminist Art and Power triumph. Feminist Art is difficult to define with set parameters beyond that which is womxn centered or created. It is said that Feminist Art can be broadly defined as a view of the world that encompasses principles that reflect the reshaping of gender expectations in our culture with equality and social justice as a primary focus, though not its only themes. It is performance art, conceptual art, film, painting, sculpture, fiber or anything an artist chooses. It is all about the intention of the artist; her sources and creative language to be able to articulate with a feminist tenor. I am proud to represent The Feminist Art Project (TFAP) and contribute my expertise to bring forward the vital and cutting-edge visual discourse in Agency: Feminist Art and Power. Making this kind of dialogue available to the public, who might not have access otherwise, is one of our primary missions. Since 2005, TFAP has worked to ensure that the creative production of womxn in all art fields across geographic, cultural, economic, and generational boundaries are fully represented in the cultural record in perpetuity. It has been deeply gratifying to work with Karen M. Gutfreund, a curator I greatly admire. I thank the staff of the Museum of Sonoma County, without whom this important exhibition would not be possible. I especially want to thank all of the funders who recognize the significance of the artists’ voices presented in Agency: Feminist Art and Power.

Connie Tell National Committee Chair The Feminist Art Project (TFAP)

F C rom the

Patriarchy is a power structure that can and must be dismantled. As long as we ignore or passively accept the patriarchal structure there can be no real or lasting change and no true equality. We must keep ideas of change in the conversation or it won’t happen. By approaching this project with some humor and a bit of absurdity, I hope to spark engagement in this deeply serious subject.

urator

Agency: Feminist Art and Power brings together the work of twenty-eight womxn artists who represent different cu ltu ral backgrounds, generations, geographic locations, LGBTQ and gender identities, who explore the concept of agency. These extraordinary artists are presenting work that examines empowerment, identity, gender roles, flu idity and constructs, sexism and ageism, reprodu ctive choice, women and work, violence, and more. The artwork ranges from literal to poetic, abstract to representational, with social and political commentary, including more abstract ideals and themes of self, exploration of belief systems, u niversal responsibility, and selfdiscovery. Agency reflects personal as well as observed stories— myth, fact or fiction. The work will challenge our understanding of what shapes us as individuals and communities with cutting edge work and ideas of womxn artists who are exploring urgent social topics.

- Winnie van der Rĳn WE WILL NOT STAY SILENT… Rosemary Meza-DesPlas' What is Whispered, Should be Screamed (2018) depicts anger as a u sefu l tool against oppression, personal and institutional, and an unwillingness to remain silent. How often have women and girls been told anger is u nladylike, it’s not feminine to scream or fight. This work, addressing righteous anger, is an excellent response to women who have had enough of staying silent.

What is agency? Agency is the capacity to act or exert one’s own power; to act independently and to make free choices. It is the u nderlying premise of Agency: Feminist Art and Power. Power is about influence, access, control, security, confidence, and strength. Reflecting on power paradigms, it is hard to believe that in 2022 we are still revisiting issues of patriarchal control. It’s time to dismantle the power stru ctu re that grants entitlement to men to hold the reins of unilateral power. It’s time to “smash the patriarchy” and challenge the social, political, cultural and economic thinking that supports the philosophies of hegemonic, toxic masculinity.

In an examination and deconstru ction of patriarchal power, Winnie van der Rijn’s Shred (#11) (2021) literally rips apart the trappings of male power in the form of a man’s work shirt. Throu gh this destru ction of menswear, she is extracting the power and reimagining/reforming/redistributing it—dismantling the patriarchy one shirt at a time.

It also means opposing any system where one group can claim power over another to marginalize them—shu t them u p, keep them quiet, keep them in their place. Certainly, don’t let “them” vote or even peacefully protest. It’s time to eradicate the notion that equ ality for all will bring the downfall of Western civilization with a fear-based concept that white men will lose if others gain. Systems of power are legitimized by those who wield the power and their followers. They are also sanctioned by those who stay silent.

T ime (2011), a clever video installation by Cat Del Buono, appears to be a photograph until you look closely—the video’s only movement is the clock ticking in the background. The men are frozen and stuck in time as the world and society changes and moves forward. #ICANTKEEPQUIET Connie Lim, who performs as MILCK, co-wrote Quiet #icantkeepquiet, performed it with a group at the Women's March in Washington, D.C. It went viral. Actor and activist, Samantha Bee called it "a protest anthem for the ages." As with the artwork in this exhibition, the song speaks to empowerment, and inspires me to action. I’ve dedicated my curatorial practice to feminist and social justice art—it is my path to make positive change by addressing socio-political topics.

My interest lies in how social movements— Black Lives Matter, Women’s Marches, Time’s UP and #MeToo—harness anger to forefront an array of gender-based burdens. - Rosemary Meza-DesPlas

Since 1985 the Guerrilla Girls have been working to create change in the artworld. This anonymous group of feminist artists wear gorilla masks to storm the public at museum openings, happenings, and other events. They use facts, humor, and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias along with corruption in the art world as well as in politics, film and pop culture. The vintage posters we acquired from The Feminist Art Project are more timely than ever.

The validation of female experience in this culture is a primary feminist goal and any art which does so is, for me, Feminist Art.” The stories in Agency provide an opportunity to explore new ideas, increase awareness, and encourage dialogue surrounding these important contemporary issues which affect not just women, but us all—our families, communities, and as global citizens. Margi Weir is an expert storyteller. Her large, vinyl floor installation The Right to Vote (2021) began as a meditation on women’s suffrage and morphed into voting rights for all. With voter suppression initiatives being enacted around the country and this work speaks to the sociopolitical realities of the contemporary world around us.

Put on your face Know your place Shut up and smile Don't spread your legs I could do that But no one knows me, no one ever will If I don't say something, if I just lie still Would I be that monster, scare them all away If I let them hear what I have to say

My instruments are language and my woman's body…because this is the vessel that experiences praise, hatred, misogyny, boredom, invisibility — hungers for a better world.

… I can't keep quiet Lyrics by MILCK I can’t keep quiet anymore…and neither can the artists in this exhibition.

- Martha Wilson

The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.

I find humor can be an effective method in the attempt to break down complex topics such as society’s arbitrary beauty standards, so I deliberately simplify issues such as gender bias and inequality by exaggerating the obvious.

- Rebecca Solnit, writer STORIES WE TELL

- Cat Del Buono

In 1980, Lucy Lippard, art critic, activist and curator, argued that feminist art is “neither a style nor a movement” but rather “a value system, a revolutionary strategy, a way of life.” Griselda Pollock, art historian, has said, “feminism is a historical project and thus is itself constantly shaped and remodeled in relation to the living process of women’s struggles.”

As an artist I feel it is my responsibility to be a good ancestor, to examine history and stories that have been erased or ignored and bring them forward into our midst so that we might grapple with them and consider different ways of being for ourselves and future generations.

The work I chose for this exhibition includes many different perspectives and styles, an incredible cornucopia of artistic practices. What draws me to feminist art is the rich storytelling, the manifestation of the lived experiences—complex, provoking, and emotionally charged. Artist Joan Semmel says, “Art which in some way, however varied, validates the female experience. In this society that experience is still very different than males.

- Vanessa Filley

MY BODY MY CHOICE

Holly Ballard Martz’s installation danger of nostalgia in wallpaper form (in utero) (2020) speaks to bodily autonomy. She meticulously bends and forms wire coat hangers by hand into the form of the female reproductive system. At first glance the wall installation appears to be lovely, elegant Victorian wallpaper. But the symbol of the coat hanger is a taboo hidden in plain sight to represent the horror of a return to back-alley abortions.

As I am writing this essay, it appears the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v Wade. We are facing stark challenges to agency over the female body and risk losing these important hard-won rights. I am horrified. I’m terrified for what this will mean for women in this country—where after fifty years of legalized abortion, a large part of the country will have extremely reduced access to reproductive healthcare. No more making decisions and choices for their own lives—reduced to handmaidens, women are merely vessels.

THE FEMALE GAZE Throughout the history of art we have had what is considered the “male gaze.” The women objectified and sexualized is for the pleasure of other heterosexual males—she is an “object” of their desire. Her thoughts, feelings and her own sexual agency are less important or not considered when being “framed” by this desire.

Feminist journalist and political activist, Gloria Steinem said if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. She also said, “Patriarchy—or whatever you want to call it, the systems that say there’s masculine and feminine and other bullshit–is about controlling reproduction.” Choices about when, or if, to have children lead to other major life changing factors— pursing education, career advancement, plus the well-being of their existing family and most importantly not being held hostage by their uterus.

Let’s turn the tables, shall we? Mickalene Thomas’ All She Wants to Do is Dance (Fran) (2009), explores claiming authority, the “gaze” and the power in Black female beauty. Covered in rhinestones and glitter, the massive canvases depict African American women who command authority and exude raw power. Thomas celebrates female sexual identity, femininity and beauty in these striking works.

I equate bodily autonomy as an essential form of agency. The escalating push to overturn Roe v Wade is increasingly alarming and I am quite fearful that in the not-too-distant future the right to safe and legal abortion will no longer be the law of the land, restricting the agency of those with uteri.

Venus De Mardi Gras (2014), by Shonagh Adelman is entirely made of sparkling, gorgeous, crystals. The masked figure in repose rejects the male gaze and is strength personified—the seeming fragility of both the medium and the model is an oxymoron as she claims her power.

- Holly Ballard Martz Joan Semmel’s large nude paintings are portrayals of sexual empowerment and sexual pleasure from a woman’s point of view. Through these stunning, evocative self-portraits, she explores erotic themes and the aging female body, rejecting the idealization of women demanded by American culture. With Side Pull (1979), from the Echoing Images series she paints herself twice, to show internal and external views of identity.

As a young person I honestly took the privileges afforded by Roe v. Wade for granted. Now in my 30s seeing it be challenged over and over I now understand the stark reality that my reproductive rights will never be a given, each generation should be prepared to defend it.

Ceciley Blanchard’s photographic series Still I Rise (2018) addresses Black women's empowerment using Maya Angelou’s poem "Still I Rise" as inspiration towards liberation. The nine photographs are beautiful and expressive intimate portraits, conveying both strength and vulnerability for the female gaze and emancipation.

- Alyssa Eustaquio

I recognize the empowered beauty in women that I strive to fully bring out in my work. In light of the representation of women in the art historical canon and outside of it, it’s long overdue to see women like me in art. While the women in my work celebrate and claim various notions of beauty, I think they are simultaneously providing an unapologetic barrier that challenges the clichés traditionally imposed on women of color. Through their piercing gazes, they demand to be seen, to be heard, and to be acknowledged.

Priscilla Otani’s dynamic sculpture Shedding Femininity (2016), hairy as a wild animal, screams ENOUGH. Enough of the fetishization of women’s bodies, enough of the crimes against women, enough of being toyed with and violated. Women have had enough. Women have struggled against oppression for centuries, and although some battles have been won, women are still disproportionally affected by all forms of violence and by discrimination in every aspect of life from the bedroom to the boardroom. In this challenging time of Covid, we have seen an explosion of violence towards women. Due to economic insecurity, fear of illness, isolation and reports of drug and alcohol abuse, life with shelter-in-place lockdown created a perfect storm. The abuse is disturbing. Sadly, domestic abuse is not new, but was heightened during the pandemic and hidden away.

- Mickalene Thomas

Female agency led to a reckoning for sexual predators and resulted in palpable changes.

#METOO

- Rosemary Meza-DesPlas

The steady stream of #MeToo stories have kept the hashtag active. There’s barely a woman I know that doesn’t have a story and many are heartbreaking. The boys club and locker room “grab ‘em by the pussy” mentality is part of a misogynistic, moral crisis that is festering in the US. Women are objects to be played with—and scorned, ridiculed, and humiliated if they speak out. But social media has given women’s voices a large megaphone. This movement has put the pressure on institutions and individuals to acknowledge and disavow the abuse. No more turning a blind eye.

We see other atrocities in plain sight in our daily news feeds with violence to people of color and LGBTQI communities. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought attention to crimes committed on our brothers and sisters but police violence still goes unchecked and unprosecuted. This must stop. Artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs says, “Often historical trauma creates ‘secrets’ and despite the challenging and negative taboo of talking about these issues they must be voiced in order to transform and promote healing, awareness and break the cycle of abuse.”

Vanessa Filley focuses on the female experience and women’s organizing movements. The photographic installation, with twelve portraits, #MeToo (2018), is an unflinching look at the women who have suffered and endured the #metoo abuses. The pain and trauma are a palpable thing. Filley expertly captures the sublime moment and the complex emotions in their defiance gaze.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s inspirational work, The Long Shadow (2016), addresses current issues facing Native Americans such as the destruction of the environment, and governmental

Despite the #MeToo movement and woman after woman testifying in court and in congress, there are too few victories in reclaiming our bodies. Time after time women continue to be toyed with and violated, whether in the name of religion, job promotion or physical health.

The #MeToo movement has created a tipping point—no more to tolerating abuse or harassment, regardless of who the perpetrator may be. Vanessa Filley says of her installation, “The #MeToo placard is a sort of reverse scarlet letter. Here the collective impact of so many women who have a #MeToo experience is meant to bring awareness. It is a shameful history of unrepentant perpetration that we should no longer be willing, as a society, to quietly endure. My hope is that we can create a cultural shift so that the experience is not perpetuated in future generations.”

- Priscilla Otani

oppression of native cultures. Smith offers her personal perspective as an artist, a Native American, and a woman. Her work explores issues of Native identity as it is seen by both Native Americans and non-Natives.

gets to be considered female? Artists are using their work as a platform to examine, question, and criticize the relationships between gender and society and to challenge traditional roles of women, and are emphasizing the fluidity of gender, refusing to adhere to traditional gender constructs.

Kristine Mays’ Say Her Name #2 (2021) sculpture is a juxtaposition of delicate, beautifully, hand formed wires, yet fierce and strong. Mays documents domestic terrorism crimes and violence against black bodies. Yearly, hundreds of people are unjustly killed by police and vigilantes. Mays works to bring justice by acknowledging the victims.

Ria Brodell’s Butch Heroes (2012-ongoing) series are small, detailed gouache paintings that evoke the pictorial pages of painted manuscripts. Using the format of Catholic holy cards, they highlight queer history. The works are beautifully poignant and shed light on abuses and persecution towards LGBTQI individuals throughout history. Each character examined is a little-known hero/heroine, nonbinary or transgendered individual from decades, if not centuries, long past. The Butch Heroes series is also in a published book.

Sonya Kelliher-Combs’ Floral Secrets (2021) are charming and intricately sewn and embroidered pieces. The tiny receptacles are the keepers of secrets and carry the physical, emotional and psychological burdens of trauma and address sexual abuse and rape against women. Drawing from her diverse background— Athabascan, Inupiaq, Irish, and German, Kelliher-Combs uses imagery and symbols that speak about culture and the life of her ancestors, and marginalization and the struggles of Indigenous peoples.

Jessie Edelstein’s iBot (2019) performance and photography— inventive and thought-provoking, speaks to autonomy and queer identity. True identity is an internal paradigm, not visible to the public, and face painting allows Edelstein to express their authentic self. In addition to gender identity politics, we are still living with the old-fashioned, traditional gender roles and expectations that describe how cis-gender males and females are to behave in the private and public realm. The late artist Judy Gelles speaks gendered phrases in the Words from Home series. You Look Better When You’re Smiling (2016) are phrases are drawn from memories of her parents’ advice but speak to a broader set of cultural expectations for young women. These destructive and critical comments, wall hung in cut Plexiglas, asks the viewer to contemplate their own response to the sayings and reflect on our gendered society with outmoded expectations for girls and women.

I find myself constantly thinking about freedom. What does that look like to live your life without being placed in a box or restricted based on your race, your womanhood, your size? What does it feel like to breathe easy and not have to continually watch your back? What does it feel like to open your arms and fly—unhindered, to dream—to be. My goal and desire is to give voice to the voiceless, the marginalized, the oppressed. Say her name. Black Lives Matter.

The American pop-culture images from the 1950s through the 1970s provide a shared cultural history of becoming female in the US. They are the sharpest illustration not of reality but of domestic and national ideals reinforcing cultural, political, racial, and gender stereotypes. Along with being powerful enforcers of gender, they shape our psyches in setting standards of how women think of themselves.

- Kristine Mays

GENDER ROLES AND CONSTRUCTS Prescribed gender roles are key elements in the patriarchal setup to entrench hetero-normative roles. They codify the power dynamics and turn them into rules for behavior. When one does not comply with these rules and reject the gender they were assigned from birth, they are maligned, ostracized, and attacked. They are made to feel as “other” and “less than” in our gendered society. Who gets to be considered male, who

- Sally Edelstein

In talking about being nonbinary, trans, and the strong emphasis on the binary definition of gender that our culture has—I don't have either experience of the binary. For me that's what nonbinary is. It's a big question mark.

would increase U.S. GDP by almost 4 trillion dollars, or 23%. Let’s not forget about the wage discrepancies. Women in the U.S. earn 81 cents for every dollar men make. This is the raw pay gap, which looks at the median salary for all men and women regardless of job type or worker seniority, but the disparity in pay widens for minorities. Black women, for example, earn 61 cents for every dollar their White male counterparts are paid. The pay for Hispanic women is even lower. Why is there such a delta between what men and women are paid?

- Ria Brodell

My mother accepted security at a cost. I insisted on freedom of choice. Now, my daughter’s generation is embracing nothing less than total acceptance of who they are, both body and mind. It’s amazing to see.

The Carrying Stones series by Sawyer Rose documents paid and unpaid labor through data visualization in conceptual, large-scale installations. Amira (2017) is just one of the fascinating stories, manifested into art, that documents the women’s lives as they tally their daily hours. These hours are represented by interesting, disparate objects, hand-crafted, sculpted and assembled by Rose. On a positive note, Sawyer Rose asserts, “The good news, though, is that everyone can reap the benefits of a gender-equitable workforce: increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP), more profitable businesses, and healthier, happier partners and children.”

- Rozanne Hermelyn di Silvestro Alyssa Eustaquio’s, Keeping FEMINISM Fresh (2013) is a small, delightful work that packs a big punch. The embossed, pink bubble gum sends the message that we cannot let feminist dreams go stale. There is still work to be done and feminism needs to be served up fresh and tasty to the next generation that may take for granted the hard-won current rights to break away from gender roles and expectations.

Many of the women participants in my Carrying Stones project say that they never realized how much work they're doing every day until they started tracking their hours. The process has been an eye-opener for them in terms of worklife balance—and for me as well.

WOMEN’S WORK IS NEVER DONE We are living through a pandemic that looks like it will never end. While there is light at the end of the tunnel, it’s hard to capture the scope and impact it has had on our lives, particularly for the caregivers who are primarily women. The pandemic has brought the unequal distribution of labor to the forefront, but the impact of unpaid labor is not new one.

- Sawyer Rose LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX…(ISM)

Statistically, in the U.S., women average more than four hours of unpaid labor in their homes each day. American women are doing almost twice as much cooking, cleaning, caring, and volunteer work as men, even if they are working full-time jobs. In looking at this pattern through a wider lens, these extra burdens are setting back overall progress on gender equity in the workplace. During Covid-19, we have seen 28% of women with children under 18 leave the workplace to be caregivers, due to unshared domestic responsibilities. That is a staggering number!

And, of course, ageism too…It’s often said there is nothing more invisible than a middle-aged woman. They are often referred to as a crone, a term I dislike. But conversely, this word originally described an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman—portraying the matriarchal strength with age when one passes into an era of wisdom, freedom, and personal power. How does our culture expect midlife women to spend their next three or even four decades? Time to be put out to pasture. You are a carton of milk with an expiration date—no use to society anymore as youthful beauty fades and childbearing years pass.

The assigned value of this unpaid labor is quite high. In 2016, Benjamin Bridgman at the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that if this value was included in national accounts, it

Today many young women have an uncomfortable relationship with calling themselves feminists despite embodying what it means to be one. Being a teen during the second-wave women's movement of the early 1970s that word was more than a fresh lens to view the world. It made me part of a community, offering the first honest perspective on being female in a sexist society, calling into question cultural assumptions, which now forms the basis of my work.

Sexism and ageism is damaging to physical, emotional, financial, romantic and sexual health. Why are half their lives being dismissed as inconsequential and irrelevant? Dotty Attie’s, Skin Deep (2007) is captivating and eye-catching with a grid of multi-panels of paintings rendered from photographs. They show women at their toilet—primping, applying makeup, putting on girdles, having their hair permed, weighing themselves, exercising and being subjected to ridiculous contraptions that women used for beauty in midcentury. Attie includes text to create a narrative that explores depictions of the female body in the history of art and critiques gender bias in the art world. Through self-portraits, Martha Wilson uses performance and staged photographs to create witty observations in the investigation of identity. beauty is in the eye (2014) is an unvarnished look at beauty and aging. Over the past five decades Wilson has created innovative works that explore female subjectivity through role-playing, costume transformations, and impersonation. Martha Wilson says, “My current work has to do with being an old lady—I'm having fun being an old lady. Artists work with what they have; if you're in your 20s, your focus is on issues that matter to you in your 20s.”

- Sally Edelstein

undervalued, women artists have always made work that is innovative, extraordinary, and thought-provoking. But in addition to gender roles and expectations, we have “gendered” art, which determines whose art is considered more valuable. This is a determining factor on how much you are paid and influences inclusion in private collections, museum shows and collections, and gallery representation. 85 percent of artists featured in permanent collections are white, while 87 percent are men. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, women earn 74¢ for every dollar made by male artists.

Sally Edelstein’s How Old is Old? (2012) is a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of mid-century appropriated images, hand cut and assembled into large collages that tell the stories of women’s experiences with aging in a youth orientated society. Edelstein draws from a huge collection of vintage ephemera— the images in the collages are the sharpest renderings, not of reality but of domestic and national ideals. These works provide us with a shared cultural history of becoming female in America. Edelstein speaks to female identity becoming fragmented by the media insistent on ever-changing, impossible standards.

The second wave feminist movement in the 70s expanded on who is included in the art conversation. It put a spotlight on traditional women's techniques—sewing, stitching, crocheting, embroidering, knitting, etc. as a viable contribution to the art world. There is still bias that “high-art” is created by white, male artists in the European tradition, whereas women’s art has been regulated to as “craft.” The medium of the art should not determine its value.

Now I’m Beautiful! (2011), Woman (2012), and American Female (2012) are three shrewd, funny videos by Cat Del Buono that illustrate the value society bestows to women based solely on beauty and sexuality. The works demonstrate how females are gradually reduced to just one dimension, whether it’s by physical attractiveness or being a wife. Del Buono’s goal is to influence society to move beyond the status quo of these shallow categorizations.

Nancy Youdelman’s Pin Gloves (2019) and Rolling Pin with Pearls & Tiny Porcelain Doll (2016) are exquisitely detailed and gorgeously crafted sculptures. She uses old, found objects and utensils as a tool to represent women’s work and as a remembrance for what would be lost and forgotten. Youdelman’s practice was informed as an original, participating artist at Womanhouse in the 1970s. Womanhouse was a feminist art installation and performance space, in an entire house, organized by artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, cofounders of the California Institute of the Arts. The focus of this project was to create a vision of a new kind of female centered art.

WHY HAVE THERE BEEN NO GREAT WOMEN ARTISTS? Art Historian and writer Linda Nochlin asked this question in 1971, rhetorically of course. Historically underrepresented and

Lucky Rapp’s we rise (2017) invites the viewer to raise the bar and seek their inner power to look within and push higher, close the gap, and believe in oneself. The words in this luminous and inspirational text-based series are an encouragement to women and marginalized peoples, in the art world and other industries, to strive for equity.

of The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine writes: “When the divine feminine, the goddess, is no longer revered, social and psychic structures become over mechanized, over politicized, over militarized. Living without the full feminine for so many centuries, we don’t know what it would be like to live within a society where the feminine voice is not repressed, women’s bodies are not distorted, controlled or sold, and where both men and women live with balanced psyches. It’s as if humanity has lived with one side of its body atrophied. The return of the feminine may be the most significant development of the new millennium.”

We shouldn’t still be talking about why there are no great women artists. If there aren’t great celebrated women artists, that’s because we have not been celebrating them, but not because they are not there.

Judy Chicago—considered one of the mothers of feminist art—is a force of nature and an inspiration to many. Her work What if Women Ruled the World (2020) represents the power of collective womanhood. Chicago says, “Art has no responsibilities. Only artists have responsibilities, and the beauty of art is that each artist gets to define what responsibilities they wish to tackle…I have pursued an artistic quest that involves making the female experience a pathway to the universal in the same way the male experience has been.”

- Joan Semmel

WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? This is the title of a series of banners created by Judy Chicago. They were designed to imagine and honor an alternative matriarchal history. The velvet banners are embroidered with very good questions:

The figures La Llorona and Lillith have been used as a cautionary tale to scare young women into behaving through folklore. In two huge photographic murals, Delilah Montoya’s La Llorona in Lillith’s Garden (2004) portrays the strength, sovereignty, and omnipotence of these women. The draped, ghostlike figures are exquisite and unapologetic—their power is a tangible thing. The installation provocatively explores the traditional double

“Would god be female?” “Would men and women be equal?” “Would both men and women be gentle?” “Would both men and women be strong?” “Would there be equal parenting?”

I come from an ancestral matriarch from the Frontera—the women on my mother's side have always been strong and in control. It was only when U.S. white culture came to the Frontera that our rights were compromised causing much confusion and mistrust. I think of the artist as a “maker” like the women of the Frontera. My mother, a single parent, raised me to be independent, I raised my daughter that way and my daughter raised her daughter with those values. Today, we are all professionals—councilor, medical doctor, nurse, artist and professor. The feminist moment finally brought US culture to our way of thinking.

“Would earth be protected?” “Would there be violence?” “Would there be private property?” “Would buildings resemble wombs?” “Would old women be revered?” I’m fascinated by Goddess/Matriarch culture. Women were honored as the central spiritual archetype and prevailing deity all over the globe for thousands of years. Matriarchal power has essentially been eradicated by revisionist, patriarchal religions, by Christians, Muslims or Jews. It makes one question everything we’ve been taught by male dominated religious institutions. The Goddess/Matriarch is the spiritual foundation of feminism. Nancy Qualls-Corbett, PhD, a Jungian analyst and the author

- Delilah Montoya

CONCLUSION

standards that determine appropriate behavior for women and invests these female archetypes with new meaning.

Art can be beautiful. It can be hard to look at, challenging, and create more questions than answers. Activist art, however, is not ju st abou t depicting beau ty, bu t rather encapsu lating and expressing the artists experience and perspective into a visual form. It leads not to one conclu sion, bu t rather stimu lates our su bconsciou s and emotions, that may move u s to alter our perceptions and viewpoints. I believe in the power of art and artists to provide powerful, transformational experiences in how we see ourselves, each other, and society.

TAKING CHARGE A rising tide raises all ships. Mona Eltahawy, an EgyptianAmerican activist, feminist, author and journalist says, “Feminism is not me making it, me and a few other women, past the obstacles. Feminism is dismantling those obstacles so that everyone can make it.” She wants women to come up with their own definition of success, ambition and power, instead of just reaching for the ones that have served men.

I am grateful to the Museum of Sonoma County for giving me this opportunity to showcase the twenty-eight amazing artists in Agency: Feminist Art and Power. It has been a true pleasure working with museum director Jeff Nathanson, and his staff to bring this show to fruition, after many delays due to the pandemic. We received generou s su pport from the NEA, other institu tions, and individu al donors from the commu nity to make this show possible, and I am very grateful. I also want to thank Connie Tell, of The Feminist Art Project—her friendship and assistance has been invaluable. Lastly, none of this would have been possible without the artists. I’m deeply humbled by their bravery, honesty and authenticity in their work and for sharing their talents. And last, but certainly not least, to my husband Scott Vouri, for all his support during this project.

Historically feminist practice addressed mainly middleclass white women, and women of color were excluded. Solid steps have been made for the future of feminism to be intersectional to include more voices. Collectively we have the power to affect and create change, and to stand up both for ourselves and for others. The only thing more powerful than a self-confident woman is an army of them. Jenny Reinhardt’s Call Out the Commands (2018) is vibrant and commanding—the color and composition draws one into the multiple layers of imagery and meaning. In this work, and her series on the subject, Reinhardt sends a strong feminist message of empowerment, delivered with a good sense of humor. Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro’s inventive and dynamic installation Rising (2018) documents the Forbes’ 100 most powerful women breaking and celebrates their success. It honors these women leaders who broke through the glass ceiling, blasting through limitations and obstacles built by the patriarchy to define their own success.

Karen M. Gutfreund Curator

In my art, women decide their own futures: full of hope, strength and the conviction to rise and thrive for the self-betterment of all humanity. It became evident to me that half-measures equal death. The antidote is full-engagement. Being wholly accountable has led me to uncompromised creative leaps, wild experimentation, and joy in life and art. This is my agency. - Jenny Reinhardt

bout the Curator

Karen M. Gutfreund is an independent curator and artist with a focus on feminist and social justice art. She has worked in the Painting & Sculpture Department for MoMA, the Andre Emmerick Gallery, The Knoll Grou p, the John Berggru en Gallery and the Pacific Art League, and is an art consultant to both corporations and individuals. She served on the board of the Women’s Cau cu s for Art, the Pacific Art Leagu e and the Petalu ma Arts Council. She was the National Exhibitions Director for the Women’s Caucus for Art for six years, is a member of ArtTable, the Northern California Representative for The Feminist Art Project, and Cu rator for UniteWomen.org. To date Gu tfreu nd has created over forty national exhibitions—recent exhibitions inclu de: Deadlocked and Loaded: Disarming America; Not Normal: Art in the Age of Trump; and Embedded Message, Debating the Dream: Truth, Justice and the American Way. She co-curated F213, F*ck U! In the Most Loving Way; and Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze. Karen is partner in Gutfreund Cornett Art, with curator Sherri Cornett, a curatorial partnership that creates art as activism exhibitions, with the motto “changing the world throu gh art” with national touring exhibitions. GCA exhibitions included: Beyond Borders: Stories of im/Migration; Social Justice: It Happens to One, Happens to All; Rise: Empower, Change and Action; Vision: An Artist’s Perspective; What’s Right, What’s Left: Democracy in America; Visural: Sight, Sound and Action. Lastly, Gutfreund is an artist and exhibits extensively around the country. She has a BFA in Photographic Design and a BA in Art History, and a MA (pending) from New York University. Gutfreund has lived in all four corners of the United States and splits her time between Sonoma and New York.

THE ARTISTS SHONAGH ADELMAN DOTTY ATTIE CECILEY BLANCHARD RIA BRODELL JUDY CHICAGO CAT DEL BUONO JESSIE EDELSTEIN SALLY EDELSTEIN ALYSSA EUSTAQUIO VANESSA FILLEY JUDY GELLES GUERRILLA GIRLS ROZANNE HERMELYN DI SILVESTRO SONYA KELLIHER-COMBS HOLLY BALLARD MARTZ KRISTINE MAYS ROSEMARY MEZA-DESPLAS DELILAH MONTOYA PRISCILLA OTANI LUCKY RAPP JENNY REINHARDT SAWYER ROSE JOAN SEMMEL JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH MICKALENE THOMAS WINNIE VAN DER RIJN MARGI WEIR MARTHA WILSON NANCY YOUDELMAN 15

SHONAGH ADELMAN CHATTANOOGA, TN

shona-adelman.com Shonagh Adelman (b. 1961) is a Canadian born artist living and working in Chattanooga, TN. Her work has exhibited widely at distinguished institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Aldrich Museum, Delray Museum of Art, Fuller Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts among others. Her work has been featured in art publications such as Art in America, Artforum, Flash Art, Bomb Magazine and Parachute. Adelman’s crystal method combines a material akin to gemstones with meticulous attention to detail in order to beguile and provoke. Thousands of translucent colored crystals are deployed to lure the viewer into up close and personal proximity with a surface that looks fragile, a surface you shouldn’t touch. While the image appears delicate, it remains frustratingly under-defined and abstract, tiny reflective surfaces colluding en masse to blur color and line. But the delicacy is deceptive just as the idea of a precious stone is an oxymoron when preciousness is equated with fragility. In this series, the decorative association and physical properties of the materials, thematically and literally reflect the pinnacle of extravagance and ornamentation in pre-revolutionary France. Inside ostentatious rooms, bizarre juxtapositions of character and action take fuzzy shape. These crystalized figures appear to be caught in mid action. Using pop culture imagery alongside original sources, the mise en scène is both banal and bizarre. Disorderly Conduct offers up a Rashomon of narrative possibilities, manifesting worlds in collusion.

Venus De Mardi Gras (2014) 4mm colored glass and acrylic crystals on canvas, 36 x 30 inches Courtesy of Adrian Lupu

SHONAGH ADELMAN

DOTTY ATTIE NEW YORK, NY

ppow.com @ppowgallery Dotty Attie (b. 1938) was born in Pennsauken, New Jersey and lives and works in New York City, utilizing images from the art of the past in her work and social commentary. A presence on the New York art scene for over fifty years, Attie is one of the founding members of A.I.R. Gallery, the first all-female cooperative artist’s gallery, founded in 1972. Her work is a fusion of minimalism, appropriation, and feminism and has consistently balanced emotional depth with critical inquiry. Since her earliest exhibitions, Attie’s work has rigorously engaged the grid as a formal and conceptual tool. She decontextualizes canonical works by Old Master painters and Modern photographers, who, not incidentally, are all male. Text panels are interwoven with her drawings or paintings to imbue her images with violence, eroticism and psychological imbalance. She received a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art (1959), a Beckmann Fellowship at the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, New York (1960) and attended the Art Students League, New York (1967). Attie was awarded a Creative Artists Public Service grant in 1976-1977 from the New York State Council and National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1976 and 1983. In 2013, Attie was inducted into the National Academy of Design. Attie has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1972. Her work is in the collections of Yale University Art Gallery, CT; The Wadsworth Athenaeum, CT; Smith College Museum of Art, MA; The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum, NY; among others. In 2008, Attie was included in Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, curated by Maura Reilly and Nicole J. Caruth, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY. In 2012, Attie was featured in This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, curated by Helen Molesworth, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Artist Statement: My definition of feminism is actually very basic—it means no barriers between what a woman chooses to do, and what is acceptable, by societal and familial standards, for her to do. And it also means (to me) no expectations. Women should feel free to have enormous ambitions, or no ambitions, and not be penalized in any way for either. I feel very fortunate to be an artist, and do what I love every day, to have helped found, run and exhibit in a wonderful gallery, A.I.R., dedicated to showing women’s art, and to have raised two children. I’ve been able to do exactly what I’ve wanted, and what I’ve been best suited for, and I consider that the essence of feminism. Skin Deep (2007) Oil on linen, 28 panels 6 x 6 inches, 7 panels 3 x 4 inches Courtesy of the Artist and P.P.O.W. New York

DOTTY ATTIE

HOLLY BALLARD MARTZ SEATTLE, WA

hollyballardmartz.com @hballardmartz Holly Ballard Martz (b. 1965) is a multidisciplinary artist who uses language and found objects to create iconic works about deeply felt social, political, and personal issues, including mental illness, gun violence, and reproductive rights. Her two-dimensional, sculptural, and installation-based practice includes casting, sewing, metalwork, and encaustic. She is the recipient of a McMillen Foundation Fellowship and an Artist Trust Grant for Artist Projects. Based in Seattle, Martz has exhibited nationally, and her work is held in many private and public collections, including the Gates Foundation, the University of Washington, and the City of Seattle. She is represented by ZINC contemporary in Seattle WA. Artist Statement: danger of nostalgia in wallpaper form (in utero) appears, at first, to be a lovely, innocuous patterned wall, though the installation in fact features dozens of wire coat hangers shaped and soldered by hand to display the repeated form of the female reproductive system. By installing my piece in the style of ornate wallpaper, I manipulate the symbol of self-induced abortions into something fit to adorn even the most elegant room, thus hiding a taboo in plain sight. I bend and form each piece of wire myself, a slow and painful process that is an exercise in endurance for my hands, and also representative of the slow and painful trudge towards full reproductive rights for women in America. The installation presents a vivid reminder of the gory reality that remains under wraps in the absence of women’s rights and questions what else might lurk beneath the surface, be it in history, in society, or in ourselves.

danger of nostalgia in wallpaper form (in utero) (2020) Powder Coated Steel Wire, Brass Nails, Dimensions Variable

HOLLY BALLARD MARTZ

CECILEY BLANCHARD HUNTSVILLE, AL

@cecileyblanch.art Ceciley Blanchard (b. 1995) was born in Killeen, Texas on the Fort Hood military base. She received her BFA in Photography with a Graphic Design secondary from Union University, Jackson, Tennessee in 2018. She is an African American woman whose artistic style is molded by her faith, feminism, and personal experiences with racism. She is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Design and was a student athlete receiving a scholarship to play volleyball. While in college, she fell in love with coaching volleyball and mentoring young women as they chase after their individual dreams. Currently, she works as the Assistant Volleyball Coach at The University of Alabama Huntsville and coaches for a local travel team, North Alabama Spikers Association. In her spare time, she continues her love for art, graphic design and photography through various projects, including photographing weddings and lifestyle, developing business logos, and artistic consulting. Her 2018 Juried Exhibition titled Rise: Empower, Change, Action was displayed at Whitney Modern Gallery, Los Gatos, California. Her Senior project Truth told personal stories about racism experienced by people that meant the most to her; the exhibit was displayed at Union University. She currently resides in Huntsville, Alabama. Artist Statement: Ever since I was a child Still I Rise was a poem that meant a lot to me. I recited it to a crowd in 2nd grade, not knowing how powerful this truly was. Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise is primarily about self-respect and confidence as a woman. In the poem, Angelou reveals how she will overcome anything through her self-esteem. She shows how nothing can get her down. She will rise to any occasion and nothing, not even her skin color, will hold her back. As I grew older, I began to understand the poem and love it even more. This series “Still I Rise” uses black and white photographs to portray the joy, hurt, pain and experiences of an African American woman as it related to the poem. Each photo represents how I envisioned each stanza in my mind’s eye. Still I Rise (2018) Photography, 19 x 13 x 9/16 inches each Poem by Maya Angelou

CECILEY BLANCHARD

inspired by

Still I Rise BY MAYA ANGELOU

YOU MAY WRITE ME DOWN IN HISTORY WITH YOUR BITTER, TWISTED LIES, YOU MAY TROD ME IN THE VERY DIRT BUT STILL, LIKE DUST, I'LL RISE.

DOES MY SASSINESS UPSET YOU? WHY ARE YOU BESET WITH GLOOM? ’CAUSE I WALK LIKE I'VE GOT OIL WELLS PUMPING IN MY LIVING ROOM.

JUST LIKE MOONS AND LIKE SUNS, WITH THE CERTAINTY OF TIDES, JUST LIKE HOPES SPRINGING HIGH, STILL I'LL RISE.

DID YOU WANT TO SEE ME BROKEN? BOWED HEAD AND LOWERED EYES? SHOULDERS FALLING DOWN LIKE TEARDROPS, WEAKENED BY MY SOULFUL CRIES?

DOES MY HAUGHTINESS OFFEND YOU? DON'T YOU TAKE IT AWFUL HARD ’CAUSE I LAUGH LIKE I'VE GOT GOLD MINES DIGGIN’ IN MY OWN BACKYARD.

YOU MAY SHOOT ME WITH YOUR WORDS, YOU MAY CUT ME WITH YOUR EYES, YOU MAY KILL ME WITH YOUR HATEFULNESS, BUT STILL, LIKE AIR, I’LL RISE.

CECILEY BLANCHARD

DOES MY SEXINESS UPSET YOU? DOES IT COME AS A SURPRISE THAT I DANCE LIKE I'VE GOT DIAMONDS AT THE MEETING OF MY THIGHS?

OUT OF THE HUTS OF HISTORY’S SHAME I RISE UP FROM A PAST THAT’S ROOTED IN PAIN I RISE I'M A BLACK OCEAN, LEAPING AND WIDE, WELLING AND SWELLING I BEAR IN THE TIDE.

LEAVING BEHIND NIGHTS OF TERROR AND FEAR I RISE INTO A DAYBREAK THAT’S WONDROUSLY CLEAR I RISE BRINGING THE GIFTS THAT MY ANCESTORS GAVE, I AM THE DREAM AND THE HOPE OF THE SLAVE. I RISE I RISE I RISE.

RIA BRODELL JAMAICA PLAIN, MA

riabrodell.com @riabrodell Ria Brodell (b. 1977) is an artist, educator and author based in Boston. Their work explores gender, sexuality and identity within the context of history, contemporary society, and religion. Brodell attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, received a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. Brodell has exhibited internationally and throughout the United States, is a recipient of an Artadia Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and an SMFA Traveling Fellowship. Their work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Guardian, ARTNews, The Boston Globe, and New American Paintings among other publications. Brodell’s first book, Butch Heroes, was released in 2018. Volume 2 is forthcoming via MIT Press. Artist Statement: This portrait series is my quest to find people in history with whom I can identify. I use the format of traditional Catholic holy cards to highlight queer history by presenting people who were assigned female at birth, who had relationships with women, and whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine. When researching people, I use their narratives to establish their place in this project, some of my subjects identified as women, others as men; some shifted genders throughout their lives, while others embodied their own. Some could be identified today with the terms lesbian, transgender, nonbinary etc., today’s LGBTQI terms were not available to them—so it is impossible to know exactly how each person would self-identity. Therefore, I view this project as shared history within the LGBTQI community. The portraits involve extensive research into aspects of each person's life, social class, occupation, clothing and environment. Each piece is accompanied by an abbreviated history of the person’s life and research sources. I am using the format of the Catholic holy card because it has personal significance to me. It was a form in which role models were presented to me as a child. In effect, I am replacing the role models I was given, with role models I wish I had known. The holy card format alludes to their story, elevates them to reverence and is used for remembrance.

RIA BRODELL

Enriqueta aka Enrique Favez 17911856 Cuba (2017) Gouache on paper, 11 x 7 inches

According to Enrique Favez’s testimony during their trial, they were born Henriette in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1791. After the death of her parents she was placed in the custody of an uncle. Her uncle, in an effort to correct a “troublesome masculine demeanor” arranged for her marriage at age fifteen to an officer in Napoleon’s army. However, soon Favez was a widow. Her husband was killed in battle, and their only child had died shortly after birth. Favez took the opportunity to start again. Favez moved to Paris to study medicine, taking the name Enrique. After receiving his degree he enlisted in Napoleon’s army as a surgeon. He served through the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, and then immigrated to the Caribbean, settling in Cuba. In Cuba, he was given license to establish a practice in the community of Baracoa, a remote eastern region of Cuba. It was rural and poor so he would travel great distances to provide healthcare, and to teach reading and writing, to people in the surrounding areas. It was in the town of Tiguabos that he met and fell in love with a woman named Juana de León. They were married on August 11, 1819 at Our Lady of the Assumption in Baracoa. Their marriage seemed to be happy. Favez was a sought after doctor with a good reputation and the two of them were a popular couple in the community. They had many close friends and hosted parties in their home. One day, a maid entered the bedroom and found Favez asleep on the bed with his shirt unbuttoned. Realizing what she was seeing, she could not contain herself and shared the news, which quickly spread. Continued on Page 32

RIA BRODELL

Sarah aka Samuel Pollard, 1846- 1925 United States (2020) Gouache on paper, 11 x 7 inches

Sarah Pollard, who sometimes went by Tom as a young adult in Binghamton, NY, was born on May 25, 1846 to a prominent family. Pollard often wore male clothing, smoked cigars and lived with female companions. This made them the frequent topic of gossip. Their size and physical appearance, “more like a man than a woman” meant they were often the recipient of children’s taunts. They were a large person, with a deep, hoarse voice and a faint mustache, earning them the epithet “the Great Eastern” after a famed steamship. Pollard worked in New England shoe factories in the late 1860’s. In the early 1870’s they opened up their own millinery establishment. They moved west around 1875 after the business failed. They were in Colorado for a short period of time, operating a cigar shop and holding other odd jobs before settling in Nevada. In Nevada, Pollard established themself as Samuel Pollard and worked at the mines near Tuscarora in Elko County. In 1877 Sam met Marancy Hughes whose family had settled in Nevada to work the silver mines. Marancy’s family did not approve of her relationship with Sam, but that did not deter the couple from eloping on September 29, 1877. Their marriage seems to have been happy for the first six months, until Marancy exposed their secret. It is unclear what provoked Marancy, but she wrote to the Tuscarora Times Review demanding that Sam be arrested and punished. The story spread to papers around the country, many of them referring to Sam as “What Is It” or simply “It.” Continued on Page 33

RIA BRODELL

Myrtle aka Frankie, born c. 1905 United States (2020) Gouache on paper, 11 x 7 inches

Myrtle K. was the name used in a study conducted in the 1930’s by George W. Henry, an American psychologist, as part of an extensive research project on homosexuality sponsored by the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants. Known to most people as Frankie, and described as always smiling and extremely amiable, they were thirty years old when they participated in the study. Frankie was born in Virginia, where their family had lived for generations, the decedents of enslaved African people. They were very close with their father. He was very stern, but Frankie was his favorite. He died when Frankie was ten. Their mother was a devout Baptist and very involved with the church. Frankie often ran away from home to avoid their mother’s punishments. Frankie’s uncles taught them to ride and shoot. They loved animals, especially horses. They often wore their brother’s clothes, loved to play baseball, climb trees and liked to fight with boys. “I was a thorough tomboy…. I always wanted to be a boy.” As an adult, looking back on their childhood Frankie remembered knowing something was different about them, but not understanding what that difference meant. Though Frankie could pass as a man, they didn’t like being called a man. Lamenting their lack of sexual interest in, and even aversion towards men they said, “I tried as hard as any woman on earth to be a woman.” They thought maybe they just “hadn’t been with the right man.” Expressing their desire for women they recalled, “I can’t remember when I wasn’t interested in women.” Frankie knew they were “homosexual,” having encountered it in their work in show business, “Girls seemed to fall for me…. I never was what you call a big flirt.” Continued on Page 32

RIA BRODELL

Carl Lapp c. 1674 (2012) gouache on paper, 11 x 7 inches

Carl Lapp, a Sámi, died in 1694 in the Swedish parish of Hed. Upon preparation for burial his neighbors discovered that he had a female body. They reported this to their local pastor and eventually the matter was brought all the way to the High Court. Court records show that it was unclear what kind of burial “the Lapp,” as he was known (a reference to the former name for the Sámi people, Laplanders), should receive. At the time of his death, Carl had been married to his second wife for thirteen years. She claimed that she did not know his sex, as they were elderly when they married and had never had sexual relations. However, he had a son with his first wife, both of whom had died. The court investigated the nature of his relationship with his wives and the existence of the child. They concluded that he was guilty of “participation in the sin of fornication that the former wife had carried on and kept it silent and hidden it, allowed the child to be baptized and recognized it as his own, and after his former wife’s death, continued in his evil intent and grave sin with continued contempt for God’s holy order.” The fact that he had deliberately “mutated” his sex combined with having repeatedly “abused the holy institution of marriage” warranted the death penalty under Swedish law. Therefore, he was ordered to be buried in the forest instead of in the consecrated ground of the churchyard. Ironically, burial in the forest had long been a Sámi practice opposed by Swedish Christian clergy. Sources on Page 33

RIA BRODELL

Agatha Dietschi aka Hans Kaiser, Germany, c. 1547 (2018) Gouache on paper, 11 x 7 inches

Hans Kaiser, also found under the name Schnitterhensli, worked as a migrant farm laborer in the Danube valley of Germany. He was married to a woman named Anna Reuli, who was also a farm laborer. Within their community they were seen as a model couple in a happy marriage. In reality that was not the case. Hans was arrested in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1547 after an investigation brought about by Anna. Nearly two years into their marriage, Anna had discovered that Hans had once been known as Agatha Dietschi. Upon this discovery Anna apparently tried to convince Hans to go back to living as Agatha, even offering to procure Hans women’s clothing. Hans refused, declaring that he was bewitched and could never “live as a woman or love a man.” Despite this development in their relationship, they stayed married for eight years. However, at some point Anna met Marx Gross. The relationship between Anna and Marx made Hans extremely jealous. Marx and Anna began threatening Hans with exposure in order to secure Anna a divorce. Eventually Anna revealed his secret, bringing about an investigation and an eventual trial. At the trial, Anna (who had also been arrested) first said that she did not know that her husband was female, and then she admitted she had found out, but stayed quiet out of fear of the repercussions from the community. She also insisted that they had never had sexual intercourse. Hans, on the other hand, was found in possession of a “phallic tool” and admitted to using it numerous times with Anna. Witnesses also came forward having seen Anna and Hans engaged in “erotic play” in the barn. Marx came to Anna’s defense testifying that she was a virgin. The trial also revealed that Hans had been married before, both to a man (as Agatha) and to a woman. Continued on Page 33

RIA BRODELL Enriqueta aka Enrique Favez

Favez was arrested and put on trial in Santiago de Cuba. The list of charges included, “falsification of documents, perjury, incitement to violence, illegal practice of medicine, rape, desecration of the Catholic sacrament of marriage and imposture.” Even though they had been married almost four years, Juana insisted that she had been deceived, calling Favez a “creature” and a “monster.” She admitted to suspecting that their union was made “in an artificial way” (i.e. through the use of an instrument) but she was afraid to come forward. Favez repeatedly denied any deception insisting that Juana knew everything before their marriage. Juana’s legal team demanded that Favez be physically examined. The examination by a panel of experts found Favez to be “effectively a woman.” Favez denied any wrongdoing, insisting that their actions did not constitute any crime and stated to the contrary, “I have not harmed anyone but rather have done a very considerable good” as a doctor serving the community. Favez explained: “I have suffered indignities and other afflictions attributable only to the vigor of my naturally strange character, with which nature endowed me, singling me out by not giving me any of the feminine passions and giving me a strong propensity for masculine manners.” Of their relationship with Juana, Favez stated, “…was by mutual accord and for love.” The judge sentenced Favez to ten years in prison and exiled them from all Spanish territories. Favez tried to appeal the conviction, attempted suicide and even escape. This relentless fight with the legal system resulted in their being expedited to New Orleans where they had family. They lost their property, medical title, and were forced to pay damages to Juana de León. Upon arriving in New Orleans it is reported that Favez, on the insistence of family members, joined the Daughters of Charity, however, the Daughters of Charity have no record of Favez ever joining the order. The researcher Julio César González-Pagés also found love letters amongst Favez’s family papers in New Orleans, which appear to be written by Favez to Juana de León. Favez’s death was recorded in New Orleans on October 17, 1856.

*Enrique Favez is also found as Enriqueta, Henriette, Henri and the surname Faber or Fabes Sources: • González Pagés, Julio César. Por andar vestida de hombre. Havana: Editorial de la mujer, 2012. • Martínez, Juliana. “Dressed Like a Man?: Of Language, Bodies, and Monsters in the Trial of Enrique/Enriqueta Favez and Its Contemporary Accounts.” Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 26, No. 2 (May 2017): 188-206. • Pancrazio, James J. “Reescritura, invención y plagio: Enriqueta Faber y la escritura del travestismo.” La Habana Elegante 56 (2014): 1-10. Web. 23 Sept. 2017.

Myrtle aka Frankie

Frankie was raised Baptist, but converted to Catholicism after dating a Catholic girl. They went to church every Sunday stating, “I don’t think God would have made me queer if it wasn’t right.” They stressed the importance of helping children, the elderly and the poor. They were generous with their money; “I never pass a person on the street who is begging. If it’s my last penny I’ll give it to him.” Frankie had always wanted to fulfill their father’s wishes for them to be a doctor. Their sisters were married to doctors and lawyers. Frankie’s mother didn’t understand them, she blamed Frankie’s masculine appearance on their career. “Although I know I’m queer I don’t like to be reminded of it,” Frankie lamented. At the time of their participation in the study Frankie was a popular performer on New York City’s vaudeville circuit. They never knew what they were going to do before walking out onto the stage, “I never read from a script and I’ve never been a flop.” Their performances were improvisational combinations of slapstick comedy, music, singing, and male impersonation. Frankie had been on the stage since before they were twelve years old. They loved being able to support themselves and make their own living. At the time of their interview they wanted to quit show business and move back to the quiet of the mountains where they were born. Sources: • •

Henry, George W. Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns. 2d ed. In one volume. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1948. Terry, Jennifer. An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

RIA BRODELL Sam was arrested and charged with "perjury in having sworn falsely when the marriage license was obtained." After Marancy testified at the trial she asked to see Sam and, "immediately threw her arms around the neck of Pollard, whom she fondly kissed, and in the wildest excitement begged that she might be permitted to remain there and not be sent back to the house of her relatives, saying that she desired to remain with her husband." Sam was released and the two of them left the court as deputies held off Marancy’s angry grandmother.

Sarah aka Samuel Pollard

From 1878 to 1880 Marancy and Sam’s relationship was arduous. The publicity caused stress, and Marancy’s family caused trouble resulting at one point in a gunfight between Sam and one of Marancy’s brothers. Sam was also traveling. In 1879 they had began a lecture tour. During the first half they would appear on stage as Samuel and after intermission as Sarah. They toured around Nevada telling their story. By June of 1880 Sam and Marancy had separated. In 1883 Pollard is recorded as living in Polk County, Minnesota and working as a farmer. Newspapers noted that, “Minnesota rejoices in the possession of a unique character, Sarah Pollard, who is one of the most successful farmers in Polk county, where she owns half a section of land which she works herself with no help from men except in harvest season…. She does her own plowing, seeding, and harrowing, operates her large farm with no other counsel than her own good judgment.” By 1885 Pollard is living with Helen Stoddard, a schoolteacher. They are recorded as each other’s “partner” and “companion” in the censuses from 1900-1920. Pollard died on February 12, 1925 with Helen following on April 10, 1959. They are buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Mentor, Polk County, Minnesota. Sources: • • • • • •

“A Nevada Sensation.” Daily Alta California (San Francisco, CA), May 31, 1878. “ A Unique Minnesota Girl.” The Morning Democrat (Davenport, IA), July 22, 1892. Basler, George and Gerald R. Smith. On the Seamy Side of the Street: Colorful Characters from Broome County's History. Binghamton, NY: Broome County Historical Society, 2013. Coady, Marie. Woburn: Hidden Tales of a Tannery Town. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008. “Condensed Telegrams.” The Daily Appeal (Carson City, NV), May 29 1878. “It is Coming.” The Daily Appeal (Carson City, NV), May 21, 1879.

Carl Lapp

Sources: • Fur, Gunlög. “Reading Margins: Colonial Encounters in Sápmi and Lenapehoking in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” Feminist Studies 32.3 (Fall 2006): 491-521. • Rupp, Leila J. Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women. New York University Press, 2009.

According to Enrique Favez’s testimony during their trial, they were born Henriette in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1791. After the death of her parents she was placed in the custody of an uncle. Her uncle, in an effort to correct a “troublesome masculine demeanor” arranged for her marriage at age fifteen to an officer in Napoleon’s army. However, soon Favez was a widow. Her husband was killed in battle, and their only child had died shortly after birth. Favez took the opportunity to start again. Favez moved to Paris to study medicine, taking the name Enrique. After receiving his degree he enlisted in Napoleon’s army as a surgeon. He served through the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, and then immigrated to the Caribbean, settling in Cuba. In Cuba, he was given license to establish a practice in the community of Baracoa, a remote eastern region of Cuba. It was rural and poor so he would travel great distances to provide healthcare, and to teach reading and writing, to people in the surrounding areas. It was in the town of Tiguabos that he met and fell in love with a woman named Juana de León. They were married on August 11, 1819 at Our Lady of the Assumption in Baracoa. Sources: • Puff, Helmut. Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400-1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. • Puff, Helmut. “The Sodomites Clothes: Gift-Giving and Sexual Excess in Early Modern Germany and Switzerland.” The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe. (2002): 251-272. • Simon-Muscheid, Katharina. “Geschlecht, Identität und Soziale Rolle: Weiblicher Transvestismus vor Gericht, 15. / 16. Jahrhundert.” Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 13 (1995): 45-57.

Agatha Dietschi aka Hans Kaiser

JUDY CHICAGO BELEN, NM

judychicago.com @judy.chicago

Her work is in numerous collections and her ongoing influence continues to be acknowledged worldwide. Amongst other honors, in 2018 she was named one of Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ and Artsy magazine’s ‘Most Influential Artists’. In 2020 she was honored by the Museum of Arts and Design at their annual MAD Ball. Her first retrospective opened in August 2021 at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. At the invitation of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director for the fashion house, Christian Dior, Judy Chicago designed a monumental set based on her concept of “The Female Divine” for Dior’s spring-summer 2020 haute couture show in Paris. Situated in the gardens of the Musée Rodin, the set consisted of an enormous structure in the form of a goddess figure with the interior elements designed to imagine and honor an alternative matriarchal history. Chicago designed the banners that hung along both sides of a regal mille fleur carpeted walkway with questions meticulously embroidered in French and English asking how the world would be different if women were in charge: “Would God be female? Would there be violence? Would the Earth be protected?” are a few examples of Chicago’s inquiry. Through light, color, scale and form, the entire installation was intended to create the sense of awe and reverence that characterizes the magnificent religious structures of the past. To commemorate this spectacular project, Chicago created a print based on the design for the largest banner in the installation, which anchors the twenty banners that lead to the ultimate question: What if Women Ruled the World? What if Women Ruled the World? (2020) Archival pigment print on paper, ed 65/75, 36 x 27 inches paper 38.5 x 29.5 inches framed Courtesy of Turner Carrol Gallery

Headshot photo credit: ©Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society, NY.

Judy Chicago (b. 1939) is an artist and author of fifteen books including the recently released 2021 publication by Thames and Hudson of "The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago" with an Introduction by Gloria Steinem. Her career spans almost six decades during which time she has produced a prodigious body of art that has been exhibited all over the world. In the 1970's, she pioneered feminist art and feminist art education in a series of programs in southern California. She is best known for her monumental, The Dinner Party, executed between 1974-79, now permanently housed as the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

JUDY CHICAGO

CAT DEL BUONO BROOKLYN, NY

catdelbuono.com @catdelbuono and @catdelbuonoartist Cat Del Buono (b. 1970) is a daughter of immigrants. She began drawing and filming at an early age, making her first Super 8 film at age 11. She received a BA from Boston College, an MFA from School of Visual Arts, and attended NYU’s Tisch graduate film program. She has shown at Bronx Mu seu m, Bass Mu seu m, Microscope Gallery, Shiva Gallery at John Jay College, and MoCA Miami to name a few. Del Bu ono has been creating short videos, video installations, and public happenings that focus on social issu es. Sometimes she u ses hu mor to break down complex topics su ch as victim blaming or gender inequality. Other times, showing the disturbing reality of issues like domestic violence can make a bigger impact. No matter the project, her intention is always to give people a voice and to influence change. Del Buono has also written for pu blications and catalogu es, taught cinema lighting, been an advisor for thesis students, and started a nonprofit organization which provides free art classes to u nderprivileged children. Awards include Brooklyn Arts Fund, Visiting Artist at American Academy in Rome, Bronx Mu seu m AIM Fellowship, ISE Cultural Foundation Grant, Awesome Foundation Grant, School of Visu al Arts Alu mni Award, and a NYFA Stipend. Her work has been featured in Jezebel, Huffington Post, Brooklyn Rail, Art Newspaper, Miami Herald, and on PBS. Artist S tatement: Time blu rs the line between photo and video by adding subtle movement within the image. The 1933 US Attorney's Office photo comes to life with the clock ticking in the backgrou nd. The men in the photo seem to be stuck in time, perpetually waiting for the photo to be taken. This can be a commentary on society being stuck in a time when white males hold the positions of power. When will the narrative move forward? Time (2011) Video frame with mat, 9 x 10 inches

CAT DEL BUONO

Artist Statement: I use video, installation, and performance to address social issues. I find humor can be an effective method in the attempt to break down complex topics such as society’s arbitrary beauty standards, so I deliberately simplify issues such as gender bias and inequality by exaggerating the obvious, as seen in Now I’m Beautiful!. My works are inspired by statistics that show how female value in our society lies solely in beauty and sexuality. Both Woman and American Female demonstrate how females are gradually reduced to just one dimension, whether it’s physical attractiveness or “wife”. With all my works, my goal is to influence society to move beyond the status quo.

Now I’m Beautiful (2011)

Woman (2012)

American Female (2012)

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CAT DEL BUONO

JESSIE EDELSTEIN LOS ANGELES, CA

jessieedelstein.com @jessi3.mp3 Jessie Edelstein (b. 1997) is a visual artist from Long Island, New York currently based in LA. Her work focuses on the themes of technology, autonomy, and queer identity. Her face paint looks serve as the foundation of her body of work. Augmenting herself with face paint allows her to show the world what’s always there but isn’t always visible on the outside. She envisions a future where advanced technology could allow humans to customize themselves digitally. Together, her looks create a catalogue of different custom faces that one day could become a reality. Her first major project was her drag persona “Virgo Couture.” Inspired by early 2000s icons like Paris Hilton, robotic AI, pop culture, and the Internet, she started dressing up and performing under this persona in 2018 and retired the character as of late 2020. This decision was brought about that she wanted to take ownership of her art and self-expression and no longer stay hidden behind a persona. She is currently working on a project called Jessie.Mp3, which combines experimental electronic/pop music, visuals, and lip sync performance. This project focuses on the artist’s experience with the Internet and social media as well as previous themes of identity, autonomy, and AI. Jessie graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2019 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Visual Art. Her artwork has been featured in a variety of exhibitions in the Hudson Valley, Brooklyn, and Long Island. Her makeup work can be seen in music videos and in publications such as Milk and Checkout Magazine. Artist Statement: iBot is a face paint look that I created in 2019. I am regularly creating unique face paint looks for myself in order to express my authentic self on the outside. I have some recurring imagery in my looks (smiley faces, checkerboard, clouds) and one of them are eyes. I am also inspired by robots and AI, so I’ll often incorporate those elements into my looks as well. For this look I decided to take both to the extreme by replicating eyes all over my face. iBot (2019) Performance/photography, 20 x 20 inches

JESSIE EDELSTEIN

SALLY EDELSTEIN HUNTINGTON, NY

sallyedelsteincollage.com @sallyedelstein Sally Edelstein (b. 1955) is an award-winning N.Y. collage artist and writer who considers herself a visual archeologist digging deep into American mythology, excavating and examining the social fictions we and society tell ourselves over the past 70 years. An incurable collector of ephemera, she utilizes imagery found in her extensive collection spanning nearly a century. A feminist since the second-wave women’s movement of the 1970s she was recently profiled in Ms. Magazine. A nationally exhibited artist, she is a multiple awards recipient from the Society of Three Dimensional Illustrators, The Art Directors Club Of NY, and the Society of Illustrators. As a writer, her essays have appeared in Independent, Next Avenue, Next Tribe, and Kveller. Told through both text and illustration her blog Envisioning the American Dream probes the ways that advertising and media steer our perceptions of race, class, and gender. Artist Statement: Growing up, being an older woman was not a pretty picture-literally. How old is old is the question I ask in my collage. It is from my series Media Made Women an autobiographical project that holds to light remnants of a collective female past whose images have made an impact on our psyches. These American pop-culture images from the 1950s through the 1970s provide a shared cultural history of becoming female in the US. They are the sharpest illustration not of reality but of domestic and national ideals reinforcing cultural, political, racial, and gender stereotypes. Along with being powerful enforcers of gender, they shape our psyches in setting standards of how women think of aging. The hand-cut collage is composed of hundreds of appropriated vintage images of women from advertising, children’s books, comic books, magazines, books, etc. By dissociating them from their original use we can better evaluate their original meaning. Age-based stereotypes are internalized in childhood long before the information is ever relevant and like toxic waste, they linger and seep to the surface infiltrating our systems even when we aren’t aware of it. These images may seem dated and reached their expiration date intellectually but the prejudices against female aging have not. How Old is Old? (2012) Hand cut collage of appropriated images, 24 x 30 inches

SALLY EDELSTEIN

ALYSSA EUSTAQUIO SAN JOSE, CA

alyssaeustaquio.com @lyssaplease Alyssa Eustaquio (b.1988) is a Bay Area artist working in illustration, sculpture, installation, and performance. Eustaquio explores one’s role within the previous waves of Feminism and how that informs contemporary Feminist Culture. Rather than the focus being the shift from past to present, Eustaquio’s work embraces the complexity Feminism can embody. Eustaquio’s multifaceted approach to Feminism allows for an all-inclusive space for her audience to participate in Feminist Discourse. She received her MFA at San Jose State University and has exhibited at the ICA San Jose, SOMArts and the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. Artist Statement: Keeping FEMINISM Fresh. Simply, FEMINISM should not leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but for many it does. FEMINISM has become an uncomfortable word. Those identifying with the label are seen as aggressive, unattractive and anti-men. Placing the word on a stick of gum is my attempt to make the word palatable again. Keeping FEMINISM Fresh (2013) Mint chewing gum, paper, plastic sleeve and Wrigley’s foil chewing gum wrappers, 3 x 2.5 x .5 inches

ALYSSA EUSTAQUIO

VANESSA FILLEY EVANSTON, IL

vanessafilley.squarespace.com @vanessafilley Vanessa Filley (b. 1975) was born in New York City. She received her BA from Oberlin College and spent her early career investigating human rights violations in prisons and jails. Instead of following her intention to go to law school, she founded a clothing company of one of a kind wear made from recycled fabrics. Her practice quickly evolved through the honing of her craft into mixed-media fine arts. Her work ranges from large scale sculptural installations to tiny embroidery pieces to poems and photographs. Her photographic work allows her to design scenes, make costumes and conjure a certain sense of emotion and place. She is inspired by how history and memory shapes who we are in the present and how we are informed by our energetic connections to those who came before us and those who will come after. In June of 2018 she completed a two-month residency at the Frances Willard House Museum. She has been showing work, and has won a number of juror’s awards, throughout the US and internationally since 2015. In 2016 she was one of Photolucida’s Top 200. In 2018 she was one of Photolucida’s Top 50. She lives and works in Evanston, Il. Artist Statement: #MeToo is a fine art photography series depicting women young and old giving voice to stories of sexual assault and abuse past and present. We are our ancestors and carry their stories of bodily colonization in our blood and bones. By recognizing the pain and trauma we carry ourselves and from our mothers, grandmothers, great-great-great grandmothers we search for healing. The use of Victorian-style mourning gowns is meant to indicate the lifetimes and generations of mourning caused when sexual violation colonizes the body, the loved one that has been lost is the sovereignty of oneself. Each sitter wears a #MeToo placard as a sort of reverse scarlet letter, in the case of Hester Pryne, she was made to wear the letter A and stand before a crowd, shamed for the act of adultery, here the collective impact of so many women who have a #MeToo experience is meant to bring awareness. It is a shameful history of unrepentant perpetration that we should no longer be willing, as a society, to quietly endure. By depicting women of today in a dress code of the past it is my intention to demonstrate the sense of time that women have been subject to sexual abuse in hopes that we can create a cultural shift so that the experience is not perpetuated in future generations. #MeToo (2018) Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, 30 x 20 inches each

VANESSA FILLEY

JUDY GELLES CHEVY CHASE, MD

judygelles.com @judygelles Judy Gelles (b. 1944; d. 2020) was a Philadelphia-based multimedia artist who explored the role of social institutions such as family, school, and community in the shaping of individual and cultural identity. Her work reckons with domestic life, gender roles, childhood, and humanity as a shared experience across cultural divides. Judy’s deep commitment to art for a social purpose distinguishes her diverse and celebrated body of work. Judy Gelles received her MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design. She exhibited most notably at National Portrait Gallery, UK; Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, UK; Arts Club of Washington, Washington, DC; Coreana Museum of Art, South Korea; Annenberg Space for Photography, CA; Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, NJ; Philadelphia Foundation, PA; Granary Arts Center, UT; Berlin Foto Biennale, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, FL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Delaware Art Museum, DE; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ireland; Photo Center NW, WA; Skirball Cultural Center, CA; and many more institutions. She has been awarded the CENTER Award, Second Prize “Curator’s Choice” (2016); CFEVA Alumni Travel Grant (2016); First Prize, Prix de la Photographie Paris (2013); Lomax Family Foundation Grant (2012); among others. Her work resides permanently in the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Danforth Museum of Art, MA; Harvard University Fine Arts Library, MA; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ireland; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PA and more museums and institutions. Her estate is represented by Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. You Look Better When You’re Smiling is part of the series Words from Home that are phrases that had been with Judy for over fifty years. All of us carry the voices of our parents in our heads; they offer advice, criticisms, guidance, and warnings. The family is one of the key agents of socialization in our society, transmitting culture, values, and behavioral models to each generation. These phrases are drawn from the words of Judy’s mother and father but speak to a set of broader cultural expectations of young women. The frequently echoed refrains of Judy’s work invite the viewer to contemplate their own reaction and relationship to parental authority and gendered socialization. You Look Better When You’re Smiling (2016) Translucent Plexiglass, 4 x 43.75 inches Courtesy of the Gelles Family and Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia

JUDY GELLES

GUERRILLA GIRLS guerrillagirls.com guerrillagirlsontour.com ggbb.org In 1985, a group of women artists founded the Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls are feminist activist artists who wear gorilla masks in public and use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. Their anonymity keeps the focus on the issues, and away from who they might be. The Guerrilla Girls believe in an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders. They have done hundreds of projects, posters, actions, books, videos, stickers, all over the world and also do interventions and exhibitions at museums, blasting them on their own walls for their bad behavior and discriminatory practices, including the 2015 stealth projection on the façade of the Whitney Museum about income inequality and the super-rich hijacking art. Their retrospectives in Bilbao and Madrid, and the US traveling exhibition, Guerrilla Girls: Not Ready To Make Nice, have attracted thousands. At the turn of the millennium, three separate and independent incorporated groups formed to bring fake fur and feminism to new frontiers. Guerrilla Girls was established by two founding Guerrilla Girls and other members to continue the use of provocative text, visuals and humor in the service of feminism and social change. They have written several books and create projects about the art world, film, politics and pop culture. They travel the world, talking about the issues and their experiences as feminist masked avengers, reinventing the “f” word into the 21st century. Guerrilla Girls On Tour! is a touring theater collective founded by three former members of the Guerrilla Girls. Guerrilla Girls On Tour! develops plays, performances, street theater actions and residency programs that dramatize women’s history and address the lack of opportunities for women and artists of color in the performing arts. Guerrilla Girls BroadBand was formed by a founding Guerrilla Girl, four former members of the Guerrilla Girls and a bevy of young, next-generation feminists and artists of color. “The Broads” combat sexism, racism and social injustice, exploring such taboo subjects as feminism and fashion and discrimination in the wired workplace through their website and live interactive activist events. The Guerrilla Girls say, “We stand for the conscience of the art world. How can you really tell the story of a culture when you don’t include all of the voices within the culture? Otherwise, it’s just a history, and the story of power. It’s our honest hope that all this attention to our work and the issues we raise adds up to changes for women artists and artists of color. We want to be subversive, to transform our audience, to comfort them with some disarming statements, backed up by facts and great visuals, and hopefully convert them.”

GUERRILLA GIRLS

ROZANNE HERMELYN DI SILVESTRO SUNNYVALE, CA

hermelyn.com @rhermelyndisilvestro Rozanne Hermelyn Di Silvestro (b. 1960) is drawn to the energy around her, and from within the subjects she paints. She exposes the vulnerable, spirited, and strong through minimalist compositions and sweeping paint strokes. Her art captures the confidence of a sitting figure, the turbulence of a city crowd, and the passion of the inner self. Rozanne’s art career traces back to her childhood and the support of her mother, who was a fashion designer and seamstress. “She taught me to design and sew my own clothes from a very early age,” says Rozanne. “At twelve, I begged her to sign me up for the adult education figure drawing class in the room next door to her painting class. To this day, I still participate in weekly life drawing sessions.” Rozanne continued to study art and design at UCLA and Art Center College of Design, and then worked for several years in the creative industry in Los Angeles and San Francisco before opening her own design firm. After twenty years of a successful professional career, Rozanne pivoted to focus on expressing her own creative voice. Today, she finds inspiration from life experiences and the many incredible people that cross her path. “When I accidentally came upon Russian-American painter Sergei Bongart, my creative life finally clicked,” she explains. “His words, “art is more than a product of your efforts; it should be about feeling, life, attitude, soul,” still inspire me every day.” Rozanne has been awarded Best of Show and 1st place in numerous exhibitions. Her work has been shown in Triton Museum of Art, Janet Turner Print Museum, The Art Complex Museum, Museum of Los Gatos, and can be found in the permanent collections of the Harvard Art Museums and the Library of Congress as well as published in Reed Magazine, California’s oldest literary journal, and in The California Printmaker journal. Artist Statement: Rising is an installation celebrating women and their aspirations to be more. Female figures ascend in the air, breaking away from confinement to rise beyond. Above each figure is a clear umbrella, symbolizing the glass ceiling. This invisible barrier has historically affected marginalized groups when advancing in their professions. The engraved names and titles on each female form become a textural pattern, whispering of powerful and strong women. The installation honors the many women leaders who are tearing down imposed limitations and obstacles built to define and divide differences. Although women continue to be bound by gender, caste, creed, and nation, many have weakened or removed their constraints to obtain leadership positions in industry, academia, and government. The engraved Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women list attests to this advancement.

Rising (2018) Clear umbrellas, fishing line, silkscreen or laser cut on plexi, Installation variable 52

ROZANNE HERMELYN DI SILVESTRO

SONYA KELLIHER-COMBS ANCHORAGE, AK

sonyakellihercombs.com @kellihercombs Sonya Kelliher-Combs (b. 1969) was raised in the Northwest Alaska community of Nome. Her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Master of Fine Arts is from Arizona State University. Through her mixed media painting and sculpture, Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her combination of shared iconography with intensely personal imagery demonstrates the generative power that each vocabulary has over the other. Similarly, her use of synthetic, organic, traditional and modern materials moves beyond oppositions between Western/Native culture, self/other and man/nature, to examine their interrelationships and interdependence while also questioning accepted notions of beauty. Kelliher-Combs' process dialogues the relationship of her work to skin, the surface by which an individual is mediated in culture. Kelliher-Combs' work has been shown in numerous individual and group exhibitions in Alaska, the United States and internationally, including the national exhibition, Changing Hands 2: Art Without Reservation and SITELINES: Much Wider Than a Line. She is a recipient of the prestigious United States Arts Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, Rasmuson Fellowship and is a recipient of the 2005 Anchorage Mayors Arts Award and 2010 Alaska Governor's Individual Artist Award. Her work is included in the collections of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Anchorage Museum, Alaska State Museum, University of Alaska Museum of the North, Eiteljorg Museum, and The National Museum of the American Indian. Kelliher-Combs currently lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska. As an Alaska Native artist and advocate, she has served on the Alaska Native Arts Foundation Board, Alaska State Council on the Arts Visual Arts Advisory, and the Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Arts Board. Artist Statement: Floral Secrets is a series of work in response to the many painful accounts I have heard of abuse. These unspeakable acts are at epidemic proportions in our state and on Indigenous lands. These works speak about pain, fear, anger, loss of innocence and the impact this injustice has on the sense of self, family and community. A secret is, by definition, something hidden, unspoken, repressed, and kept unknown. Often historical trauma creates ‘secrets’ and despite the challenging and negative taboo of talking about these issues they must be voiced in order to transform and promote healing, awareness and break the cycle of abuse. Floral Secrets (2021) Found fabric, acrylic polymer, human hair, glass bead, nylon thread, steel pin, installation variable

SONYA KELLIHER-COMBS

KRISTINE MAYS SAN FRANCISCO, CA

kristinemays.com @kristinemays Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Kristine Mays (b. 1969) has been breathing life into wire since 1993 as she creates life-size wire sculptures that reveal the human form. Sculpted from thousands of pieces of wire hooked and looped together by hand, each of Kristine Mays sculptures embodies a fleeting gesture or expression that delivers a message of strength. Within the confines of hard metal wire is a sense of resilience and perseverance—a need to push forward and thrive. The work speaks to identity, social justice, and humanity—the question of who we are and what we can do with our lives, the impact our lives have on the world. Kristine has raised thousands of dollars for AIDS research through the sale of her work. Her work speaks to issues of social justice, and she uses her art as a means of activism. Kristine Mays solo exhibition Rich Soil, (a tribute to the marginalized people who toiled American Soil) made its debut at Filoli Historic House and Garden in 2020 in Woodside, California. The exhibit, made up of 29 life-size figures, is currently on view in Washington D.C. at Hillwood Museum, Estate and Garden and will travel to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in 2022. An installation of her work is on view at the East Lake Station of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) in Georgia. Her work has received local and national press including mentions in the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, and The Washington Post, and Apartment Therapy. Her work was featured in “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill 20th Anniversary Concert Tour”. Collectors of her work include an eclectic mix of people including George Lucas and Mellody Hobson as well as the dearly departed art collector and philanthropist—Peggy Cooper Cafritz, with her work displayed in many SF Bay Area Homes and private collections throughout the United States. Artist Statement: This sculpture, Say Her Name #2, was created as a remembrance of Black women and girls who have been killed at the hands of the police or experienced police violence. It brings awareness to the names and stories, to the lives that often become invisible—many times not even making it to the evening news. Black women and girls as young as 7 and as old as 93 have been killed by the police. “My goal and desire is to give voice to the voiceless, the marginalized, the oppressed. Say her name. Black Lives Matter.” Say Her Name #2 (2021) Wire, 43 x 20 x 12 inches

KRISTINE MAYS

ROSEMARY MEZA-DESPLAS FARMINGTON, NM

rosemarymeza.com @rosemarymezadesplas Rosemary Meza-DesPlas (b. 1965) currently lives in Farmington, New Mexico. The cornerstone of her artwork is the female experience within a patriarchal society. She holds an MFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art (Hoffberger School of Painting) and a BFA from the University of North Texas. As a multidisciplinary artist, she continuously experiments with new artistic means. Her studio practice incorporates drawing, installation, painting, video art, and fiber art. Themes explored in her visual artwork are vocalized in her writings and spoken word performances. She has exhibited in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her artwork has been featured in numerous publications including the Huffington Post, Wall Street International, and Interview Magazine. Artist Statement: The inception of any given theme is rooted in my investigation of socio-political issues. Part of my studio process involves researching a potential theme and examining it from a multiplicity of viewpoints. “I was born and raised in Garland, Texas; a manufacturing-based suburb of Dallas. My parents’ heritage is rooted south of the US border: my mother was born in Allende located in Coahuila, Mexico. My father, born in Santa Maria, Texas, grew up in Tampico situated within Tamaulipas, Mexico. The tenacity of my eight aunts in the face of personal tragedies and adversities was an early inspiration; their narratives contributed to my embrace of feminist ideology.” What You Whispered, Should Be Screamed is created from hand-sewn human gray hair (the artist’s hair). By utilizing my gray hair, I allude to socio-cultural notions on the aging woman: loss of beauty, wisdom gained, a lifetime of everyday sexism. #MeToo, as a historical movement, spread through social media in October of 2017. #MeToo was a scream: a prolonged wail of enormous proportions that was deafening and unforeseen. Women had spent their whole lives in concealed/unconcealed sexualized environments such as academia, corporate sector, hospitality industry and so forth. A sense of agency propelled women to recollect the sexual abuse, and—most importantly—name the abuser. Whispers about sexual allegations had allowed predators to hide in plain sight. What recourse did women have to protect themselves from sexual abuse? #MeToo opened the floodgates and empowered women to vocalize their experiences. Female agency led to a reckoning for sexual predators and resulted in palpable changes: some men were disgraced and defeated. What You Whispered, Should Be Screamed (2018) Hand-sewn human hair (gray), 34 x 36 x 4 inches

ROSEMARY MEZA-DESPLAS

DELILAH MONTOYA ALBUQUERQUE, NM

delilahmontoya.com @delilah.montoya Born in Texas and raised in the Midwest, Delilah Montoya (b. 1955) later returned to New Mexico, the ancestral home of her mother’s family. Her work is grounded in the experiences of the Southwest and brings together a multiplicity of syncretic forms and practices—from those of Aztec Mexico and Spain to cross-border vernacular traditions—all of which are shaded by contemporary American customs and values. In her work, she explores the unusual relationships that result from negotiating different strategies of understanding and representing the rich ways of life and thought found in the Southwest. Montoya’s numerous projects investigate cultural phenomena; whether investigating spiritual rituals or questioning gender traditions, she always addresses and often confronts viewers’ assumptions. Montoya's own personal quest in image-making is the discovery and articulation of Chicano culture. Montoya's exploration has far reaching implications for both her and her community. As part of her Malcriada investigation, Montoya collaborated with Tina Hernandez on the site-specific installation, La Llorona in Lillith’s Gardens, which consists of two photographic murals printed on canvas (20’ x 8’ and 10’ x 8’) created for El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe in 2004. A Malcriada is the Spanish word for a misbehaved girl who is willful and does not follow social norms. She is the tomboy, or perhaps the naughty child who does not take no for an answer and given the right opportunity she is the maker of history. Montoya’s work is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Los Angeles, CA; Houston Museum of Fine Art; Houston, TX; The Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY; and the Smithsonian Institute; Washington DC. Her work has been exhibited throughout New Mexico, Texas, New York, California, France, Russia, Japan and Mexico. Currently she is an emeritus professor from the University of Houston and a 2021 USLAF fellow. Artist Statement: La Llorona in Lillith’s Garden is a sensual and mesmerizing photographic installation that brings together two archetypal figures thought to have betrayed their husbands and murdered their children. According to folklore, both Lillith and La Llorona continue to haunt the terrestrial realm as evil spirits. These women were presented as monsters and constructed to send a lesson to young girls on how to behave or how they should feel about these sorts of “monstrous women.” The installation provocatively explores the traditional double standards that determine appropriate behavior for women and invests these female archetypes with new meaning. This image was exhibited in numerous venues between 2004 and 2021. La Llorona in Lillith’s Garden (2004) Photographic Murals on Canvas, 20 x 8 feet and 10 x 8 feet

DELILAH MONTOYA

PRISCILLA OTANI SAN FRANCISCO, CA

mrpotani.com @mrpotani Priscilla Otani (b. 1952) is a mixed media artist, curator, and owner of Arc Gallery in San Francisco. Her works have been selected in Bay Area, national and international exhibitions including Deadlocked & Loaded: Disarming America, To Hear and Be Heard, Beyond Borders: Stories of im/Migration; Rise: Empower, Change and Action; Against Trumpism; Women + Money; Social Justice: It Happens to One, It Happens to All; Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art; Woman + Body, Choice; Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze; Control; and Banned & Recovered. She has curated and managed exhibitions for Arc Gallery, Pacific Center for the Book Arts and Women’s Caucus for Art. Her exhibition management includes F213; F*ck U! In the Most Loving Way; Liberty, Metamorphosis, Resistance; and the upcoming Dollhouse: Art As Serious Play. She was President of the National Women’s Caucus from 2013 – 2015 and cu rrently serves on the board of Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art. Otani received her BA in Psychology and Asian Stu dies from Mills College in 1974 and MA in Japanese Literatu re from Columbia University in 1976. Born in Tokyo, Otani is a bi-cultural, naturalized United States citizen. Artist Statement: Shedding Femininity is a rude response to the fetishization of women’s bodies. Despite the #MeToo movement and woman after woman testifying in court and in congress, there are too few victories in reclaiming our bodies. Time after time women continue to be toyed with and violated, whether in the name of religion, job promotion or physical health. Shedding Femininity is an allegorical strip tease, the unzipped ass and cunt left behind by women who’ve had enough. Shedding Femininity (2016) Rubber bands and gel medium, 10 x 20 x 20 inches

PRISCILLA OTANI

LUCKY RAPP SAN FRANCISCO, CA

luckyrapp.com @lucky_rapp Lucky Rapp’s (b. 1963) work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the United States and Europe, including: Adeeni Design Galerie, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, ARC Gallery, Art Market San Francisco, ArtHaus Gallery, ArtZone 461 Gallery, Campfire Gallery, DVC Gallery, DZINE Gallery, Gallery 35, Houston Art Fair, h u g o m e n t o, Los Angeles Affordable Art Fair, Minnesota Street Project Editions, Palette Gallery, Playground Global, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Slate Contemporary Gallery, Sloan Miyasato Fine Art, StARTup Art Fair San Francisco, Themes & Projects Gallery, Voss Gallery, and Wescover Gallery. Rapp”s work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including all of Michelin Chef Dominique Crenn”s restaurants (Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn, and Petit Crenn). An active member of the San Francisco art community Lucky regularly donates works to annual auctions at Art for Aids, Hospitality House, and ArtSpan. Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she resides, Lucky has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia, and has lived and worked in Mannheim and Paris. Artist Statement: we rise was originally created in 2017 for the San Francisco ArtMarket and ArtHaus Gallery, displayed with twelve pieces in three rows of four with bold words. For Agency, I chose a top to bottom format: "we, rise, resist, now, hope, dance, live, truth", creating a more streamlined message that calls for the viewer to raise their viewpoint higher and read words that remind them to seek their inner power. Each word in we rise is a call to action to look within and push higher, close the gap, and believe in oneself. As with many other industries, women and all other marginalized people are still striving for equality in the Arts. White male artists are continually recognized as being at the forefront of art, without equal attention paid to the significant contributions of women artists and artists of color. we rise captures words that embody pushing forward to close those gaps. We will continue to rise! we rise (2017) Gesso, paint, acrylic, mixol, resin, (8 panels), 17 x 17 x 2.5 inches each

LUCKY RAPP

JENNY REINHARDT SUMMIT, NJ

jennyreinhardt.com @jenny_reinhardt Jenny Flexner Reinhardt (b. 1969) is an emerging artist from New Jersey who has had seven solo exhibitions in the last three years. Jenny earned her Master’s Degree in Traditional Figure Painting, Cum Laude from the New York Academy of Art, and soon thereafter received an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and an NYAA Merit Scholarship. “All that glitters is not gold” describes both Jenny’s art, and her personal journey. As a self-described “codependent” Jenny efforted to control her world by putting on a “happy face” while grappling with familial alcoholism, postpartum depression, and PTSD. In her art, Jenny marries the happy with the sad, the bright with the dark. Jenny’s art travels back and forth from the blinding distractions of the material here-and-now, to the bliss of an abstract metaphysical experience. Jenny likes to hide ghostly clues of sexism, loss, seduction and addiction, within the glittering façade of “prettiness”. Supported by a strong foundation in traditional figure painting, Jenny now experiments with large scale collage, collage on plexiglass, LED back-lit light boxes. Artist Statement: Call Out the Commands is a layered “Urban” collage; a stream-of-consciousness collection of images. In this work activated and empowered heroines boldly step into their future. The work was inspired by Jade Hameister, a teenage activist and adventurist who skied across both Poles and Greenland, while being trolled online by misogynists commanding “Make Me a Sandwich.” In this work, the women “call the commands.” Jade is handing out a sandwich to internet trolls, saying, “I made you a sandwich, (ham and cheese), now ski 37 days and 600km to the South Pole, and you can eat it.” The “Venus” breaks the picture plane with her bare knee, stepping into the present dressed in the colors of modern graffiti. Marilyn Monroe defiantly wears a potato sack to prove her worth is not a commodity. Rumi’s poem, “Split the Sack,” urges people to take action, Here women decide their own futures: full of hope, strength and the conviction to rise and thrive for the self-betterment of all humanity. Call Out the Commands (2018) Mixed media, collage on linen, 82 x 45 inches

JENNY REINHARDT

WINNIE VAN DER RIJN NEW YORK, NY

winnievanderrijn.con @winnievanderrijn Winnie van der Rijn (b. 1967) is a multi-disciplinary artist of opportunity—collecting materials, experimenting with techniques and pursuing her curiosities. Her work exists in the realm of possibility and potential. Themes of memory, identity, gender, beauty and power reflect her everyday experiences, interactions and concerns. She embraces the discarded, the flawed and the marginalized creating fictional histories, alternative narratives, future truths & imagined worlds in the form of false relics, ritual artifacts and altered portraits. Winnie’s art practice includes textiles, sculpture, collage and collaboration (which she considers its own art form). She plays well with others. Winnie actively exhibits her work throughout the United States. A lifelong learner, Winnie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 with a BA in Sociology. She has studied printmaking, sculpture, metal-smithing and Marxist theory. In addition, Winnie has explored weaving, machine knitting, bookmaking, altars, exploding picture boxes, automata, shoe making, millinery, sewing, fusing, stamping, metal weaving, resin, riveting, precious metal clay and mixed media. She is wildly curious about how things are made. Artist Statement: Every choice I make about how I spend my time and energy tells the world who I am and what I value. Every time the world speeds up, I react by slowing down—working more and more with my hands in an attempt to balance the universe. How much trouble can I make with my needle and thread? My current body of work is an examination and deconstruction of patriarchal power in menswear—an iterative intervention. I posit that the power in menswear is hiding in the seams as they hold all of the labor and energy of the making. I am interested in finding vestiges of power in menswear, extracting it and reimagining it one shirt at a time. Shred is repurposed menswear meticulously torn between each stripe using just a seam ripper. The cutting has rendered the shirt flaccid. It was an exercise in limiting my intervention to one ubiquitous tool and a universal skill in an attempt to democratize the dismantling of the patriarchy. Shred (#11) (2021) Men’s work shirt, 60 x 22 inches (acrylic tube)

WINNIE VAN DER RIJN

SAWYER ROSE FAIRFAX, CA

carrying-stones.com @ksawyerrose Sawyer Rose (b. 1974) is a sculptor, installation and social practice artist. Born and raised in North Carolina and a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, she now lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Throughout her career, Rose has used her artwork to shine a spotlight on contemporary social and ecological issues. Her work on The Carrying Stones Project addresses women’s work inequity and has been featured by Ms. Magazine and Bust Magazine. Rose’s work has been exhibited widely across the US. Rose has been a resident artist at MASS MoCA, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale Foundation, and The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. She has been awarded grants from The Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation, The Creative Capacity Fund, The Awesome Foundation, and ArtistGrant.org. Rose is the President of the Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art. Artist Statement: The Carrying Stones Project combines art and data science to jump-start public conversation about women’s work inequity. The works encourage viewers to confront issues of equity, labor, and community by pairing human faces and stories with the numbers behind them. It is critical that, as a society, we come to a deeper understanding about the pervasive effects of gendered labor inequity. A gender balanced workforce is better for productivity, innovation, worker happiness, and the economy as a whole. This piece takes a snapshot look at the paid and unpaid labor of Amira—activist, entrepreneur, and community volunteer. Over the years, Amira has run an art consulting firm, a marketing business, and been a podcast host. She has volunteered with a number of Oakland community organizations, and in her “spare” time, she hosted a monthly multi-racial book club. And taught workshops. And directed art tours. In her fluid, multi-layered life, networking and socializing and down-time and social activism could all happen at the same time. Amira’s paid labor hours are represented by solid, leather forms. Her unpaid labor hours—many of which have been spent in community activism—take the form of wireframe shapes. Typically, empty spaces in the sculpture would represent hours when she was not working, but because her paid and unpaid labor overlaps so much, it seems best just to leave it loose. Photo credit: New Museum Los Gatos

Amira (2017) Faux leather, wire, thread, silver solder, acrylic, 72 x 180 x 96 inches Archival pigment print, Edition of 3, 36 x 24 inches

SAWYER ROSE

JOAN SEMMEL NEW YORK, NY

@joansemmel Joan Semmel (b.1932) born in New York City, began her painting career in the 1960s, while living in Madrid as an Abstract Expressionist, exhibiting in Spain and South America. Semmel studied at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York, and received her BFA and MFA from Pratt Institute. With her return to New York in 1970, she moved to figuration in response to pornography, and concerns around representation of women in the culture and became involved in the feminist art movement. One of the original Guerrilla Girls, Semmel was involved with several feminist activist art groups devoted to gender equality in the art world. At the same time, her painting style shifted to incorporate more figurative imagery and she began working on series that explored the themes of the female body, desire, and aging. Each series consisted of 10-30 paintings, produced over several years, among them First and Second Erotic Series, Self Images, Portraits, Figure in Landscape, Gymnasium, Locker Room, Overlays, and Mannequins. In addition to her teaching career at Rutgers University as a tenured Professor of Painting, Semmel taught briefly at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Skowhegan, and the Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Germany. Over the years she served as a visiting artist, critic, and lecturer at many colleges, and participated in numerous symposia, panel discussions and conferences. In addition, Semmel curated two exhibitions, Contemporary Women: Consciousness and Content at The Brooklyn Museum of Art School and Private Worlds - Art in General. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of many museums including Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Tate, London, the Brooklyn Museum, and The Dallas Museum, TX among many others. She lives and works in New York City and Easthampton, NY. In the early 1970s, Semmel reacted to finding herself surrounded by images of objectified women in all sorts of media, from pornographic magazines on newsstands to old master paintings in museums. Semmel's work explores erotic themes and the female body. Her practice traces the transformation on that women’s sexuality has seen in the last century and emphasizes the possibility for female autonomy through the body. This body of work made visible sexual pleasure from a woman’s perspective. In the Echoing Images series (1979—81), she paints herself twice. Doubling her form, she renders her body in both a realistic and expressionistic style. Through this juxtaposition, Semmel constructs narratives about the self. She says the two versions of her body “are almost like internal and external views of the self that combine a perceptual image with the ambition and striving of the emotive ego.” Semmel’s self-portraits span decades. The affective authenticity of her aging body contrasts the idealized and often retouched representations of women prominent in American culture. Side Pull (1979) Oil on canvas, 78 x 108 inches Green Family Art Foundation, courtesy of Adam Green Art Advisory

JOAN SEMMEL

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH CORRALES, NM

jaunequicktoseesmith.org @qaunequicktoseesmith Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (b. 1940) was born in St. Ignatius on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Reservation. She is an enrolled member of the Flathead Nation, and descended from French, Cree, and Shoshone ancestors. She has lived in New Mexico since the late 1970s, working as an artist, teacher, lecturer, curator, and activist—or, as she describes, “a cultural arts worker.” Her work is philosophically centered by her strong traditional beliefs and political activism. She is one of most acclaimed American Indian artists of today. Smith has had over 110 solo exhibits and offered more than 225 lectures in the past 40 years and has done printmaking projects nationwide. In 2020, her work was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.—the first painting in its history by a Native American artist. She has organized and/or curated over 30 Native exhibitions, lectured at more than 200 universities, museums, and conferences internationally, most recently at five universities in China. Smith is internationally known as an artist, curator, lecturer, printmaker and professor. She holds four honorary doctorates from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Mass College of Art and the University of New Mexico. Her work is in collections at the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Walker, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum for World Cultures, Frankfurt, Germany and Museum for Ethnology, Berlin. Recent awards include a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation to archive her work; the 2011 Art Table Artist Award; Moore College Visionary Woman Award for 2011; Induction into the National Academy of Art 2011; Living Artist of Distinction, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, NM 2012; the Switzer Award 2012; Woodson Foundation, Lifetime Achievement Award, Santa Fe 2014; National Art Education Association, Ziegfeld Lecture Award 2014. In 2015 she received an honorary degree in Native American Studies from Salish Kootanai College, Pablo, MT. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s art shares her view of the world, offering her personal perspective as an artist, a Native American, and a woman. Her work creates a dialogue between the art and its viewers and explores issues of Native identity as it is seen by both Native Americans and non-Natives. Her creative voice and her powerful commitment to social, environmental, and political issues have established her as a dominant figure in contemporary American art. Yet Smith continues to maintain vital connections to Montana and American Indian culture. Smith uses humor and satire to examine myths, stereotypes, and the paradox of American Indian life in contrast to the consumerism of American society. Her work is philosophically centered by her strong traditional beliefs and political activism. The Long Shadow (2015) Oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 40 inches From the Collection of Accola Griefen

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

MICKALENE THOMAS BROOKLYN, NY

mickalenethomas.com @mickalenethomas Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Thomas received a BFA from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 2000 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT, in 2002. Thomas’ work is in numerous international public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; MoMA PS1, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Yale University Art Collection, New Haven, CT; and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Thomas has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the USA Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow; Anonymous Was A Woman Award; Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award; and the Timehri Award for Leadership in the Arts. Her work is exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Thomas was also honored with creating the first individual portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, completed in 2008. Thomas makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power. She constructs complex portraits, landscapes, and interiors in order to examine Photo credit : Topical Cream how identity, gender, and sense of self are informed by the ways women are represented in art and popular culture. Rhinestones—the artist”s signature material and a symbol of femininity—serve as an added layer of meaning and a metaphor of artifice. Thomas uses rhinestones to shade and accentuate specific elements of each painting, while subtly confronting our assumptions about what is feminine and what defines women. She models her figures on the classic poses and abstract settings popularized by modern masters as a way to reclaim agency for women who have been presented as objects to be desired or subjugated. Though Thomas draws from a number of time periods and genres, her use of pattern and domestic spaces often references various periods throughout the 1960s to the 1980s. This was a time of immense social and political conflict, change, and transformation—the civil rights movement, the black is beautiful movement, and the second wave of feminism—during which many women, particularly African-Americans, rejected and redefined traditional standards of beauty. All She Wants to Do is Dance (Fran) (2009) Rhinestones, acrylic on enamel wood panel, 120 x 95.75 inches Green Family Art Foundation, courtesy of Adam Green Art Advisory

MICKALENE THOMAS

MARGI WEIR DETROIT, MI

margiweir.weebly.com @margiweir Margi Weir, an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, calls upon figurative arrangements and presents them in a tapestry-like fashion; the juxtaposition of elements creates unique pleasing patterns, blurring—but not hiding—the socio-political and ecological themes in her pieces. In 2017, the Puffin Foundation awarded Weir a grant to support her work on gun violence that was shown in solo shows at St. Louis Community College, Florissant Valley in Ferguson, MO, at the Hardesty Art Center in Tulsa OK., and at Coastal Carolina University. Weir has won numerous awards for her work, including a 2016 Best of Show Grand Prize at the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center as well as a 2015 Best of Show award in the Human Rights Exhibition, South Texas College, McAllen, TX. Additionally, she has had many solo exhibitions across the country, notably at Ivan Karp”s OK Harris Gallery in New York and the Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. She has completed installation pieces at Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans LA), Central Features Gallery (Albuquerque NM), Lexington Art League (Lexington KY), the Elaine Jacob Gallery (Detroit, MI) and the Las Cruces Museum of Art (Las Cruces, NM). Margi Weir earned her MFA in painting from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); her MA in painting from New Mexico State University; her BFA in painting from San Francisco Art Institute; and her BA in art history from Wheaton College, Massachusetts. Artist Statement: This piece began as a meditation on women’s suffrage, but evolved into a consideration of voting rights for everyone and the very real threat to equal access in the current political climate. I was moved by the lifelong struggle of John Lewis to achieve equal voting rights for all and the unsuccessful fight, following his death, to pass legislation that he endorsed. Every voice must count if we are to climb toward the ideal of a more perfect union. The Right to Vote (2021) Mixed media/vinyl on floor, 120 inches diameter

MARGI WEIR

MARTHA WILSON BROOKLYN, NY

marthawilson.com @marthawilsonartist Martha Wilson (b. 1947) is a pioneering feminist artist and gallery director, who over the past five decades has created innovative photographic and video works that explore her female subjectivity through role-playing, costume transformations, and “invasions” of other people’s personae. She began making these videos and photo/text works in the early 1970s while in Halifax in Nova Scotia, and further developed her performative and video-based practice after moving in 1974 to New York City. In 1976 she founded and continues to help direct Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc., an artist-run space that champions the exploration, promotion and preservation of artists’ books, installation art, video, online and performance art, further challenging institutional norms, the roles artists play within society, and expectations about what constitutes acceptable art mediums. As a performance artist she founded and collaborated with DISBAND, the all-girl punk conceptual band of women artists who can’t play any instruments, and impersonated political figures such as Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Tipper Gore and Donald Trump. Wilson, a native of Newtown, Pennsylvania, is esteemed for both her solo artistic production and her maverick efforts to champion creative forms that are “vulnerable due to institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content.” Written into and out of art history according to the Beauty + Beastly (1947-2009) theories and convictions of the time, Photographs, text, edition of 3, 17 x 23.5 inches Wilson first gained notoriety thanks to the attention of curator Lucy R. Lippard, who placed Wilson's early efforts within the context of conceptual art and the work of women artists. Wilson's early work is now considered prescient. Artist Statement: My instruments are language and my woman's body. Language because in the 1970s I was an English teacher at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), where the Conceptual artists of the day were visiting, and making visual art out of language. And my woman's body because this is the vessel that experiences praise, hatred, misogyny, boredom, invisibility, hungers for a better world. beauty is in the eye (2014) Pigmented ink print on canson rag photographique, Edition 5/5 + 2AP, 16 x 24 inches Courtesy of the Artist and P.P.O.W. New York

MARTHA WILSON

NANCY YOUDELMAN CLOVIS, CA

nancyyoudelman.com @nancyyoudelman Nancy Youdelman (b. 1948) has been exhibiting her artwork since 1971. She has the distinction of having been part of the very first feminist art class that was taught by Judy Chicago in 1970 at California State University, Fresno. She continued her participation in the Feminist Art Program (1971—1973) at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, where she participated in the internationally acclaimed project, Womanhouse (1972), receiving her BFA from CalArts in 1973 and her MFA with an emphasis in sculpture from UCLA in 1976. Youdelman has had a varied and interesting career: she worked as an artistic consultant on the 1975 Rolling Stones concert in Los Angeles, was a founding member of both Grandview Gallery at the historic Woman’s Building in Los Angeles and Double X, a feminist collective, and was a university art instructor for 20 years. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including grants from the Pollock/Krasner, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb and the Tree of Life Foundations. Her extensive exhibition record includes many national and international exhibitions; her work is in many private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Pin Gloves (2019) variable Photos by Michael Karibian

NANCY YOUDELMAN

Artist Statement: I really love pins—everything about them! They are shiny, sharp, and beautiful but can also inflict pain. Straight pins are used only transitionally in sewing; they are not part of the finished product but for piecing the fabric patterns together before being secured by stitches. I did the first artworks with straight pins in the 1970s when I pushed pins through a leather Victorian glove, a tiny cloth shoe and a Victorian dress. This process is methodical and repetitive and is deeply mediative for me. The pins appear decorative like beading but have a hard quality that pierces through the softness of the object they are combined with. I created the Pin Gloves in this exhibit during the early part of 2020. Most of the gloves belonged to the deceased mother of a friend. Through this transformation with straight pins, I gave shape to something that had otherwise been lost and forgotten.

NANCY YOUDELMAN

Rolling Pin with Pearls & Tiny Porcelain Doll (2016) 3 x 15.5 x 3 inches Artist Statement: For many years I have collected vintage kitchen utensils. I have created many artworks with them, wrapping them with jewelry, human hair and adding various objects to them. What intrigues me about the old kitchen utensils is that they have had so much use, usually by women and always to prepare food, mostly for families. Because I was the oldest daughter when I was growing up, I did a lot the food preparation, the utensils were my “tools of the trade”. I gravitate toward binding pearl necklaces to them. To me the pearls suggest something precious that has been lost and it conjures up a bittersweet longing for it. For Rolling Pin with Pearls & Tiny Porcelain Doll, I began with a rather delicate, smaller rolling pin that had been very well-used for many years. Using silk thread, I bound many vintage pearl necklaces to the rolling pin, adding the tiny porcelain doll because it felt right.

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