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Category: Women’s ART History Month

Catcall and response

Catcall and response

The Artdog Image(s) of Interest Have you ever been walking down a city street, especially past a construction site, and heard somebody yell, “Hey, baby! Gimme a smile!” or similar stuff? If you’ve ever been a woman–particularly a young woman–you have. Guaranteed. Probably daily. (If you’re a man, then probably not, and you may not see what’s wrong with it). While the occasional inexperienced country girl may mistake these catcalls for harmless flattery on first exposure, it soon becomes clear that the objectifying intent is neither harmless nor…

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Entering the space that art creates

Entering the space that art creates

The Artdog Quote of the Week For artists, our art is our voice. That may seem fundamental, but people forget it often. Women in Art for Peace published this about today’s quotable person: “Unni Askeland is a Norwegian artist. She studied at The National Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen, and The National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo. Her art has transitioned from Munch-inspired painting to American-style photography-based serigraphy, Askeland creates work that intends to shock and challenge conceptions of the contemporary art world.” IMAGE: Many thanks to the…

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How quotes about women in the arts . . . mostly weren’t.

How quotes about women in the arts . . . mostly weren’t.

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week In recognition of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d focus on quotes about women in the arts as this month’s theme.  Yeah, try Googling that phrase under “images.” The quote that seemed to come back with just incredible frequency was this one: Um, EXCUSE ME, but what does that have to do with Women in the Arts? One image that came up near the top of the search results is a poster visible on the Tate website (but not available for…

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The elusive Ivorybill

The elusive Ivorybill

The Artdog Image of Interest, Image 1 of a planned series of 4 by John James Audubon I’ll never forget the day my mother thought we’d seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker at our backyard bird feeder. I was a little kid: I’d never heard of one, before. And it was the biggest bird we’d ever seen at the feeder. It wasn’t an Ivorybill, of course. This was sometime in the 1960s, and the last confirmed sighting had been in 1944. Eventually, Mom reluctantly decided it probably had been a Pileated woodpecker, which…

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A vision for the future

A vision for the future

The Artdog Image of Interest I couldn’t think of a better image or a better note of hope on which to end this month’s Images of Interest series of feminist artworks. Today’s piece, Rainbow Shabbat, 1992, by Judy Chicago, is a large, stained glass installation. It is the culminating image of Chicago’s “Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light,” created over a period of eight years, collaborating with her husband, photographer Donald Woodman. As explained in Wiki Art, “To conclude the exhibition, Chicago wanted an image of hope, a vision for…

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From tar beach to star-flying

From tar beach to star-flying

The Artdog Image of Interest Faith Ringgold’s story quilt Tar Beach (Part 1 from the Woman on a Bridge series), 1988, rewards some time spent looking at it closely. The quilt has enough going on in it to provide several of the illustrations for Ringgold’s 1991 children’s book, also titled Tar Beach.  The book Tar Beach is a semi-autobiographical account of a little girl, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, in Harlem, New York in the 1930s (not coincidentally, Faith grew up there during the 1930s). At night in the summer, Cassie sleeps…

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Portrait of a girl

Portrait of a girl

The Artdog Image of Interest  Frida Kahlo, Portrait of Lucha Maria, a Girl from Tehuacán, 1942 This isn’t the most famous Frida Kahlo painting, but I keep coming back to it. Here she brought together several themes that recur in her paintings. Herself descended in part from indigenous roots, she frequently included references to indigenous Mexican cultures in her work. Tehuacán is the second-largest city in the Mexican state of Puebla, in southeastern Mexico known (among other things) for its vivid embroidery and weaving. The beautiful, exotic Mexican clothing with which Frida created…

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Everything

Everything

The Artdog Image of Interest  Amy Sherald’s Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) speaks to me on so many levels it’s hard to know where I should begin. From her vibrant red hat slipping down over her eyes, to the awkward mismatch of her two-sided dress, to Those Gloves and That Enormous Cup—this young woman is loaded down by expectations that others have piled onto her. There have been times when I’ve been that young woman. I suspect there are times when most of us have been that young woman. Certainly this…

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Kindred

Kindred

The Artdog Images of Interest Mothers, 1919, by Käthe Kollwitz Migrant Mother, 1936, by Dorothea Lange  Syrian Refugee Mother and Child, 2015, by Tara Todras-Whitehall, for the IRC IMAGES: Many thanks to Gerry in Art’s wonderful post on Kollwitz, for the 1919 image Mothers, to the indispensable Wikipedia, for Dorothea Lange’s 1936 masterpiece, and to the “Uprooted” blog of the International Rescue Committee on Medium. 

Essential Artemesia

Essential Artemesia

Women’s ART History Month–Artdog Images of Interest I’m celebrating “Women’s ART History Month” this March, with a new kind of “Images of Interest.” I’ll feature some of my favorite women artists. I can’t represent all of them, at least not all this month. But maybe I can come back to this series later. At any rate, where else could I start, but with Artemesia Gentileschi? All of these women made their mark in what has been for centuries a world that belonged…

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