What Kind of Feminist Place is MultiPurpose-Woman.com?

The feminist art(ist) part of MultiPurpose-Woman will explore the power of feminist art and the meaning and practice of feminism. Conversation and thought provocation are the goals of this area.

The word feminism seems to scare a lot of people. It has political, activist connotations that stir up emotions and too often lead people away from the real issues. How will we get over that hump here? We will talk about it. We'll explore feminist definition after feminist definition. We'll make some hard decisions and state explicitly what we mean when we say someone of something is feminist. That'll be fun.

There'll be opportunities for all us mature women to discuss and ruminate about body and gender issues and their place in art and ordinary, everyday life. In short, this part will be a self-portrait of our collective thoughts about becoming/being a feminist, defining feminism and identifying and celebrating feminist art.

Start Now by Watching Reinventing Feminism - a TED video by Courtney Martin

Author of Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and journalist at Feministing.com

What's a mature American woman to do with feminism and feminist art?

This is a place to investigate the function of feminism and art in our everyday lives. The how of feminism is different in different places and times. For our purposes let's focus on how and what feminism is for American women.

There'll be biographies, artwork reviews and disections, book reviews, art action activities, talk about local Louisville, Ky and national art happenings, mentions and photos of my (Gwendolyn Kelly's) artwork in progress, requests for individual artists to chime in about their work, and whatever other related content bubbles forth from your minds and mind.

What is feminism? What is feminist art?

There is not a universally accepted definition of feminism. However, a group I trust, The Kentucky Foundation for Women (KFW) “…recognizes feminism as a dynamic force for social change that varies across age, ethnicity, economic class, geography, sexuality, and other differences. For this reason, KFW does not promote a single definition of feminism but encourages grant applicants to describe their own understanding and practice of feminism.”

As for a definition of art, “The arts are the rain forests of society. They produce the oxygen of freedom, and they are the early warning system when freedom is in danger. ...June Wayne, artist, ”

So, when adding individual works of art and artists to the roll call and when composing biographies I’ll first follow KFW's self-definition rule and look for evidence that an artist considers self to be a feminist artist AND that the work the artist is producing intends to be a “dynamic force for social change” AND I'll look for evidence of oxygenation in the artwork.