Artist's Statements About Individual Works

Not one of The Boys

Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle cotton rag • 15.5 x 13.25 • 2004. Printer: Silicon Gallery Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Appearing mostly in the background (just as they were forced to do in Real Life) are 14 individuals from the legion of talent over the past 120 years who could not Be All That They Could Be for the sole reason that they were women. Belva Ann Lockwood, candidate of the Equal Rights party, was the first woman to run for u.s. president even though, in 1884, women still could not vote. (As she pointed out, however, nothing said that women couldn’t be voted for.) Artist Robert Longo’s comment to art critic Dan Bischoff is regrettably just as appropriate for the political arena as it is for the arts: “When I came to New York and found that women’s art was routinely being valued at a lower level, I felt it undermined the value of my own accomplishments. I mean, it was like making it to the state championship and finding out that the other team could use only half their players.” (New Jersey Star-Ledger, Feb. 16, 2003). What a sad loss for Team usa!