You've reached the Feminist Art(ists) Life Area.
This ever changing jumping off point will keep you up to date about
what other MPW like yourself are going around the subjects of
feminism, "Feminist Art & Artists".
Feminist Art(ists)' main topics are . . .
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? Will
talk about it. We'll explore definitions. We'll make some hard
decisions and state 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.
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.