Artist's Statements About Individual Works

Portrait of the Artist as a Woman

Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle cotton rag • 28 x 17

To be a woman and an artist was not the norm when I was growing up, especially in the Upper Midwest in the 1950s. This biographical self-portrait takes the form of a stylized digital line drawing that is fleshed out in a verbal narrative with computer-set typography (a product of my graphic design background and my consuming passion for fussed-over type). The narrative is mostly personal, but the last couple of sentences speak to the reality of the situation faced by countless other “women artists”: I wasted a lot of my life convincing myself to do art only for others, and it is a hard habit to break. My own art went into homely obligations, and I think that’s why families are so rich in quilts and doilies and other fancywork… and why most of it is Anonymous.