129SSIp ƏZÁrey will learn sho This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms In order to become more flexible and with the balance of each issue devoted more responsive to exciting, current to articles, features, departments, art of activity in the women artists’ commu- all kinds, fiction, poetry, and political/ nity, we'll be changing from a totally thematic approach to a thematic core, cultural commentary on all matters feminist. Material welcomed. Guidelines for Contributors: Manuscripts should or visual material must accompany their contribu- «o a R AC EE E A OAM 7A a E y SE SEEN o S be typed double-spaced and submitted in duplicate. Visual material should be submitted in the form of tion with a two or three line biography. All material a slide, xerox, or photograph with title, medium, envelope in order for it to be returned. We do not dimensions, and date noted; however, HERESIES publish reviews or monographs on contemporary must have a black-and-white photograph or equiv- women. We cannot guarantee acceptance of sub- alent to publish the work. We will not be responsi- mitted material. HERESIES pays a small honorar- ble for original art. Those submitting either written ium for published material. must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed Erratum: In HERESIES 24: 12 Years, Kate Millett’s Madhouse, Madhouse fell victim to a printer’s error. It is reproduced properly on page 96. MANY THANKS TO OUR DONORS! Butler Capital Corporation, Ida Applebroog, Stephanie Bernheim, Naomi Dagen Bloom, Ada Ciniglio, Mary Beth Edelson, Carol English, R.N., Barbara Duarte Esgalhado, Sydney K. Hamburger, Dr. Ira Janow, Sarah Jenkins, Joyce Kozloff, Ellen Lanyon, Melissa Meyer, B. Ruby Rich, Elke M. Solomon, Judith E. Stein, May Stevens, Emily Stevenson, Jay Strauss, Faith Wilding, Martha Wilson Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art & Politics is published twice a year by Heresies Collective, Inc., 280 Broadway, Suite 412, New York, NY 10007. Subscription rates: individuals—23/4 issues, $44/8 issues; institutions—$33/4 issues, $60/8 issues, Outside the U.S. add $6 per 4 issues postage. Single copies: $6.75 each. Address all correspondence to: Heresies, PO Box 1306, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. Heresies, ISSN 0146—3411. Vol. 7, No. 1, Issue 25. © 1990, Heresies Collective, Inc. All rights reserved. This publication is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the this dialogue we can foster a change in the meaning of art. ® Arts. Heresies is indexed by the Alternative Press Index, Box 33109, Baltimore, MD 21218, and the American Humanities Index, PO Box 958, Troy, NY 12181. Robin Michals Sabra Moore Faith Wilding Ann Sperry Rose Weil This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fr Heresies 25 Clarissa T. Sligh Kindergarten Class— Graduation 1970 È Alice Shapiro The Art of Education Janet Vicario Blind History Mira Schor On Failure & Anonymity Judith K. Brodsky w N A u Nancy Wells E.A. Racette Donna Evans Tomie Arai Sara Pasti Women, Art, and 53 Lucy R. Lippard Aesthetic Questions 53 Ruth Bass and 54 Eva Grudin Tracy Cross-Cultural Issues Marsha Cummins Why do they crave the experience? 9 51 53 Women’s Wheel The Spinning of the Top 10 Untitled 10 The Wonderful African America: Images, Ideas and Realities New York City School Judy Malloy Nikki Herbst 11 12 No Potato Chips Lynne Cohen 13 Classroom Cricket Potash 14 Seize the Time Joni Sternbach 14 From the Cameo series Marie Cartier 17 Poem: A Manual for Survival 17 Elementary School Class the Drop Ins Carolien Stikker How to Make Carolien Stikker 18 Country Window/Broken Other Nature Rap Sheet People of Color at Carolien Stikker Barbara A. St. John 58 Hannah Wilke 60 Victoria Garton 60 Pamela Shoemaker They Lied Denise Tuggle 63 Carolien Stikker 66 Sheila Pinkel 66 Valerie Sivilli 68 Karen J. Burstein 68 Sara Pasti Window 19 20 Question Marks 20 Toward a Synthetic Art Education Dress Sewing Class The Reception 21 Father and General 21 A Timely Existence 21 72 Carol Clements 73 Amy Edgington 74 Emma Amos Brother and Sister / White and Company Dress I / Statue Pointing / Critics Jill Pierce 27 Diane Pontius 28 Clarissa T. Sligh 29 29 Kristin Reed Tomie Arai 32 33 Pm Tired of Being Angry Beating the Odds Socrates Love Story On Being an American Black Student The Interview Boys’ Care Centerthe: Body in the Club South Day Bronx Educating Pamela Wye Predominant Ideology Classroom 3 Classroom 4 Welcome to You See 35 Learn to Earn The Final Call 36 Mary Sojourner 38 Nancy Wells 38 40 Janet Culbertson 49 49 Judite dos Santos 49 Joni Sternbach 49 Dawn Aotani 78 Rachel Vigier 78 Brahna Yassky Diane Pontius 79 80 Joan Herbst Shapiro 82 Kabuya P. Bowens Dangerous Discussions Dominican Republic 84 What They Write About in Other Countries The Offering I Met a Man Who Untitled Anonymous, C.C. Hamil- 86 Catherine Clarke 87 Letters to the Editor Fences 89 Sallie McCorkle 90 Martha Reed Herbert The Beginning of an Untitled I Signs/Signals Untitled Bone By Bone Alex Stavitsky ton, Barbara A. St. John Staying Horrified Classroom 91 Lynne Cohen Beehive 92 E.A. Racette Untitled 94 Joni Sternbach 96 Kate Millett Madhouse Madhouse INSIDE 50 Carol Wolfe Konek Dear Professor Vile Extraordinary Friendship Heather Susan Haley Leigh Kane and 83 Knows He Knows 47 Nancy Spero 76 Chinatown 34 Batya Weinbaum 75 Kids Playing at the Gramercy Learning to Play Carol Feiser Laque Jerilea Zempel 61 62 White Elitist Colleges The Library Gail Draper 57 Poem for Dirty Boys Brainhouse Aisha Eshe Joni Sternbach an Excellent Teacher An Open-Trench-Coat in the Gaza Strip Meryl Meisler and Sophie Rivera/LNS 56 Fifth Grade So Help Me Hannah Deborah Willis 55 System Untitled Pig of Knowledge The Secret BACK Claire Moore COVER This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms NEW FORMAT COMING SOON: PART THEME/PART FEATURES, DEPARTMENTS & ART OF ALL KINDS UPCOMING ISSUES: Viva Latina! Crimes and Transgressions Women on Men Debut of Heresies new format! Thematic core will What is now considered transgressive was in the past Women have always had plenty to say focus on Latina presence in the U.S. and its rela- often judged criminal behavior for women. What are on the subject of the other. Hear what tionship to the rest of the hemisphere. It will today's taboos in regard to the lives and the arts of women think about their experiences of examine critically the role of roots, place, and cul- women? Issues of good taste” and ‘quality’ will be called brothers, fathers, lovers, friends, ture in restless modern life. Material welcomed. into question, along with otherness" and difference." bosses, and dangerous strangers. Subscribe to Heresies => S ALAY; YAD Heresies T CAS IN AYE JVD. O l ; : EER VARN REEE O T. (a £ A EIEE E N DEAR HERETICS, Feminism is not dead or post-anything. Please enter my subscription for the term indicated and send any back or current issues I've checked to the following address: Namc Street Address/ PO Box City/State/Zip Make checks payable to HERESIES. Payment must accompany order. Outside the U.S., please add $6 per four issues for postage. All foreign checks must be drawn on a U.S. bank. : © 17 Acting Up (PerformanceLIMITED-QUANTITY SUBSCRIPTIONS BACK ISSUES O 16 Film/Video/Media Please start with issue no. $6 cach / Three for $15: O 18/19 cabl: S atur. BACK ISSUES Individual: © 9 Women Organized/Divided Mags & Movie Stars/ Satire (prices subject to increase without notice) © Fourissues—$23 O Eightissues—$44 O 10 Women and Music © 20 Women & Activism O 1 The First Issue (January 1977) $15 Institutional: a © 11 Women and Architecture © 21 Food Is a Feminist Issue © 5 The Great Goddess (reprint) $15 © Fourissues—$33 O Eightissucs—$60 O 13 Feminism and Ecology O 22 Art in Unestablished Channels O 6 On Women and Violence $25 CURRENT ISSUE O 14 Women’s Pages O 23 Coming of Age O 8 Third-World Women $15 © 25 The Art of Education—$6.75 © 15 Racism Is the Issue © 24 12 Years (Anniversary Issue) © 12 Sex Issue $25 CONTRIBUTIONS I like what you Heretics are doing. Included is a tax-deductible contribution of $ HERESIES PO Box 1306, Canal Street Station, New York, New York 10013 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms C N e eNe T. Heresies education collective came together at Rutgers University. O.. collective developed a healthy respect for the many scholarly Several years have passed since we began work- journals we combed for interesting subjects, ing together, and some of us are no longer con- formats, and ideas. Scholars and theoreticians nected with that (or any other) university. We write articles that reflect their years of research. will, however, always be involved with the proc- University presses and associations (such as the ess of learning and will never cease being students and teachers. College Art Association) provide an enormous service by publishing this work. The women who responded to our call for submissions, however, ] nitially we believed that working on the Heresies education issue would responded not with theoretical material but with serve to clarify ideas we had about the neces- personal accounts of their own experiences with education — formal and otherwise. We found sity (or lack thereof) of formal education and a that many women responded from the view- university degree. We were also curious to hear point of having been miseducated (or myth- about women’s experiences in other learning sit- educated; it seems there are an abundance of uations. Once the collective began to meet, it became clear that the matter of formal education institutional horror stories to be told). But we was a secondary one. inspired and uplifted us. In our search for mate- also received many stories about learning that rial we discovered that if rote learning, final exams, O: primary importance, tenure hearings, lesson plans, and racial and sex- it seemed, was the effect of education, both for- ual exploitation are integral to the process of ed- mal and informal. How have we, and all other ucation, so are warmth, introspection, and per- women, been formed into who we are? What sonal exploration. role models have we followed, what constraints T. women who wrote and freedoms have we been taught? How has what we’ve been taught affected our dreams and to us have insights and visions to share that might expectations of what we can hope to achieve in our lives? These are some of the questions that not have found a place in the more “serious” publications. We desired to take our contributors se- helped shape this issue of Heresies. riously and become a platform for their voices. SARA PASTI is a painter, printmaker, and arts organizer who lives and works in Brooklyn. E.A. RACETTE is an artist and founder of Biophilic Activities Inc. VALERI SIVILLI is a painter/printmaker/teacher/gardener who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY/Frenchtown, NJ. Special thanks to Miriam Taylor. E vp sinat i i ` ON EFL re ON 7 S/a 3 , AN DI Staff: Avis Lang, managing editor A/thea N. Davidson, administrative assistant A/pha Selene Anderson, intern Design: Mary Sillman Typesetting: Kathie Brown and U.S. Lithograph, typographers Editorial and Production Assistance: Laura Baird Sue Heinemann Lanie Lee Kate Panzer Risa Wallberg Printed by Wickersham Printing Company, Inc., Lancaster, Pennsylvania This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I (The Beginning) Sitting small so as to be unnoticed, my stomach spoke in alternations of pain and fear. Ill (The End) Looking back I wonder if the teacher saw the anxious looks of dread Out from under the thumbs of others, and passed me by deliberately. the search for who I was began. Ah, Compassion, I honor thee. Again and once again the repetition of the school and its command Publicity, it seems, was evidently brought me back to recognition the real root of agony, of that fearful child. and not the unknowingness of facts. I acted out the same scenario, wasting time, Apprehension of close attention to my self until at last, leaning forward, chased away the open exchange of ideas, lifting the chains from my ankles and I passed through schooltime without a blink, in a huge cocoon of self-made isolation. I tossed them to the side. II (The Middle) IV (Epilogue) Somehow (the magic oft all!) — a slit, Yesterday I met a man. a tiny crevice in the wrapping His esoteric school, he chastened, showed me wondrous worlds stood for helping hands. that needed to be known. Even though, he hastened to reveal, And only through participation we must trust just ourselves, could I move from plant to flower. it cannot be done alone. I reached and drank. The moisture nourished my anorexic soul and filled it not with facts, but questions. Still frail and stupid from so many dark Decembers, mistakes were plentiful, and starting over came to be a trend. Alice Shapiro has published poetry in Poetry Connoisseur (national anthology prizewinner), Assembling 13, and several anthology publications. Also a playwright, her first work, Four Voices, was produced in 1988 and received the Bill C. Davis Drama Award. Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Јапеѓ Уйсагќо ѓо ап агііаі сиггеп Ну іпеоіоед ийЬ тедќа рЬоѓодгарЬу. ЅЬе оед іп МУС апд іп Ње рамі ўїое уеаго Баа огдапіхед +Њоша нй РАОО. ИЙ Тае] Еаисайоп This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms he most useful course that an art school could offer today would be one spite the change in emphasis. The basic fact of the artist's existence remains that no one asks called “On Failure And Anonym- you to do whatever it is that you ity,” for these are the truest condi- do, and just about no one cares tions of the artist's life, all artists, once you've done it. Art in our era even the great and famous ones. Art schools are graduating hundreds of MFAs, thousands of BFAs a year; many of these graduates is a self-generated activity, and the marketplace is for most artists just a transient delusion. Which of these existences have their eyes firmly fixed on the youthful fame and should art schools prepare students for? The fantasy financial success of a handful of exceptionally tal- of a retrospective at a New York museum before the ented, ambitious, and lucky men. In one generation age of forty or the lifetime of art practice? The answer art has come from being considered a financially mar- some students give is distressing. A CalArts graduate ginal occupation to being seriously thought of as a presented a paper at a CAA conference some years potential source of wealth. : ago in which she blamed the school for not having This view is encouraged by the present confusion prepared her for the realities of the art market, between the older values and romantic scenarios of specifically for not having provided enough of a post- “high” art and the contemporary art market, a confu- graduate network of connections to help her market family farm and agribusiness. The long becoming of emphasis on networking and salesmanship is huck- an artist, the lifelong search for meaningful form, is sterism, self-commodification, packaging at the ex- her work and herself. But the logical outcome of this being interfered with by a huge influx of money and pense of content. The art precipitated by this impera- of media attention and influence. Artists are now pres- tive to “make it” tends to be fast work that can be sured by considerations and expectations of immedi- sold easily and quickly. Even “angst” must be “lite.” ate, youthful financial success, although the ratio The transformative nature of artwork may be degraded of such successes has not significantly altered de- into the distillation of “Raw Hype” into ‘Pure Hype,” This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms as depicted in a New Yorker cartoon. In the last five years not a term has gone by without a few, inevitably male, students bringing up how much money art is selling for. Only once in a while has a student, usually female, told me that she was in art ommend it to anyone except to the artist for whom there is no other choice. However, some artists are ‘successful’ in the commercial sense. But that success may not come for years, it probably will not last if it does come, and it school to “find out what this painting thing was has unforeseen consequences. No matter how imper- about,” and, even more significantly, looked to me vious the individual may feel to corruption, success with some concern and asked if, being a woman artist, I had a “life”? Problems particular to gender aside, yes, I have a can corrupt, erasing past ideas and ideals. The earlier it comes the more likely that is. Success is never enough; the need for more is insatiable. Success can life. But the question is a crucial one. Expectations lead to paranoia. Those young men everyone looks to of glory veil the real life of the artist, and if being in as examples are all obsessed with those who might the studio is the priority, the life is difficult. Let us consider first the more obvious and predictably difficult life of the artist who is not a financial want to get at them, knock them down. Because of their success they see themselves as targets, as indeed they had targeted the previous generation, for success (that is to say, the majority of artists). This is the link between progress/success and forms of patri- a life of total insecurity. The artist is a pre-Columbian cide is grafted into the belief structure of Western sailor adrift on a flat ocean at whose edge is an abyss. just past the point the rent money runs out. Jobs are civilization. Success can be paralyzing; approval can prevent change, because change risks the destruc- boring, ill paying, distracting, tion of the desired commodity. and exhausting. Or a more seri- Conversely, enforced, artificial ous involvement with a “real” job thrēatens the continuity and ultimately the continuation of artwork. The committed artist risks being perennially broke, not to say penniless, a bum in fact. To be poor is to be infantilized in a country where adulthood is “change” can become the commodity. Praise can be as intimidating as criticism. Both equally disturb the ecology of the life of the studio. Real success is the ability to continue making art that is alive. For this the artist has to be edu- equated with financial indepen- cated to another set of values and dence. This life is grueling, ego a broader scope. Yet art schools battering, embittering, filled underemphasize practical skills, with deprivation. I do not rec- liberal arts courses, and, worse IANA Education This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms yet, even their art history courses are often insufficient paths that are taken. Life continues only as long as and cursory. the blind chase down the path. There is tremendous To survive the long run, to continue to function, fear on that chase because the relationship between someone ought to tell you that there is a long run. To artist and artwork is one of intimacy with the self, survive, it is necessary to stand for something within and intimacy is truly terrifying and can never be fully yourself and yet to always doubt your own deepest achieved. The closer one comes to something really beliefs. It is necessary to have the agglomeration of intimate (which may seem really foreign), the faster terrors and hopes, delights, and doubts that make up one springs back, and thereby fails. a soul. Perhaps a soul is culturally bound and determined, but it can be more than a slave to fashion. espite the fear of intimacy and the impos- Follow fashion and be fifteen minutes late. Trends sibility of achieving completeness within are fleeting. A lifetime of art cannot be built on a and without, there can be a wonderful weather vane. sense of anonymity in the practice of art. As at a noisy Real failure comes to those who accept their status flea market, sometimes a silence and a slowness can quo, who do not press against their limitations. This overcome the busyness, and then small, insignificant seems to happen more or less to almost all artists, at treasures become distinct. In these moments you know some point down the path. The artist is an organism, no one and are no one. A friend of mine describes in genetically condemned to atrophy and death as all terms of reverence and sexuality the rags she wears living organisms are. Only the persistence of dissat- when she paints. Every layer discarded and replaced isfaction and struggle ensure a by street clothes is an added layer true form of success in the life of of anxiety and loss of intimacy the artist. with her self. The life of the work, the ecol- The greatest thing an art school ogy of the studio is what | am in- could give a student is access to terested in, when the doors are this anonymous life of the studio, closed on the pressures of the recognition of its supreme impor- marketplace. And in this life there tance to the inner survival of the is always failure, no matter how artist, and to the creation of mean- much money is made. For it is a ingful art that transcends fashion and money. X given that there is always a gap between what the artist wants the work to be and what it is, between Mira Schor, a painter living in New York, is coeditor of ME/A/N/Y/N/G, a jour- the original goal and the weird nal of contemporary art. Nancy Wells Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms : E. A. RACETTE In third grade there was one bad boy named James He gave the nun the finger, the bird, flipped her off, or whatever term you know for that hand signal that means fuck. She was soooo upset! and obvi i viously excited. She went and told the other nun and they both, together, made each of us children individually, by ourselves, come out into the hall and describe to them what the sign meant!!! and they kept asking for more details. I don’t know what the other«children said. I said it's when two grown people take off all their clothes, and they said, “YESSSSSS ...??? o.. AND ...???” And they put their bodies together, I said. Iwas so shy and nervous and I felt that I wasn’t supposed to know so I felt shame because I knew. They were so insistent on my describing it. Now I am imagining how wet their sweet little cunts must have been that day. <> > M a A A A i iA i i A A a R a A Donna J. Evans is a printmaker-cartoonist-painter-bookmaker. She wads born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1956 and moved to NYC in 1984. The Art of Education This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fifth Grade On the wooden floor NIKKI HERBST plaster-of-Paris bust of Katherine Karr drew the GREAT LAKES in white chalk so she could ETCH the image and it SMASHED on the floor right next to Buzzy Olsen. in their minds. Lake Erie had little whitecaps where she'd hit the floor I can't remember repeatedly if he'd been asleep, noisy, or stupid during her lecture. he was so often I felt her anger as she jumped from a chair to STOMP a verb-with-no-object into them landing BANG on old-lady black shoes: JUMP! She worked, climbing from the Great Lakes ASLEEP, NOISY, or STUPID and no one knew if she'd missed on purpose so it worked for AWHILE to keep their attention. to the chair top again, BANG, and again, BANG: JUMP! I went in early and stayed late and she şnapped at me: THERE'S NOTHING FOR YOU HERE well, take this She was dry and thin but she could land HARD: NOW, who can tell me what kind of verb 'jump' is? While the others laughed and READ it. I read THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY right there in class while she tried to teach them arithmetic, geography, and social studies jumping, throwing, and shouting. or stared open-mouthed I squirmed wanting to SHAKE them. I loved her. Later there were other books she gave me: read THIS. But they also meant: don't raise your hand to answer in class She put us in rows: you are the HAVES, you are the HAVE-NOTS. She didn't have patience for niceties: or the others will never try. They also meant: I'm sorry. I ACCEPTED these two rows are the the whole message bluebirds and the rest of you tucked inside the book bribes. are the redbirds. She had to teach the SIMPLEST THINGS to those who'd been nicely lied to for years already. After the first quarter I took my report card with my FIRST EVER GOOD GRADE IN CITIZENSHIP and jammed it She apologized for neglecting us haves at my fourth grade teacher's FACE as I passed her in the hall but she never said I'm sorry or at least when she threw that's what I remember. the gold-painted I was TRIUMPHANT. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms e ‫و‬ eevee Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Lately the names and images of special kids have started coming back to me from my fifteen years as an elementary school teacher. Some days | wake up with an urgent need to get to school, to get on with the work. Some days | wake up with a warm feeling as if I've made contact with “my kids” for the first time, a glow of rec- ognition and accomplishment like an enthusiastic hug. Often | see the kids or their parents in my dreams: Leticia with her long black braids so tight they gave her almondshaped eyes; Jesus with his starched, CRICKET POTASH ironed white shirt daily, accompanied by his mother always in a black shawl; Jimmy and his mom waiting in the yard; Jose's father coming in the door with the cardboard shoe he'd made. My first year as a teacher was 1969. | Angeles because | knew some Spanish: ;At the time Spanish wasn't needed for the job, even though most of the kids had never spoken anything else. Technically a barrio is a neighborhood, though the word is often used as a synonym for ghetto. Even now in the late 1980s East Los Angeles has the largest Spanishspeaking population outside Mexico City. In 1969 we were part of the last wave of teachers hired in a teacher shortage. In many ways conditions have never been so wonderful for teachers in the public schools as they were then. The 1970s were years today’s teachers can only imagine, especially if they teach in inner-city schools. We had money for materials and training from many federal titles: compensatory education, bilingual education, sex equity, and so on. We were to/d to be innovative, to develop our own curricula. We were rewarded for involving community volunteers; we were encouraged to develop learning continuums, to hold parent conferences instead of reducing a child’s learning mastery to a single letter or number. | rejoice that | never häd to fill our a report card until the e i of my career. I hurried through my teaching years. Many things that happened didn't really experience at the time. Now%they seem Joni Sternbach This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms to be floating right on the surface of my memory. | reach in and there they are, and to see it displayed. Daily we sang, in Spanish, the song'‘tfläi encapsulated, wrapped in wonderful iri- was the shoe's inspiration. This short fit descent globes, ready to be taken out and song—“El Zapatero (The Shoemaker)” — examined. I had had to abruptly leave the class- proved to be a favorite. The lyrics and a translation (not lyrical) follow: room—a profession, an identity, and a community in which I had invested fifteen EL ZAPATERO Yo lo dije al zapatero acute exacerbation of multiple sclerosis, a disease | knew I had but which had produced no symptoms in me for over ten years. Suddenly, bumping into walls and not being able to stand for more than five minutes, worrying about falling down the que me hiciera unos zapatos con el piquito redondo, como tienen los patos. ¡Malhaya zapatero! Como me engano! Me hizo los zapatos stairs more than the kids getting out safely y el piquito no! during a fire drill, not being able to quickly get to the kid who had split his lip to com- fort him, I was forced to face my need to leave teaching. Now | have more time to remember those years. One memory: the cardboard-and-construction-paper shoe Jose's father made for us, an exact copy of a sturdy walking shoe, probably the size that would have fit his seven-year-old son. I accepted it with “mil gracias,” a thousand thanks, and a THE SHOEMAKER I told the shoemaker to make me some shoes with a tip as round as a duck's beak. That darn shoemaker! How he tricked me! He made the shoes but Not the tip! s P” E7 my working table, where the children four would see it when they came to work with Piquito means little beak as well as tip. me. Now it's on a shelf above my desk. Jose's father made his shoe with a won- It’s faded and has been mended several derful bird's beak. times in its travels—the colours were bright when | first saw it. The body is made For me, the first three years of teaching from a heavy brown supermarket bag, the were the hardest. | learned to juggle the heel and sole made of cardboard finished hundreds of small, slippery balls that were off smoothly, like slick new soles. Bright aspects of my profession: schedules, green satin wrapping ribbon decorates meetings, spitballs, parent conferences, candy addiction, test anxieties (theirs and mine) fist fights, and outright defiance. | fringed section of purple construction learned basic control techniques as well paper that holds the laces and gracefully as my own limitations—just how many ends in e/ piquito, the head and beak of reading groups | could keep track of and a bird. There are also upside-down horse- how much homework I would look at. The shoes on the ankles, cut out of bright week I had yard duty was especially chal- multicolored wrapping paper. The top lace lenging. I couldn't do any set-up or relax hole, carefully punched, holds a small with a cup of coffee or go to the bathroom | name tag with the artist's spelling of his while the kids were out at recess. It be- a Nu name, “Joze.” | try to imagine what it came almost Pavlovian to respond to bels. meant to Jose, an illiterate itinerant worker, Even today | find myself sort of waiting for. Pp to make this for his son to take to school something at 11:30 a.m.—it's time for the This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms C lunch bell. I learned to extend my authority from my person (5' 3” tall and parked dance as they spun their chrysalises. The class clown held his breath along with the near the lunch benches) to the far kickball rest of us as the furry caterpillars sealed diamond without shouting or running after, themselves into their temporary changing for example, the culprit with the matches. rooms. 1, I learned to be larger than life, to have eyes The next two weeks were filled with in- $ everywhere and ears, too. How else could I have learned those Spanish curses my classroom was quickly converted into a me? $ covered the walls with drawings ahd scaled-down mission control centeriWe loved all the learning I did during those diagrams. What we had seen, what we yeéärsrT was wide open to finding out who guessed was going to happen, and what these small people were, anxious to give we had learned as fact. The chart rack them the love and respect I felt I had been carried daily bulletins; the science table deprived of during my school years. | held the jars of twigs with their strange learned how much a seven-year-old knows translucent leaves, the chrysalises. We and how much a seven-year-old wants to crossed off days on the calendar, read know. I learned how easily, how quickly what we recorded, drew pictures of what their curiosity about the unknown and their we saw. We used as many books as | could tender confidence when they've learned find to learn who these creatures were, something new can be squelched with a what would happen next. harsh glance or an unjust rule. I had a wonderful time learning with my The class made predictions, developed theories. Which one would come out first, classes—keeping a Spanish/English dic- what would it look like, would it be a but- tionary at hand, right next to the Pequeño terfly or “only” a moth? There was always Larousse lllustrado with its encyclopedic a team of at least two observers letting ev- information and beautiful color illustra- =% eryone know about any changes. Tu # È tions. The Larousse was invaluable. How This went on until one day during read- www & fve else would we have known which dino- ; sx ing there was a silent movement noticed k seven saur was which, or what to call webbed by the observation team. A change of col- feet in Spanish and how to distinguish or that had been noticed yesterday was them from talons? Or colors? Red, blue, interesting—this was exciting. and yellow simply weren't enough to name the deep reddish-purple of Anna's jacket Everything in the regular schedule% stopped. No one cared if it wäStheir turn or the shimmering green on the ducks in to play handball. The kickball äiamond the park. was empty. There was no screaming, sfíov- I learned to seize the time and teach ing line at the water fountai The, entire: from what was happening. Like the day class stayed in at recess to s my class went out for their afternoon re- happen next. We took the lids off the wide” cess and found hundreds of woolly black what would.» mouthed jars and opened the trañsoms caterpillars on the ground outside our tem- in anticipation of the exodüs."©nçe again ø porary bungalow. The fuzzy creatures we all held our breath. Very slowly tħé rained down from the mulberry trees, and wet-winged newborns emerged. They I think the girls jumping rope were first to paused a moment to open and flex their notice them as the ground got slickery wings, then blew out of the room like tis- under their feet. The cafeteria workers sue paper scraps. One child, transfixed scrounged some large empty mayonnaise by the metamorphoses, asked in a whis- jars for us. We collected leaves from the per, “But ... where did they come from, trees and twigs for the caterpillars to use Teacher?" X as anchors, then spent the rest of the afCricket Potash is an artiøst living in Los Angeles. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms EEE P o e m Write a poem beginning with “I want.” MARIE CARTIER and your bus driver Write a poem about being in a room in second grade where everything is your favorite color or your local drug pusher in tenth and what you do there. or your college admissions clerk Write a poem about musical notes or your first good English teacher. that talk to you. Then write a poem in appreciation Write a poem about whether or not you were of your own voice. breast-fed and how that feels. Write a poem meant to be sung. Write a poem about your favorite fairy tale Praise Bessie Smith in it. and why. Write a poem meant to be whispered. Write a poem using five words Praise Daniel Berrigan in it. that describe your perfect mother. Write a poem meant to be screamed. Write a poem using five words Praise Patti Smith in it. that describe your perfect father. Write a poem about being black (if you're white). Write a poem about mothers and fathers. Praise Angela Davis in it. Write a poem about turning eleven Write a poem about being white (if you're black). and twenty-one Praise Bobby Kennedy in it. and what your initial thoughts were Write a poem about being poor (if you have money). on leaving decades behind. Praise Caesar Chavez in it. Write a poem that would solve the Write a poem about being rich (if you have no money). problems of the world Praise Eleanor Roosevelt in it. if everyone read it. Write a poem about missing the city (if you're from the country). Write a poem about candlelight, wine, Praise neon lights in it. soft music — alone. Write a poem about missing the country (if you're from the city). Write using your favorite part of your body Praise a cornfield in it. as the voice. Write a poem about writing a poem Write in the voice of your favorite musician about writing a poem about writing a poem. your best lover Then write your poem. your first-grade teacher Praise yourself in it. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Windows We made a window with all really great stories, but My friend told me to go back down the block. His sister I have to admit mine was the best. I’m not trying to was upset, his friends and everybody in his family were be conceited or anything, but I just had to tell you the truth. very depressed. I can tell you a lot about Lakisha Owens. She is nice, My feelings about the story about Michael is that it was a very sad thing that happened. He was shot, and I ran down my block to see what was going on and everybody was telling me that Michael was shot. I looked and I saw blood dripping down from his neck. I was throwing up. self-centered. She is fourteen years old. She can be very quiet sometimes, but when she is mad it’s best that you shouldn’t say nothing to her. She is very bashful sometimes. But Lakisha is very nice in her artwork, and she has a little talent in her writing. Lakisha Owens December 11, 1989 The Art of Education == 18 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms » 9 (ye y ) s -A i ri ME? This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms i , ` name, much less use it. It’s all going to be less pre- the Akita they have named Patrice. They do look dictable than they might have guessed coming good. All of them. She reminds me it’s different now. through that door for the first time—if, in fact, they When I visit, she takes me to wonderful restaurants `Y bothered to guess at all. where they serve black-eyed peas garnished with ci- The Kid gives me a funny look. “Are you alright?” lantro and spoonbread hot with chiles. She laughs he asks, and I safely tuck him away in my E-Z file: when she tells me that Eldridge has designed a line this kid is Pure California. Mom’s assertive. There are of men’s pants. books lying around the house, which has huge win- “You will.write,” I say, “for next class on the theme dows, the windows hung with little stained-glass of your summer vacation.” The redhead looks wor- symbols of things hopeful, things mystical, things ried. Bored writes my words, maybe, down in his " preached about in the Unitarian Church Mom surely Life Plan. The Kid laughs. gm attends. The books have titles that indicate that “Alright,” he says. “Allllllllright!” s men do not much like women but that women I realize that in the excitement I have forgotten to `p g can do many things about that. The Kid and Mom take attendance, so I do. The redhead’s name is Rain. : Bored is Toby. The Kid wont tell us his first name. y were somewhere special on those summer days . when something was supposed to harmonize or Must run in the family, that hip coyness. All the print- 9 € converge. out says is “Saturn, N.” In addition to these three, . “I am fine,” I say to all of them and smile my smile there are two Jennifers, one of whom is dressed from s that I have learned to do, the one that involves only > the lower half of the face, the smile that is cliché barrette to ankle boots, in sherbet yellow. There are 4 Corey and Chris, Lupe and a Farrah Fawcett look- and judgment in itself. “And I am Ms. Green and alike named Debby Yazzie. Steve and Rick and Jon this is Creative Writing 1, and it is my hope that and Randy all have perfect haircuts and wear jams in A we will surprise each other before the end of the terrible colors. There are two no-shows. I encourage semester.” those present to leave early. The Kid hesitates at the Ay A skinny redhead to the Kid's left raises her hand. door, checks out the set of my shoulders, and leaves. I’m afraid she has managed to mismanage her frizzy hair into dreadlocks. She has even wrapped four lit- N ext class, the two no-shows show. They've even p| tle braids with colored yarn. It must have required done the assignment. One of the no-shows, a tiny the kind of stoned concentration that only a dedi- woman in a very large shirt, develops an immediate cated follower of Jah could sustain. She is wearing a and obvious case of something for Toby and spends tie-dyed T-shirt with a skull silk-screened across the the entire class carefully ignoring him. He is busy with his Life Plan and a calculator. I read them an bosom. I can’t bring myself to check her feet, to see if she’s wearing those thick German sandals that make early story by Doris Lessing and when I call on him, everybody’s feet ug-ly. I nod. he gives me a gorgeous warm smile and says he’s “Will we read some Third World writers?” she asks. sorry but he drifted off for a minute. The silvery-blond young man who’s just come in The other no-show is dressed all in beige: cotton the door glances at her, glances at me, smiles care- shirt and sweater and pants and shoes that have an ` fully, and settles into the desk in the farthest corner unusual, in my view, number of flaps and snaps and " of the room. He’s already bored. I can tell because loops. He himself is also in beige: hair, skin, eyes, "he pulls out one of those hundred-dollar Daily Life . eyelashes, even the fine fuzz on his arms. The Kid Plan books and begins leafing through. The Kid is stares at him. Those orbs of his, they seem to eat up everything—hungry, shining, long-lashed, gray-green _ watching me intently. “I don’t care what you read,” I say. “I care what holes in space. He’s got a funny almost-sweet smile, you write.” She blushes, the pink washing up be- like he can’t quite believe what he seems to see. hind her freckles. I pull the first class assignment out My Angela comes to mind. I remember shopping with her in Tucson. We’d stuffed ourselves on tama- of my old briefcase. Angela, my daughter, wishes I would get rid ofit, the briefcase. She says it’s ostenta- > les and were walking in that big airy mall. She tiously po’ folks. She wishes I would getmy hair cut _ and buy some new clothes and realize that the old _ days are nothing but old She’s living in D.C. with her husband. He’s going to Howard. She sends the | pictures of the two of them, of their townhouse, of plunked down on a bench near the fountains and s s started people-watching. That’s her favorite pastime "| next to talking trash about what she watches. She . — » shakes her head as they parade by, the young ladies v in aerobics gear, the poor souls in Bermuda shorts, , This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms the college kids who appear to have been computerdrawn and die-cut. used to brew up to spread on his bony old chest bench, eyelids drooping, every muscle in her body è she knew that milk and sugar would make you sleep when he had the catarrh. I’ve got a big mug of milk and molasses. She knew that, too. Long before the scientists and the ladies’ magazines started telling us, good. A little rum doesn’t hurt. That’s my discovery. “I’ve got to get me one of those big old gourmet Milk and molasses for sleep. Rum for the emptiness. chocolate chip cookies just to stand this mess.” That’s “Make you sleep good...” Angela says I’m trying how we are, my child and her mother. Cookies. So- : to talk down home when I say stuff like that. She’s never forgiven me for growing up in Evanston, for ship, of love. her grandpa being a dentist, for me having no trou- The Kid taps the beige one on the arm and smiles. ble getting into a good school, earning a good de- “David Byrne, I presume?” he asks. NVs , - gree, getting a mediocre job. She keeps wanting to know about her roots, the real ones. Milk and mo- “No,” the beige one says nicely. “My name is Mark. I think you've mistaken me for someone else.” lasses. Some hymns. Greens and ham hocks with lots The room has gotten awfully quiet, so I run on for of black pepper. Remembering my mama’s church a while about Lessing and how she can make you clothes, the print dresses, the fine sharp hats, the feel a place and how they might want to think about white gloves, the brooch, not gaudy, but real gold . shining against her shoulder, I tell her about that. Y B a A ` And me, that too, standing politely outside the dime ` treasure in their memory. store on Fifty-third Street on an August day, that Chi- “Does it have to be real?” Rain asks. cago stockyards soot hanging in the wet air, me dressed in a tasteful skirt and blouse, staying calm, The Kid is studying me again. I start to move down the aisle to pick up their work. Rain has woven some keeping my eyes carefully focused over the custom- feathers into her braids. She touches them nervously : ers’ shoulders while they read my sign, while they as I approach her seat. walk away or shake my hand or spit at my feet. It “I’m sorry,” she says in her high little voice. “That worked. A year later, anybody could buy a bad ham- was a dumb question. I didn’t think. Really. I'm burger anytime in an Atlanta lunch counter. Rain’s handwritten sheets are on the top of bummed.” She starts to hand me her paper and ducks her head. - the pile. She has gone to every Grateful Dead con~ cert in the Southwest in the summer of ’87 and “If you can make me want to be there, honey,” I . she wants me to know of the righteous, the totalsignment into the pile in my hand. It’s on nötebook - ly unbogus vibes of those concerts. She wants me paper. The child has handwritten it. She has dotted to know that there are people at those concerts her i’s with little circles. who are almost old, there are men with gray braids, there are Black people and Chicanos. The Dead let anybody make tapes off their soundboards. ` Twice there were rainbows. Once, at Red Rocks, surface of the old roll-top desk that takes up most of it rained right at a part in the song where it talks the living-dining room. It had been my grandpa’s F2 s Í, { about rain. The Dead want one world...hey, a con- desk. Some of the cubbyholes still smell like his old B cert is one world...that’s what they want, like Bob - -: Ly ANU = Y- PY =A YO v- ae 4 MAT A M - 948 A Ut I LI, F p z š AN < WAO KNOWS HE KNOWS... BPN — Nancy Wells This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LAs o Marley, Peter Tosh, like all those dudes. Jah! male hustler or a French sailor or a Manhattan litter ( I add a little more rum to the milk. I don’t want to -4 box. The word “spike” appears frequently and I can’t å w tell if it’s slang for syringe or an inadequate male ` grade these things. I correct all the spelling errors. She’s got the hard ones right, like Rastafarian and organ. He’s poured ink on some of the sections and L 1 : Y labeled $ the blotch “random censor.” Ethiopia and synchronicity. It’s the small words, the ordinary ones she can't handle. [I start to play with F -< -< I find myself saying “Have mercy” out loud and { the punctuation and lose heart. My children’s father, invoking with the last sip of warm milk, now fumey Leon, my ex-husband, he had teased me, then nagged me, and finally gotten so he’d just slip out of the $ ™ the Kid. with “See me I write,ghost and go rum,soon,” the puzzled of to my bed. grandma. I fail / room when he found me muttering over their poor papers. It was only one of the ways we had not been They are puzzled, surprised, disappointed. I able to keep it—what, keep it kind? I still think of know how they feel. Writing what have been de- him nights like this, because at least when I was done, scribed as “elegant, somewhat detached” essays, I he had been in there, asleep, his fine-boned body / more often than not open an envelope and let a re- { warming the bed. Uh-uh! I will not give in to that eut drop out my grandpa’s now slip and then I sit withonto my sleeping potion and desk. let it And * Toby has written a cool, tight, tense, polished rest on my tongue and, even sweeter, let the printed chrome and enamel, nasty little jewel on Europe on Page I hold in my hands rest in my mind. “June Jor- _ two hundred dollars a day. He hasn't missed a trick, S dan Plain Talking” by Antoinette Green. I sleep the in his travels, in his style. I give him an A-. It'll drive him crazy. Debby Yazzie starts off slow, then gets me good sleep of the worker on those nights. So when 3 right there, on her grandma’s ranch, in the dust and the wind and the mutton broiling on the wood-fire of it. She’s got a problem with paragraphs—some- they glance at the last page of their papers and let their eyes rest briefly on my face, with pleasure, with 7 petulance, I know how it is. S- Later they come to my office, that small room with body taught her to put exactly four sentences in each no window, that neat room without posters, with- one—but she gets me to smell the juniper, the dust, out clues. I sit in the straight-backed library chair and the rank fat perfume of the mutton. I clean up the I listen. Toby is charming. He mentions Paris Review paragraphs and give her a B+. and his hope of being a successful novella-ist. He Pv p I pull Rain’s paper back out and give her a double waits for me to appreciate the joke. I smile. He talks grade: C for writing, B for politics. That'll bring her vaguely of Ralph Ellison and the tyranny of'print. He running. If T've got to hold office hours, I may as well leaves with his A- intact. I’ve brought an apple and f r teach these kids to debate. Not dialogue. Debate. taste clean. f . yogurt for lunch. In the silence, the solitude, they The others do the predictables: Puerto Penasco, I smell patchouli. Rain follows her scent. She pulls ' 4 kids’ camp, Volunteer in the Parks, back-packing, river-running, scooping it out at Baskin Robbins. The her paper from her peasant bag and sets it on the Kid’s paper is last. The Kid’s papers. I open the desk. TI stained envelope and a wad of paper cutouts falls “I wonder,” she says, “like I was kind of bummed, A out. He’s read Burroughs. He knows Dada. He’s cut no big deal, really, but hopefully we could talk about ,° A my grade?” j up old Patti Smith lyric sheets and thrown in some Her nails are bitten to the quick and very clean. early Leroi Jones for good measure. There’s more. If I read the mess right, he’s spent the summer as a She tucks her feet a under her and perches on the T KNOW was SANO y TEKNOW, KNOW I Ky, 4 NOW, Klo, KNOW T KNOW f KNO EXCUSE Me sip HEN T KNOW Tiy, 1 KNOW \WHAT 1S IT you Khouw SW NHAr N KNOWN a Tr musr Be WONDERFUL. To Kow vou Kw... | This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms chair. I know that any minute she will hunker for- “Listen,“ I say. “If you want people to hear, write ward and hug her knees. I wrap the apple core in about how you heard, what you heard...not so winds and leans toward the basket. much the people on the stage, but the people around “I can use that for my compost,” she says, “I mean, you... OK?” like if you don’t mind?” “Far out,” she says. She flops the bag on my desk “No,” I say, “hopefully it'll be good for your gar- and begins rummaging in it. “Here,” she says, “this den.” I feel a mean little charge in my gut and sur- is for you. I got it at Telluride. Purple’s a high healing prise her and myself by apologizing. power.” She sets a little amethyst crystal on my desk. works.” 7 “I'm sorry,” I say. She looks eager and puzzled. I pick it up and hold it in the fluorescent light. “Rain,” I say, “you don’t use hopefully that way. You “Sunlight,” she says. “Natural light, that’s what | can say ‘I hope’ or ‘one hopes,’ but if you are serious about this course, you will not use hopefully in that “It’s pretty,” I say. “Thank you.” way. Hopefully is an adverb: ‘She said hopefully.’ “Blessed be,” she says, blushes, and leaves. I rub Something like that.” the crystal along my temples. It’s not much more than a small cool smoothness. She mentions another instructor and points out that he uses it all the time. The Kid is next and he’s very carefully carelessly “He's wrong,” I say and try, again, to tell her why. beautiful. He’s wearing sleek shades, the mirrored She gets confused. She’s not real sure what an ad- kind. He’s got a long tweed coat on over beat-up j verb is. I realize she has no foundation, and I start to Levis and a clean clean white, button-down shirt. I think of language in just that way, as a shelter, as a have to look away. How he does what he does—put structure, as a home. I imagine a new essay and for- that surface together without a flaw—it scares me. get her for a minute. She pokes around in her big He’s curled his hair and when he pulls off his shades, bag and pulls out a bandanna. She wipes her eyes. I I can see that he’s lined his eyes with indigo pencil. realize she is crying. He’s got those rich-bitch fine-ass features that our M “I’m bummed,” she says. “Tve got so much inside poor Michael J. has had to carve from his living skin and I can’t get it out so other people can hear. Like and bones. There’s a silver moon in the Kid’s left my mom,” she says, “I go home and I play the Red ear. Its curved up. My friend, Ramona, once told Rocks tapes and I try to show her some things I wrote me her people believed that kind of moon was a about them, about the Dead. I mean, she’s your age, sign of withholding. right, so she was my age when they were starting. “I didn’t expect you'd deal in success or failure,” And all she can talk about is how I should shave my he says. legs and that if T took off all my earrings but one pair “You’re too damn young to be so damn hip,” I I'd look so nice. So, I go—.” say quietly. I hold up my hand. “Who judges?” he says quickly. “I like to shatter “Stop,” I say. “In the first place, you don’t ‘go,’ you things.” ‘say.’ In the second, you and your mom are not my “Honey,” I say, “you've got to make before you break.” business.” “Oh,”. she says. “I'm sorry.” She starts to get up. “I didn’t sign on for political theory,” he says and “Wait,” I say. She hefis the bag to her shoulder and smiles. “But, Ms. Green, while we’re at it, what are wobbles a little from the weight. Compost, I imagine. yours?” PLEASE se... Tell me WHAT Yov Khóa, GOOD HEAVENS... ALL YOU EVER SA |s T KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW ARENT YoU TIRED oF R AA 4i eee o the physical envelope.” She unwinds from the chair syi and stretches. Under the layers of clothing and scarves and sashes, her body is lovely. She tucks her dreads up into her cap. “Ms. Green,” she says, “can I ask you something personal?” “You can ask,” I say. “What’s your first name? I mean like if it isn’t se- U v ' å, cret or ritual, you know, or something like that. I’d just like to know. I mean, what you told me today, it was more like we were friends. “Antoinette,” I say. “Tony, sometimes.” She leans >T down, kisses me on the cheek and is gone. TAA IZRIASA SAN z e last class is a long one. I ask them to read ~ twenty minutes of their story. I time them. I cannot > believe how slow the minute hand moves. I don’t : want to feel this way. By the time the Kid stands in 2 front of the class to read, the setting sun gilds the ~ room. The Kid is wearing a silver dragon on a chain. , "` In its claws an opal burns. I have grown numb with %' ` words. The opal draws my eye. It is an old one. It is 3 fiery and deep, not like the new pale stones built a from layers ofinferior mineral. The Kid touches the s dragon once and begins to read. 4 “My name is Mark and sometimes people mis. take me for David Byrne...” l The Kid's voice shakes. I have watched him grow ] ashen through the other readings, as though the | `: barrage of words were shrapnel, as though he | — bled. I wonder if the others see that. Debby Yaz- a A Ee A Nancy Wells The Beginning of an Extraordinary Friendsh crayons on vinyl, 27⁄2"x35". zie is gone. I read her work. They seemed to be í íi bored by it. Their themes frighten me. Each year it has gotten worse. At the end of his twenty minip, 1989, watercolor utes, the Kid has let us begin to be curious about Mark. The sunset is fading. The opal has gone This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms UN FENIAN RAINS ‫اا ا‬RL‫ا‬ RA FU 7 0 NNER 5 UO 0 ‫ااا‬ e Ê MH 0 ‫ ا‬18 ۱ flat, like one of the newer, 0 OnEs. 1 ‫ ن‬N 7 “Thank you,” I say, and the Kid nods. The others look up at me. I thank them. All of us realize we are MIAN U | their things. Rain wipes her eyes with her sleeve. I ‫ ا‬9 ‫ا‬LN 0 not going to ‫ ن‬the work. They begin to pack ® ۱ i start down the aisle to collect their papers and see f 0 the Kid rise up to meet me. His fine-boned face is swollen and red. He slams his paper down on his _ ; desk and brushes past me. I hear him stop. Even Ji Toby looks up. N RDN wl 1 N E C۹ The Kid starts to cry. He’s gasping a little. He can’t ‫ا‬ get his breath to speak. “Do you know?!” he asks. RR RN ۱ “Do you have even one idea of what they write about 1 5 H3 0 ‫ ا‬in other countries?” He points to Jennifer. She gig- ۹ ‫ و‬1 1 A 7 HHL ۱ gles, then starts to cry. He points to Corey and Steve ‫ا‬ 0 EO ۱ 11 and Jon. Jon says, “Oh maaaaan, lighten up!” The ۹ : 1 1 A Kid points to Toby and repeats the question. 3 ‫ا‬ ‫ ن‬194 “Do you have one TAI i ۱ AMARA about in other even countries? ‫ااا‬ O idea of what they wa ۱ holds his stance. “Tell me,” he says. 100‫ا‬ e0R ‫ ا‬0 {R0 The Kid’s arm drops. In silence the students file ۳ ‫ ا‬out. Jennifer touches the Kid gently on the shoulder. 0N 1 ‫ن‬ 1 room. We each gather up our papers and pens and ٨ ۱ 7 7 LER 1 HAR various packs and bags and briefcase. The Kid is a RIAN NONNRY ‫ا‬ 1 4 these small ways to putys things Rain moves be- ۱ to p gS ng right. ۳ 7 RAG ۸ ۱ A little wild-eyed, but he moves with grace through ‫ ا‬IR 1 ‫ ل‬0 6 IA tween the Kid and me. ‫ س‬0 6 1 “Nick, Tony,” she says in a clear voice, “Miguel left ‫ ا‬۳ 3. 5 i 0 some chocolate behind, some beautiful Mexican M0 lhe 0 6 LG A 0 i۴ Ê chocolate with cinnamon in it. I know how to make 1 ۱ ‫ب‬ EA 1 NEC it. He showed me. I could make up some. Would ‫ ا‬1 ۱ 1 iA ‫نۇ‬ RN I come smileto my at room?” her. 11 E 9E 00 0 you NCR yA : HR nN RL) 4 “OK,” she says, “Yowll love it. It's not like Quik Bf . ‫ا‬ va! dipa ‫ م‬at all.” 0 e A: LI “Nick,” I say. “So that’s your name.” I turn back to 1 9 7 ‫ ا‬۲ A 4 Rain. “And yours?” Task. “Is it Rain?’ [1 | HRN TN 0 ‫“ ل‬My name is Linda,” she says. She touches the back a | ‫ ناااا‬N5 f ٧٣ Kt ‫ ن‬of my hand. She touches Nick. A Ep 0 0 N ‫ ا‬she says. “Please. I'm glad to have you 0 ۳ ١ ‫ ن‬1 6 1 visit.” I's gone dark, and we stand in the dim room |}! ۱ a minute. Nick shakes his head as an animal 2 J 1 ۳ ‫ ا‬off pain. And then, together, we go out. * ۱ ‫ا‬ ۱ 1 ۱ ‫ ا‬0 ٍ ‫ ا‬۱ WRN Mary Sojourner is the author of Sisters of the Dream (North- 1 ۲ ‫ا‬ ١ A i! E. 0 ۸e hi TTR TRINA 5 3 , 3 O 1 ERIN arl RN Going Through Ghosts, and knows that we are indeed Métis. 1 0 ۱ land Publishing, Flagstaff, Ariz.), is working on a new novel, He 1 ۹۹ ‫ ا‬١ ‫٭‬ ۲Cede 4 RMEL 71 RE OSE 0 7 E RR ۱ - ‫ ےس‬7 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Тһе Вгаї гот Вемейу Ні НЕАТНЕВ ЅОЅАМ НАГЕУ ЅНЕ ГЕРҒТ ТНЕ НІЦЅ АҒТЕВ ТНЕ РІМАІ. ВЕЦ, ВЕУЕВІУ НІШ $ ТНАТ 15. ЅНЕ КЕРТ ТНЕ ВАВУ ҒАТ АМО ТНЕ КЕТСНОР ЅТАІМЅ, АМО РІТСНЕО ОТ ТНЕ ЅИК ВІООЅЕ$ ҒОВЕУЕВ, ТО ЅЕТ ЈР ВАО НОЈОЅЕКЕЕРІМО ІМ СІМЕВЦАКЕ, УУНІСН УУА$ АЅ$ ҒОКЕІСМ ТО НЕВ АЅ ВЕІВОТ. ЅНЕ НАЅ ТНЕ АМВІТІОМ ТНАТ ЕҒАКМАККУ НЕВ СЕМЕВАТІОМ, ВОТУЅНЕ'Ѕ ОІРРЕВЕМТ... ЗТНЕУМАМТ$ ТО ЅРІТІММОММУ'$ ЕҮЕ АМО ВЕ А ЅСОВ УИНЕМ ЅНЕ СВОУУЅ ЈР. УИНЕМ | АЅКЕО НЕВ УУНУ ЅНЕ ЦЕРТ, ЅНЕ ЅАІО, “| СЏЕЅЅ ВЕСАОЅЕ 1Т'$ ТОО СГЕАМ ТНЕВЕ. ТНЕҮ АЦМУАҮЅ ТВІМ МУ НАІВ АМО СОТ МЕ ООМИМ ТО $17Е. 1$ ТОО ОШЕТ ТНЕКЕ, ҮОЦ КМОУМ, ТНЕ СООО ПРЕ ІМ ТНЕ СКЕАТ ІМОООК5, УМАВМ ІМ УМІМТЕВ, СООІ ІМ ЅОММЕВ АМО ЅО ВІОООУ ВОЌІМС АЦ. ҮЕҒАВК КОШМО.” ЅНЕ АІВЕАОУ НАЅ КЕСКЕТ5. ЅНЕ СОШО ОЅЕ А СООО СОМРЕЅЅІОМ ІМСТЕАО ОҒ ҒГООМОЕВІМС АКОЦШМО ІМ ТНЕ СОТТЕВ. ШКЕ А ВВАТ ОЏТ ОР ВЕУЕВГУ НІШ 5. ь ЅНЕ НАЅ НЕВ ОШІЕТ ЅІОЕ ТОО, ШКЕ ЦАТЕ АТ МОНТ Јопі ЅќетЬБасһ ОлѓіИеа, 1989, рһоторгарһ. УИІТН ТНЕ ТУ ОМ АЅ СНЕ СІ ЕЕР$ АГОМЕ, Јопі ЅіегпЬасЬ б ап адуипсі ргоўеочог оў рЬоіодгарЬу аё Меи Уогк Опіеегйу апд ТНЕ ЕГООВ. ВООВУ-ТВАРРЕО МИТН НААСЕМ-ОА75 або а рвоѓодгарву пәітисіог ав Ње 920 Уігее! У. ЅЬе пао а 1985 гесірќепі оўа Мею ТОВЅ$ АМО ВИШ ВОАВО МАСАЛ1МЕЅ. Юогк. Коипданоп ўог Ње Агы дгапі. ІМ НЕВ ОВЕАМ$, ТНЕ ІМРВЕЅЅІОМ НЕ МАКЕ$ ОМ ТНЕ КЕСОВО СОМРАМУ ЕХЕСОТІМУЕЅ 1$ АІУУАҮЅ$ А ЅУТВОМОС ОМЕ, АМО ТНЕҮ НІКЕ НЕК ОМ ТНЕ ЅРОТ ВЕСАЈЅЕ ЅНЕ 15 ЅО ВВЦАМТ АМО ЅО ЅЕМЅІТІМЕ. Ѕієпѕ/Ѕіє па! НеаЊег Ѕизап На!еу бә а әітдегізопдитіег апд а ўгее-Іапсе шгііег апд едііог. ЅЬе рив- ЈЈОІТЕ ООЅ ЅАМТОЅ Гез ВакЈег, а ти/ктедіа ага апд егагу јоигпа! патед Вем Роен-у Мадах пе Бу Ње Т..А. УееКу, апд авзо гипо а 24-іғаск гесогдіпод оидо саед ТЬе Ењіса! Рооі. Еог ће тотепі муе роѕіропе оиг агеатѕ Ғог ќће агеатѕ мге роѕіропе оиг міѕһеѕ Ғог һе мағеѕ ме во оп гиѕһіпе Ғог ќће ітағе мее ғо оп ҒаКіпг Ғог ће Ғиіиге мее го оп һигпе Ғог ќе саг ме во оп ма!їКіпе Ғог һе рІеаѕиге уе го оп агіпКіпг Ғог һе ѕуѕїет ме го оп Биуіпг Ғог ће ватеѕ ме во оп маісһіпа Еог ќће рготіѕеѕ ме во оп маіїйпя Ғог #һе гісһеѕ ме ғо оп рауіпг Ғог һе рауіпғ ме во оп ІаБогіпз Ғог е Ғиіиге #һеге аге аһмауѕ рготіѕеѕ Ғог һе ргеѕепі Еһеге аге аһмауѕ Агеатѕ Тһе БШБоага һо!аѕ ќһе ехскетепі ог Їїміп сап аІмауѕ млаії Тһе тап іп ггау ѕиіє пехі їо те мигіќеѕ: по тагкеѓ уаіІие. Негеѕіе$ 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms When Yeoun Jae Kang interviewed me in late 1988 I them to discuss their lives and their art freely. Thirdly, we hope to make a “sampler” videotape with some of was a junior majoring in art history at Mills College in these artists, which would make them more readily accessible to curators, collectors, and critics. Since no one seemed to have done much research Oakland, California. As co-director of the Mills Col- before on this subject, I didn't know quite how to go about finding material. Moira Roth handed me a stack lege Asian-American Women’s Art Research Project, I of general articles on women artists of color and organizations. We talked at length about the problems | work with Moira Roth, the project’s other director. might encounter and how to deal with them. She suggested that | contact Margo Machida, a New York artist who was also collecting material on this subject. Margo Professor Roth, a feminist art historian and head of had a list of some twenty artists and organizations. So | began. | started contacting as many local Asian com- the art department at Mills College, devises projects munity organizations as | could locate in order to ask for names. Mostly through word of mouth, | quickly began collecting names of West Coast Asian-American that teach students the how and why of finding the women artists. Currently I have collected over seventy names, and we have begun to contact them for material. missing threads of our country’s artistic fabric. Speci- I had to learn effective phone skills—how to talk to people concisely while creating an interest in my proj- fically, we are working on this project to direct the ect. While it may seem trivial, it was quite necessary to buy an answering machine to handle the phone messages. Many times | wished | had a full-time secretary campus toward becoming a center for research on to handle the mail and phones. Organization is key. | set up a filing system for the artists with articles and multicultural women’s art. exhibition catalogs. I began to use a computer to store YJK: How did you go about the research? and update information and to print out correspon- DA: There are many aspects to this research project. dence to organizations and artists. The first task was to collect material: lists of names and YJK: What have you learned so far from your research? addresses, articles, and literature on the artists and DA: The first thing I realized was the terrible dearth of slides of their work (which we intend to house in the information on Asian-American artists in general and Mills slide library for future reference). Secondly, we the lack of a functional network system among them. have begun to conduct interviews with certain artists. The absence of scholarship on the subject of Asian- To conduct a good interview requires thinking on sev- American artists may explain the lack of a network sys- eral levels at once: Is the tape recorder still working? tem. They are a fragmented group: Some Asian-Ameri- What should I ask her next? What did she just say that can artists work solely within the Asian communities, seemed significant? Most importantly, trust and rap- while others work primarily in mainstream art venues port with the artists must be established in order for without much contact with other Asian-American artists. The Art of Education == S50 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Tomie Arai Women's Wheel, 1989, mixed media, 12"x12". Photo: D. James Dee. How and Why To Research the Work of Asian-American Women Artists DAWN AOTANI Secondly, while I knew there would be diversity within the Asian-American experience, | wasn't aware of the specific aspects that | needed to consider in my research, such as whether the artists were Americanborn or had immigrated as children or adults. Thirdly, the term “Asian-American” is so broad. There Asian heritage and the degree of assimilation determine different needs, expectations, and experiences. the boundaries with regard to medium. For example, in addition to the standard “high art” forms, such as painting and sculpture, | have come across several are significantly different groups of Asian-Americans: Japanese-American women artists working in textile Japanese-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese- and ceramics. Textile art, such as fiber and weaving, Americans, Korean-Americans, and so on. I had to and ceramics, which have deep historical roots in Jap- focus on the context of each Asian-American artist: her 51 — Fourthly, I had to reevaluate what | considered to be anese culture, have often been written off in the West specific cultural heritage and her family’s circumstances as merely “craft.” It is easier nowadays to argue for as well as her personal history. Essentially, the type of these “crafts” as legitimate art forms because of the Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms efforts made by American feminists in the 1970s on behalf of this country’s quilts and folk arts. Finally, I realize that research in this subject must be need to be on the walls and within the administration. First, for social and political reasons, the art should be representative of the public. “Minorities” are an increas- continued. The primary goal of this project is that it ingly significant part of the population of the United should act as a catalyst for further inquiry. This project States. In the case of the San Francisco area, whites is not an end in itself but rather a beginning. It’s excit- now make up less than 50 percent of the population. ing right now, however, because | am connecting with (Therefore, the term “minority” now seems inappropri- people who have heard about the project and want ate.) Second, simply based on its quality, this art should lists or want to suggest more names. It's beginning to be shown. function as a much-needed network system, and | plan soon to publish (in some modest form) an AsianAmerican women artists; newsletter. It would be interesting to see these artists create a support system among themselves and to see the results of such a support system. YJK: What are your personal reasons for doing the project? DA: Mostly it's my own way of understanding myself. I am Asian-American and a woman interested in the arts. | find it significant that | was raised in Hawaii, because Asians are far from being the minority there; we YJK: Could you talk specifically about the situation of contemporary Asian-American art? DA: There is a tendency for financial and critical support to be given to traditional Asian arts over contemporary Asian-American art. This tendency suggests a stereotype of a “pure” Asian form, that one is either Asian or American, two separate identities. This situation is reflective of a larger problem with stereotypes in this country. Financial and critical support needs to extend out to encompass contemporary AsianAmerican artists; this would then help validate the voices of Asians who are Americans. Asian-Americans are not simply Asian nor are they apple-pie American, are in fact the majority. Consequently | never considered myself as a minority. So when | came to the mainland for college, I was shocked by racial stereotypes. | was fearful of believing in them and felt it necessary to prove them wrong. My interest in art led me in search of Asian-American women artists, who became role models for me and whose work provided me with many insights into our particular cultural experience. Essentially, however, | began thinking about all this in 1984, while still in Hawaii, when | wrote a senior paper, “Assimilation of the Asian-American Female,” based on Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel 7he Woman Warrior, which was my first introduction to an Asian-American woman's voice. but to varying degrees they are a blend of both cultures; they can never ignore one or the other. Then there is the problem of the stereotype of “the Asian-American.” For example, in professional and educational spheres, there is the stereotype that Asian-Americans excel only in math and sciences. Well, what about those AsianAmericans who are interested in the arts? In late 1987 I found this touching passage by Alice Walker, which tells of her search for the unmarked grave of Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was a major black woman writer who died unrecognized and whose beautiful work and life influenced Walker greatly. We are a people. A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the YJK: What is the general current situation of support, future to collect them again for the sake of our children, and, if neces- financial and critical, for women artists of color? sary, bone by bone. DA: Public money in support of the arts tends to go to (Alice Walker, /n Search of Our Mother's Gardens, [New York: Harcourt those organizations that support predominantly white Brace Jovanovich, 1983.1) male artists. When financial and critical support is given For me, there was something very inspirational in Alice to artists other than white male artists, it is usually given Walker's determined efforts to validate the achievements to white women and/or male nonwhite artists. So here, and existence of another black woman writer. | want to with women artists of color, we have a situation of a do the same for Asian-American women artists: to find double minority status; consequently they tend to be these women and publish their voices. X overlooked a great deal. In general, the problem with color or ethnic diversity in museums includes not only the color of the artists but also that of the administrative staff. There are several reasons why more “minorities” Dawn Aotani was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1965. She recently graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California, with a B.A. in art history. The Art of Education — 52 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms S O M E Women, Art, and Cross- Cultural Issues day with a slide blitz of work by women paper strips surrounding the fountain of color (and by a few white women who that is the core of the campus. Two big had really thought about the issues); then dice floated in the water, and the board we discussed readings or films and vid- game’s squares dealt in words and im- eos seen. Each student was required to ages with race, sex, and other social is- write three letters: first, to herself, ex- sues in the context of events at and For a seminar called “Women, Art, and plaining who she was from a cultural around the university. A videotape was Cross-Cultural Issues” taught for one se- viewpoint and what her experiences made of the event. mester in 1989 at the University of Colo- around race and culture had been; sec- rado in Boulder, I had to make my own ond, to an artist whose work I had (huge) reader of articles, artists’ state- shown, kind of an imaginary studio in- organized in Boulder for two years (and ments, and catalogue texts because there terview; third, to her granddaughter, who intend to continue). It’s called “Mixing were virtually no texts that dealt with might be of a different or mixed race. these issues together. The required books The final requirement was to execute, artists of color—an African-American, an were Heresies “Third World Women” and collaboratively, an activist project on cam- Asian-American, a Latina, and a Native “Racism Is the Issue” (nos. 4 and 8, 1978 pus, to take the issues we had discussed American —to make a small exhibition; LUCY R. LIPPARD and 1979); Autobiography: In Her Own out ofthe classroom and into the broader Finally, one student group worked with me on a two-day symposium I have It Up” and brings to campus four women speak; do workshops; radio and video interviews; interact with students in and Image (the catalogue of'a traveling show community. One group “seeded” bath- curated by Howardena Pindell that orig- rooms in various departments with out of studios; and generally provide inated at INTAR, New York City); and the graffiti about racism and sexism and then voices rarely heard on this campus. (In two issues of Cultural Critique (nos. 6 recorded the “responses.” Another did 1988 the artists were Beverly Buchanan, a piece on index cards mixed with the Amalia Mesa-Bains, Yong Soon Min, and and 7, 1987) that focused on “The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse.” The class was too big (twenty-five) to conduct as a seminar, so I started each usual fare on the Student Union bulletin Jaune Quick-To-See Smith; in 1989, Judy board. The most ambitious project was Baca, Robbie McCauley, Jolene Rickard, a huge “monopoly game” on brown and May Sun.) These personal informal encounters were probably more effective than anything I did in class. X Lucy R. Lippard is a writer and activist who lives in New York and Boulder, Colorado. She recently completed a book for Pantheon called Mixed Blessings. Aesthetic Questions RUTH BASS & MARSHA CUMMINS Aesthetic questions were used to structure an interdisciplinary course in aesthetics developed by several Bronx Community College faculty members with the support ofa grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The course was structured around three major questions: Are truth and beauty synonymous? Does art reflect or influence society? To what extent does order or chaos in art reflect human nature? The questions, each of which was framed with three subquestions, were discussed in relation to works of art, architecture, music, poetry, dance, drama, and aesthetic theories. Sara Pasti The format of using questions rather sT S919339 H This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms S O M E than topic headings makes clear to students that there are many points of view ties fellow in The Community Colleges Project public relations department. The assign- under a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon ment read: Foundation. —not necessarily a single “correct” “This year marks the 100th anniversary ofthe Aunt Jemima trademark and de- one—and makes for lively discussions. Marsha Cummins, Ph.D., has been a professor The course has been given three times and is currently being revised. Following is a sample of questions, artists, and theoretical writings to think of English at Bronx Community College since 1971. She is extremely involved with the Writing Across the Curriculum movement, which arose Milling Company packaged flour, the first ready-made mix of any kind ever out of a need for greater literacy, fluency, and comprehension in a nonwriting age. about: Can/should artists record the world sign, formulated by two men in Saint Joseph, Missouri, to market their Davis developed. Their fictive character of Aunt Jemima has become the most te- nacious of ethnic stereotypes. Write a short (approximately five-page) paper African America: in which you consider the social, economic, and historical factors that ac- Theoretical works: Plato, The Republic; Images, Ideas, and count for the origins and persistence Susan Sontag, On Photography; José Or- Realities of everyday experience? tega y Gasset, “Esthetics on the Streetcar” in Phenomenology and Art; John Dewey, Art As Experience: The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. EVA GRUDIN Modersohn-Becker, Pablo Picasso, Marie compare the four changing images of plain why the images change in the way they do. Consider, too, what in the Eva Gruðdin teaches African, European, and African-American art at Williams College in Massachusetts. She mounted the exhibition and Artists: African tribal artists, Paula of this advertising image. In addition, Aunt Jemima provided for you and ex- wrote the catalogue for Stitching Memories: African-American Story Quilts, which traveled course of time has not changed.” This topic was the first in twenty years of essay assignments that excited my students enough to have many say their per- from the Williams College Museum to the Studio Laurencin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Phillip Pearlstein, Audrey Flack, Janet Fish, Alice Neel, Mary Frank, John De Andrea, Reginald Hildebrand, her colleague in the history department, devised this interdisciplinary course as a means to study the experiences of Duane Hanson, Fumio Yoshimura, Rob- Blacks in America. ceptions ofthe world had been changed. Devising the art-historical aspects of this course proved difficult for me, however, because I came to this material the ert Mapplethorpe. “African America: Images, Ideas, and Re- hard way—as an autodidact. Books on Does an artist have an obligation to alities,” a course first taught in Fall 1989 American art generally make no men- her/his ethnic background? at Williams College in Massachusetts, was tion of art by Black Americans. These designed to investigate images of'and by “comprehensive surveys” ignore even Theoretical work: Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation, June 23, 1926. Artists: Betye Saar, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Alma W. Thomas, Faith Ringgold, Howardena Pindell, Sam Gilliam, Maxine Hong Kingston, Bernard Malamud, Jimmy Durham, Kay Walkingstick. Do works of art influence ideas and behavior? Theoretical work: Monroe C. Beardsley, “Moral and Critical Judgments” in Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Blacks. The class of mostly juniors inves- monly portrayed, the people who controlled these images, and to what end. Paintings, photographs, advertisements, and films were the primary documents. Discarding the usual hierarchies, the can art. They are not. And so I have had peck method ofresearch. To spare some California Raisins, and Robert Mapple- of you my early flailing about, I’d like to thorpe’s contortionists were given equal share some readings. x consideration. The essay assignment for the course concerned racial stereotypes and as- American history. The students were given four pictures of Aunt Jemima. One Lee, Judy Chicago, Hannah Wilke, Hung image from the turn of the century and critic, and painter. She is currently a humani- should be familiar to Ph.D.s in Ameri- to rely more or less on the hunt-and- sumed a basic grounding in African- Ruth Bass, Ph.D., is a professor of art, art Bannister, Aaron Douglas, and William culture: Faith Ringgold’s quilts, the Pablo Neruda, Chinua Achebe, Spike Frida Kahlo. X reputations. Edmonia Lewis, Edward Johnson are just a few of the names that class freely mingled fine art and popular Artists: June Jordan, Imamu Baraka, Leon Golub, Sue Coe, Diego Rivera, those Black artists who bucked the odds tigated the kinds of images most com- Criticism. Liu, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Ida Applebroog, TE Museum of Harlem in 1989-90. Grudin and another from the 1930s came from the catalogue Ethnic Notions. The other two images, the 1968-89 Jemima and the latest pearl-earringed version, were provided by the Quaker Oats Company’s Recommended Readings in African-American Art and Images Important Resources The Hatch-Billops Collection, 491 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10012. An archive of Black American cultural history that serves as a research library and includes slides, tapes, pho- tographs, and exhibition catalogues. American Visions:The Magazine of AfroAmerican Culture , published by the Visions JO VV RYL r This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms S O M E h Foundation, Frederick Douglass House . “Art or Propaganda.” The Critical — Capitol Hill, Smithsonian Institution, Temper of Alain Lockeed. Jeffrey C. Stewart. Washington, D.C. 20560. Ask them to in- New York: Garland, 1983, pp. 27-28. form you of their periodic conferences on issues in Black American art. Some of the past conferences are available on audiocassette. General Driskell, David C. “Art by Blacks: Its Vital Role in the U.S. Culture.” Smithsonian (Oct. Schmidt-Campbell, Mary. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America, with essays by David Driskell, David Levering Lewis, and Deborah Willis Ryan. New York: Studio Mu- seum in Harlem-Abrams, 1987. Schuyler, George S. “The Negro Hokum.” The Nation, Vol. 122, No. 3180 (June 1926): 662-663. 1976): 86—93. ———. Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950. San Francisco: Association, 1985. . Two Centuries of Black American Art. New York: Knopf, 1976. Fine, Elsa Honig. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1973. Reprint, New York: Hacker Books, 1982. Porter, James A. Modern Negro Art. New York: Dryden Press, 1943. “Racism” issue, Heresies, Vol. 4., No. 3, Issue 15 (1982). Harlem Renaissance Historical Background Dubois, W. E. B. “Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” Crisis (Oct. 1926.) Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Locke, Alain. “The American Negro As Art- cisco: Quilt Digest Press, 1989. and Crafts. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1983. Grudin, Eva Ungar. Stitching Memories: AfricanAmerican Story Quilts. Williamstown, Mass.: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990. Leon, Eli. Who’d a Thought It: Improvisation in African-American Quiltmaking. San Francisco: San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, 1987. 1986, pp. 363-371. Livingston, Jane, and John Beardsley, with a Ellison, Ralph. Introduction to Shadow and Act. New York: Random House, 1964. Art in America 1930-1980. Jackson: Cor- Huggins, Nathan I., Martin Kilson, and Daniel coran Gallery of Art/University Press of Fox, eds. Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience, vols. I, II. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Wesley, Charles H. “Creating and Maintaining an Historical Tradition.” Journal of Negro History (Jan. 1964):13-33. contribution by Regenia Perry. Black Folk Mississippi, 1982. Vlach, John Michael. The Decorative Tradition in the Decorative Arts. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Wilson, James L. Clementine Hunter: American Folk Artist. Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, 1988. White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation. New York: Oxford Unversity Black Women Artists Press, 1986. Bontemps, Arna Alexander, ed. Forever Free. African-American Folk Art and Crafts ist.” The Critical Temper of Alain Lockeed, Jeffrey C. Stewart. New York: Garland, 1983. and Quilts on American Society. San Fran- Farris, William, ed. Afro-American Folk Arts Huggins, New York: Library of America, Racial Mountain.” The Nation, Vol. 122, No. 3181 (June 23, 1926): 692-694. Hearts and Hands: The Influence of Women In W. E. B. DuBois’ Writings, ed. Nathan Williamson, Joel. Rage for Order: Black and DuBois, W. E. B. “Criteria for Negro Art.” The Craft. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. Ferraro, Pat, Elaine Hedges, and Julie Silber. Chase, Judith Wragg. Afro-American Art and Alexandria, Va.: Stevenson, 1980. (An exhibition of art by African-American women 1862-1980). Brown, Kay. “Where We At: Black Women S7 SƏ1S939H This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms S O M E Artists.” Feminist Art Journal, Vol. 1 (April 1972): 25. Cliff, Michelle. “Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women Artists” In Visibly Female: Feminism and Art Today, ed. Hilary Robinson, London: Camden Press, 1987, pp. 140-157. Wallace, Michele, ed. Faith Ringgold: Twenty Years of Painting, Sculpture and Performance. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 1984. Images of Blacks Benberry, Cuesta. “White Perceptions of Blacks in Quilts and Related Media.” Uncoverings (1983): 59-74. Berkeley Arts Center. Ethnic Notions: Black Images in the White Mind. 1982. Berkeley Arts Center, 1275 Walnut Street, Berkeley, Cal. 94709. Exhibition catalogue of Afro- American stereotypes and caricatures, with essays by Robbin Henderson, Leon Litwack, Erskine Peters, introduction by Janette Faulkner. Dalton, Karen C. C., and Peter H. Wood. Winslow Homer’s Images of Blacks: The Civil War and Reconstruction Years. Introduction by Richard J. Powell. Austin: Menil Collection/University of Texas Press, 1988. Honour, Hugh. The Image of the Blacks in Wheat, Ellen Harkins. Jacob Lawrence, Amerisippi, 1983, pp. 27—63. Western Art, vol. IV. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Parry, Ellwood. The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art: 1500—1900. New York: Braziller, 1974. Vintage Books, 1984. Vlach, John. “The Shotgun House: An American Architectural Legacy.” In Afro-American Photography Folk Arts and Crafts, ed. William Ferris Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, Marks, Laura U. “Reinscribing the Self: An Interview with Clarissa Sligh.” Afterimage, Vol. 17, No. 5 (Dec. 1989). Moutoussany-Ashe, Jeanne. Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986. Willis-Thomas, Deborah. Black Photographers, 1840-1940: An Illustrated Bio-bibliography. New York: Garland, 1985. . Black Photographers, 1940—1988: An Illustrated Bio-bibliography. New York: Garland, 1989. and Howard Dodson. Black Photog— 56 raphers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest. Williamstown, Mass.: Williams College Museum of Art, 1989. African Influences on African-American Art “African Symbolism in Afro-American Quilts.” 1983, pp. 274—295, Wahlman, Maude Southwell. “AfricanAmerican Quilts: Tracing the Aesthetic Principles.” The Clarion, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring 1989): 44-54. 68-76. tunity (May 1924): 134-142. Thompson, Robert Farris. “African Influence on the Art of the United States.” In Afro- versity of Washington Press, 1986. Art at Mid-Century Ellison, Ralph. “The Art of Romare Bearden.” In Chant of Saints: A Gathering of AfroAmerican Literature, Art and Scholarship, ed. Michael S. Harper and Robert B. Stepto. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979, pp. 156-165. Locke, Alain. “Up Till Now.” In The Critical Temper of Alain Locke, ed. Jeffrey C. Stewart. New York: Garland, 1983, pp. 191-194. 19th-Century Artists Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. Sharing Traditions: Five Black Artists in Nineteenth Century America: From the Collections of the National Museum of American Art. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985. Richardson, Marilyn. “Vita Edmonia Lewis.” Harvard Magazine (March/April 1986). Weekley, Carolyn J., et al. Joshua Johnson: Freeman and Early American Portrait Painter. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1987. 1930s and 1940s African Arts, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Nov. 1986): Locke, Alain, “A Note on African Art.” Oppor- can Painter. Seattle: Seattle Museum/Uni- . Flash of the Spirit: African and AfroAmerican Art and Philosophy. New York: Hayes, Vertis. “The Negro Artist Today.” In Art for the Millions, ed. Francis O'Connor. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1973, pp. 210—212. Monroe, Gerald M. “The ’30s: Art, Ideology 1960s and Early 1970s Davis, Douglas. “What Is Black Art?” Newsweek (June 22, 1970): 89. Perry, Bruce, ed. Malcolm X: The Last Speeches. New York: Pathfinder, 1989. Schmidt-Campbell, Mary. Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade, 1963—1973. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 1985. Smith, Frank. “Afri-Cobra: Twenty Years Later.” Drum (May 1988). Contemporary Trends Jones, Kellie. “Interview with David Hammons.” Art Papers: Covering the Arts in the Southeast, Vol. 12, No. 4 (July/Aug. 1988): 39-42. “Painting It Black: African American Artists in American Folk Arts and Crafts, ed. William and the WPA.” Art in America (Nov./Dec. Search ofa New Aesthetic.” The Washing- Ferris. Jackson: University Press of Missis- 1975): 64-67. ton Post (Dec. 10, 1989). x This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms How to Make an HExcellent a T aTeacher Bwn 7 BARBARA A. ST. JOHN ( Select Poke Sauté reduce poking one Grade A student with a repeatedly with state tacher B.A. (Many grade A students competencies. themselves into math/ science/engineering or Remove student from ed classroom to substitute a grade C and place in elementary/ student.) secondary classroom. student in large, statefunded teachers' college pot a cup of observation. Repeat straining, and grate with thirty to thirty-five teeny-boppers in elementary/secondary classroom. doneness by straining student with cheesecloth Student should be half baked by Christmas. procedure until eyes are glazed and brain is shrunk. with tests to throw student off balance. classroom. made of lesson plans. red tape. Stir Return to elementary/secondary Make first check for Add after putting through ricer of Vigorously 1ncrease amount of lesson plan M.B.A. pots. You may have Place in the ed classroom, with ed research written requirements. have a tendency to throw Allow to rest as with yeast bread. Grab About June 15th check Ê$or doneness. Student should be mentally and physically limp. Stuff cored teaching credential in mouth. Student is then Place a handful of strategies, as Repeat ready to be placed in school many as you can, and wrap above procedure district pot and is now an in education classroom. student tightly. except Excellent Teacher. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The photograph leads the mind to the actual world... —58 If it is of a nude, it will make one think of women, not art. Education This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms m Hannah Wilke created a female iconography in the 19504. She is a conceptual artist working in scu {ptural materials, photography, painting, and performance art. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The ways of poetry are many, and whacking Yes, I do mean to be catty. words against thighs, spotting clean sheets I am tired of male see-my-pecker poets who always seem to get published. Dirty Boys of academic journals with sperm images, from Hoboken to Carmel-by-the-Sea : or rimming out the thought-infused mind don’t have to lift a metaphor or run a thought with tight little words like cunt along a line to get some buddy editor must be among the trendy ways of getting off a load of committee-infested days to celebrate every late night emission they care to spill. Call it penis envy, and middle-age nights. Or maybe these call me the castrating female are the angry young poets of our day with little to shoot off but their mouths. or, worse, a prude. I stopped turning somersaults without my pants on Either way, I for one am tired when I was three. of well-entrenched open-trench-coat poets. Je uA X This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms PAP SHEET (cherished advice from teachers and family) Why did you give Santa a black beard? Santa doesn't have a black beard. "p" PAMBLA DESIRES AN ARTIST TO BE A PORTRAIT BY P.S. What are those yellow lines coming out of the sun? You made it look as if the sun has whiskers. SOME DAY YOU WILL SEE PAMELA SHOEMAKER 327 HICKORY LANE HADDONFIELD, N.J. We don't have a real art program, but we do have an art teacher who gives classes twice a week, atete Saint Margarets School Waterbury, Connecticut The honors of graduation are conferred upan ' Cj Pamela huntshoemaker in testimony that she has completed ‘Ehe presrribed conrear of study and is therefore awarded this diploma the ninth day of Junerase You may go to any college you want, but if you want to go to art school, you have to live at home and go in . Philadelphia. If you still want to go 3 after 2 years of college, then we'll PRAESES- ET- CURATORES-COLLEGII-VASSARINI IN: NOVI -EBORACI-FINIBUS OMNIBUS-HAS-LITTERAS-PERLECTURIS- SALUTEM NOTUM'SIT: PAMELA • HUNT © SHOEMAKER "AD -LITTERARUM -AC SCIENTIARUM STUDIA - ET - AD - CETERA - HUJUSCE ACADEMIAE- OMNIA OFFICIA DILIGENTER FELICITERQUE -INCUBUISSE QUAMOBREM -PRO -AUCTORITATE NOBIS - COMMISSA - FACULTATE - APPROBANTE EAM-TITULO -GRADUQUE -QUI -APPELLARI -SOLET ARTIUM -BACCALAUREUS CONDECORAVIMUS ` ET- OMNIA -JURA -HONORES - INSIGNIA UBIQUE- GENTIUM Twenty years old is too young for a girl to be on her own in New York. If you want to quit college and go to art school, you can live at home and go in Philadelphia OOA AD-EUNDEM -PERTINENTIA-IN-EAM-CONTULIMUS CUJUS - REI - HAE -MEMBRANULAE -CUM ` SIGILLO -ACADEMICO -ET - CHIROGRAPHO PRAESIDIS -TESTIMONIO SINT EX-AEDIBUS-ACADEMICIS- DIE- QUINTO -IUNII-ANNO-DOMINI-MDCCCCLXVI fter four years at a good college, you should be able to support yourself., If you still want to go to art school, you. should be able to pay for it yourself The COOPER UNION forthe Advancement of Science and Art s m why do you have to quit that wonder- HAS SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED THE PRESCRIBED COURSE OF STUDY IN THE COOPER UNION SCHOOL OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE AND 1S HEREBY AWARDED THIS CERTIFICATE ful job togo to art school? Why can't you just take a couple of courses at the Art Student's League? We11l if you want to be an artist, all I can say is tħat you had better find yourself a rich husband or one who's a famous artist himself, because no woman gets anywhere as an artist without one or the other. Of course in my day people thought an MFA killed an artist's imagination, r sister tells me that now no Pamela Shoemaker Rap Sheet, 1989, pen and ink. Pamela Shoemaker is a New York artist whose work appears in public spaces. Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms cations ask which college you attended?) Some colleges are markers for being the boss not the employee, the manager instead of the managed. |t is in the mindset rather than the academic program of the institution. These are the historically From what | have learned so far, sociol- thought to be a way to “better” oneself. white elitist institutions, which include not ogy is the methodological study of how When education is looked at in terms of only the Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, people interact within society and how so- what it does in society, the term “better” Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, and the ciety acts upon the individual. Sociology means to raise one's class and economic like) but also their Seven Sisters counter- helps people explore patterns in society status. However, those who already have parts: Smith, Radcliffe, Wellesley, Mount that some would like to believe don't exist, power, wealth, privilege, and status actively Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard. like how “decent,” “normal” people's ac- want to keep it. Not only do individuals Other prestigious institutions such as tions can and do support the extreme ac- act to maintain their own personal power, Swarthmore, Amherst, Duke, and Stanford “That’s just your opinion” that are so often but groups act as a collective to maintain provide the next level in the hierarchy. You used to choke off dialogue rather than con- the status quo distribution of privilege, know the names. They are the ones you tinue it. wealth, and power. This not necessarily are supposed to be impressed by when Both more and less than a sociological calculated or even conscious group main- someone says she/he graduated from study, this article is an effort to integrate tenance of status quo is called hegemony. there. When interviewing for a job, it is dis- my semirural, working-class Black/white In a supposedly class-free capitalist coun- turbing to note the increased respect in background with my experiences as a stu- try, education becomes the system of ac- the tone of the interviewer when | say | dent at Bryn Mawr College and with the cess to power and privilege. am a Bryn Mawr graduate. One of the tions of such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, how women are taught to disempower themselves, or how the educational system is not much more egalitarian than it was in the fifties. Sociology provides a way to get beyond defensive remarks such as functioning mechanisms of the educa- The general rationale goes like this: The functions of hegemonic control is to con- United States is a meritocracy where you earn success through your abilities. White ities so that you will be more qualified for higher-paying, more prestigious jobs. Elitist Some schools are “better” than others, by virtue of having “better” professors and vince people that there are no mecha- whole. | am the first in my family to attend “better” academics to “better” prepare nisms of control at work, nothing is hap- an lvy League—level school. My family is you. Prepare you for what? Ah, that must pening, merit won the day. It also teaches so proud of me that I used to feel guilty for remain vague if American society is to be the specially privileged that they deserve the feelings of dissatisfaction and confu- tional system in the United States as a = 62 Schooling enhances and hones those abil- viewed as classless and egalitarian! In ac- privilege and have earned the right to suc- sion that would strike me just when | was tuality, schooling tracks you into various cess and special treatment. supposed to be so happy. I know that | levels of the socioeconomic hierarchy, de- am not alone in this contradiction. pending on which school you attend. cause, though they allow People of Color (Haven't you ever wondered why job appli- to participate, they remain invested in What is education anyway? It is usually I call these colleges “white elitist” be- maintaining a class, economic, racial, and sexual hierarchy with able-bodied white DENISE TUGGLE ges corporate middle-to-upper-class men on top. Though they allow token participation, the actual number of People of Color is kept at a relatively small percentage of the The Art of Education This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 63 — college campuses across the country dur- herst, Dartmouth, Brown, and MIT. It is a ple in control—professors and administra- ing the last few years. Look back in the common saying at Bryn Mawr that the tors—are somehow always white. These newspapers and you will see that most of school teaches you to be a white man, contradictions are what I think has caused the outbreaks happened at prestigious which I always thought was funny, since | the outbreak of racial dissatisfaction on campuses such as Smith, Stanford, Am- have never wanted to be one, but I do community, and the vast majority of peo- Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms to cause we will “fit in well” at such-and-such want security and not to be discriminated social rareness probably IS the specific against. In American society, that is a privi- overt conscious reason | was accepted, | school, which implies that we won't make lege reserved for white men. think that there are larger sociological white students, professors, and adminis- forces at play here. I have noticed some trators confront their white-skin privilege. instead of writing about it, someone usu- rather remarkable similarities in all the very We will not question the very fundamental ally breaks in about this time and says that different Students of Color | have met in purpose of the college in perpetuating I don't know what | am talking about be- lvy League circles. When I am talking about this subject cause “Look, there are more nonwhites For example, | began asking American White Supremacy. In fact, many of us, when we have problems, will attribute here than there were twenty years ago. So- Students of Color, at random, three them to our own laziness, poor time man- ciety is changing and growing, and why questions: agement, and/or stupidity, just like white are you here anyway if you feel this way?” This is a specific example of the hegemonic process in action. Remember, nothing is going on, and we deserve success. | 1. Is your neighborhood at home mostly white? 2. Was your high school mostly white? 3. Are either of your parents white? find it interesting that | occasionally get this reaction from People of Color as well For many of the People of Color | have met outside Ivy League circles, these are as whites. really bizarre questions. However, among — people. If we fail, it is because we did poorly, not because the institution is oriented toward a white middle-class existence, which often relegates us to the role of Other. Many Black students have but J Dv rm © mN rmm » >» wv a little historical knowledge of their heritage or a romanticized notion and/or selective memory. the students at white elitist colleges, the vast majority have answered yes to at /east two out of these three questions! Before | came to college, | had met only one other Black person with a white parent, and yet Yo what is going —— 64 t is important to in the school year 1988—89 at Bryn Mawr, on for Students of Color anyway? It is not at least ten out of the forty-seven Black look at the exceptions resulting from the enough to say that we are all Oreos, Ba- American women had a white parent. The three questions. The responses of Asians and Caribbeans follow a pattern, which nanas, and Apples—that is, brown, yellow, point is, even if we are not whitewannabes, and red on the outside and white on the a large part of our social orientation has inside—because not all of us are, at least been white-defined. In short, many of the practices at work. One does not have to not consciously. Why was |, a loud, proud People of Color who choose and get ac- alienate oneself and one's culture if one's brings me to another aspect of hegemonic culture can be fit into a white-defined Black woman, accepted by all the schools cepted to white elitist colleges are pro- to which I applied, including three Seven foundly white-identified. This is a dialec- mold. Many Asian cultures have their own Sisters? It certainly wasn't my essay saying tical relationship. Â work ethic, which allows them to work how great Malcolm X was, and how | want On one level, schools are choosing the to be like him! At first I thought it was “whitest” People of Color to attend the very more easily within the white-defined Protestant work ethic. One theory on why significant numbers of Asian-Americans simply because Black women who gradu- schools that will train them further to main- ate as valedictorians from New England tain the white-dominated hierarchy. (This have been successful in this educational private schools are rare and that made me is called being “successful” and “hard system is that they do not have to give up a pretty hot item. | truly don't believe that working.”) We are told repeatedly that we I would be here today if I had stayed at are “special,” which implies “not like the and Native American people do in order Brewer Public High School.! Though my rest of our people.” We are chosen be- to “fit in.” as much of their culture as Afro-American This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms OU Among Black people at Bryn Mawr and it seems, are/were attracted to the idea of Haverford I have noticed large percentages the automatic respect derived from atten- of Caribbean students. This is important dance at the “right” school. Never mind because there is tension in the Black com- that this authority is based in class and munity between Afro-American Blacks race hierarchies. especially women's colleges, have a lot to and Caribbean Blacks.” The gist of the tension is that Caribbean Blacks tend to view offer Women of Color, but if we go in blind, then we are vulnerable to the profound American Blacks as lazy and shiftless, and pressures to “fit in,” and thus lose our- American Blacks tend to view Caribbean Blacks as stuck-up, cold, and money hun- hite elitist wom- gry. What appears to be happening is a en's colleges are interesting phenomena, cultural clash revealing that Caribbean and not nearly so depressing as white Black people have an ethic of their own, elitist men’s or co-ed colleges. As l've said, similar to the Protestant work ethic.^ Inter- the point of a white elitist college is to in- national students are another issue. They doctrinate students with the feeling that tend to come from the ruling or upper- they are important and deserving of au- middle classes of their country and there- thority. This seems to me a great message fore have a class identification that is often to give to women and especially Women viewed as the key to “helping them of Color! So in among the classist, racist, to adjust.” sexist, homophobic messages of white The other part of this dialectical rela- n the final analysis, I believe that white elitist institutions, elitist women's institutions, there is an em- selves. | still want security, and I don't think l or anyone should have to sacrifice one's struggle! X self or culture for it. Join me in the good 1| transferred to a private school and took two senior years because Reaganomics messed up my Social Security. See, it would pay for an extra year of high school but not my first year of college. Ironically, | graduated first in my private school class with the same grades that had put me in only the top 20 percent of my public school class. ^In response to “Are either of your parents white?” one Puerto Rican man said, “Yes, both of them. Puerto Ricans are white.” A nearby friend of his wanted to know why I was asking such questions, tionship is that white-identified People of powering subversion possible, but not in- Color are more likely to pick white elitist evitable. For Women of Color this right to colleges than People of Color who identify authority is a very important message, be- with their own culture.” For example, when cause in this racist patriarchal society we I was looking at colleges, my counselor have been taught to get our strongest iden- told me point blank, “Denise, women get tification from our racial culture.. If we view a better education at women’s colleges our strength and support as coming solely cestors experienced a different history in the Car- and Black people get a better education from our ethnic culture, then we will be States. at Black colleges, so you should apply to and are vulnerable to the sexism of men. and my Puerto Rican friend got very angry at my explanation. “Look,” he said, “I am not conforming to anyone! My philosophy on life is he who dies with the most toys wins!” He turned his back on me in a huff when | pointed out that such a statement fits beautifully into white middle-class yuppiedom. ` Afro-American Blacks’ ancestors were brought straight over from Africa. Caribbean Blacks’ an- ibbean before choosing to come to the United ^ Afro-Americans’ work ethic takes second place to some of both.” Terror ran through me at (Compulsory heterosexuality and patri- the mere thought of going to a Black col- archy know no color lines.) For Women of lege. When | got to Bryn Mawr, | was sur- Color, learning to value ourselves as wom- the many problems that have become part of our historical and cultural experience as a result of once being America’s slaves, and to the white atti- prised to hear from friends how their en gives us perspective both on our rela- parents had actually forbidden them to tionships to Men of Color and to women apply to Black colleges. Parental disap- with white-skin privilege. It is unfortunate tudes and social structures that persist even today. This seems to be true among white people also, proval was the second most frequently that it is so often white-identified Women cited reason for not going to a Black col- of Color who get to participate in this pro- lege. The first reason was an amorphous cess, since ethnically identified Women of fear of an all-Black educational setting. Color could do so much more with this Like myself, many young People of Color, empowerment. but it is much more subtle, because so many 65 — Euro-Americans have lost so much of their past and identify themselves as just “white.” Ethnicity among white people seems to be something to be overcome. Denise Tuggle graduated from Bryn Mawr College in the spring of 1989. She currently supports herself as a life model but will be moving into the field of social work in the fall of 1990. Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms igı th fru libi ph she hel OVE pel A r t social, political, and economic factors and integrating Two questions must be asked of any program in art the findings into artmaking practice is rarely taught in education: Does it give students the tools with which to make significant visual statements, and does it provide SHEILA PINKEL art departments. It is assumed that art education con- them with the ability to decipher, function in, and con- sists of learning a complement of techniques; rarely tribute to the world around them? In seeking answers | does this process include exploration of ideas through have located two subject areas that are not currently personal observation and research. What is particu- included in most art school curricula: 1) practice in larly distressing about this fragmented situation is that integrating personal observation and analysis of con- from the very beginning of their education, students temporary society into the activity of artmaking and 2) are taught to be powerless and disenfranchised and discussions about the changing relationship of the art- are not given the tools to go beyond the veneer of ap- ist to the culture. pearances to gain more depth of insight. How to form a picture of culture through a study of Most of my students do not have the ability to reThe Art of Education — 66 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms search a subject and form a picture of the emerging reality. When asked to investigate, they exhibit extreme ignorance about how to proceed, and their explorations are pallid and lack passion. I have become increasingly concerned that this lack of passion and this inability to develop a personal perspective are symptoms of a nonworking educational system. A course that inte- disenfranchisement through disinformation. When she reexamined advertisements of the happy family of workers and customers, she began to understand the gap between the veneer of the public image and the impenetrable monolith of the corporation itself. She had not set out to find this. She had simply wanted to take pictures at a restaurant. grates personal observation and library research with socioeconomic and political analysis would provide art students with an opportunity to expand the ways in which they “know” about the world. Personal observation, experience, and subsequent practice in forming an artwork based on that experience constitute the crucial learning. Itis only through students’ willingness to encounter the world for themselves and pay attention to their experience in the process that they can really learn how to research for themselves. In the middle of this learning process students often feel overwhelmed and confused, but this is a crucial part of the In another instance I asked my students to make portraits of administration, faculty, students, and maintenance staff at the school where | teach. Each person photographed was asked to write about her/his hopes, dreams, and greatest fears. We assembled the final text and images into a book, which was then xeroxed and distributed to participants. This project gave students an opportunity to interface with the various strata of persons at the school and find out something more about them. The students learned about working together on a project and discovered that the finished book made visiblea broader reality than any individual's work generated. learning, part of the adventure of not knowing and trying to understand. Ultimately, new recognitions emerge as Explorations like those discussed above must be accompanied by classes that expand the student's poetic, well as an appropriate final form that can adequately intuitive self, the ultimate goal being to develop an inte- communicate the emerging insights. In my experience, grated person with a frame of reference from which to unless students practice this process in school, they don't identify the things she/he values. It is through the devel- learn how to do it later on, and the symbols and images opment of the spirit of each person that truly synthetic they select remain conventional. art education can be achieved. A love of form and of Several years ago | taught a class in which students were asked to choose a subject, study it for a semester, photograph it, and finally make an artwork reflecting their beauty and a knowledge of harmony, balance, and the interrelatedness of the beings and elements of this world are crucial to the full growth of the individual artist. understanding and attitudes. Initially the students were frustrated because they did not have any idea how to do library research, how to investigate a subject in depth. One student selected a fast food chain to study and photograph. On her first day of photographing she found she was not allowed ïhside the fast food restaurant with sonal issues, and at times making work that has a social Angeles. In the process she learned that no one knew who was responsible for the rule against photographing. ely igh CU- She then asked about the corporate structure and again could get no clear response. She started talking with workers at the individual facilities and discovered that they did not know anything more than their own job. They had no idea where the cows were bred, grazed, or slaughtered, where the buns came from, or anything about the corporate structure. They certainly didn't know nts that land in Central America is deforested so that cattle nd can be grazed for fast food chains in Europe and the ap- ponsive to cultural concerns, working at times on per- use. person to ask, she was told to call Chicago, which she on- life. It is crucial that art education include a discussion of the integration of the two, which includes staying res- she could get permission to do her project. After calling did, only to discover that they in turn told her to call Los tin classroom. Today art activity is seen as isolated from daily her camera. I told her to call the corporate office to see if over twenty people, none of whom could identify the right ing The relationship of the artist to the culture and to the larger fabric of her/his own life is rarely discussed in the U.S. Nor did they think about the wage structure that results in economic benefits for management and investors only. She began to understand the extent of their In this regard | find that books such as Cultures in Contention, edited by Douglas Kahn and Diane Neumaier, The Lagoon Cycle by Helen and Newton Harrison, The New Photography by Frank Webster, and Ways of Seeing by John Berger are useful in generating a dialogue about the relationship of the artist to the culture. We can no longer afford to offer an education experience that leads to a passive, impotent relationship with culture and to alienation from our own voices. Students need to learn the tools for making significant, challenging statements and to function as individuals in a complex world. My hope is to prepare students to negotiate, question, and comment upon this world. E Sheila Pinkel is an artist and chairperson of the photography program at Pomona College. She is an international editor of the art/seience publication Leonardo and is on the national board of the Society for Photographic Education. —— £9 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms s RRRA Sara Pasti The Library, 1990, litho crayon on lexan. 68 On Learning and Criticism KAREN J. BURSTEIN The Art of Education EE N t v This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms argaret has her argaret Lucas Cav- Ladies: Beauty, endish tosses in her bed. Outside Love, Wit, Vertue, Happy, and so many oth- the birds sing, and their high-pitched sounds ers. They drink wine in carry through the still morning air, over the window Margaret’s dreams, and then they win wars, woo sill, and to the ears of Margaret. Margaret puts the men and women both, do heroic deeds, and orate bird sounds in her dreams, though she never with tremendous wisdom. Margaret stays with her remembers them upon awakening. Ladies in her chambers. The wine is spilled on the And now Margaret wakes. Her eyes pop open and she stares, first at the ceiling, blue in the early light bed and the orations are on parchment. Margaret’s chambers are in England. Her Ladies of dawn, then outside the window, where the are there on the wine-soaked bed. They are also in birds sing. France, where Margaret once served the Queen Hen- She seems to remember something she must do. rietta Maria when the court was in exile there. Mar- Vague, in a further corner of her mind it is there, like garet was a Lady to the Queen, a Lady-in-waiting, the dreams she never remembers. Yawning sofily and although thought dull and stupid by the court be- rubbing her eyes, Margaret tries to find the thought. cause she never raised her eyes or conversed. As a She sits for a moment on the edge of her bed. The child Margaret had been so protected by her family floor is cold, and on first contact with it she mutters, that she was shy with strangers and did not know “The Comical Duchess,” quietly to herself, then aloud, as she reaches for the bell on her bedside table. In a moment she is up, standing on the chill floor. how to behave at court. She wore dresses of her own design, ignoring fashion, and was thought to be eccentric as well as dull. She wonders if she should check the fire in her hus- Two women in a still chamber at dawn, features band’s chamber, for the air is damp, and as William softened by sleep and the blue-yellow air, hair half- ages, the changes in weather affect his health more brushed and wildly loose about their shoulders, writ- and more. But she knows that he has been awake ing. Sarah drawing the quill furiously across the pages until the early hours of the morning himself, writ- in long and delicate motions, as Margaret bears verse ing, and that the fire is surely fine. at alarming speed. It is the year 1668. Margaret is brushing her long, dark hair as Sarah, her maid, enters. The ring of Margaret's bell had in- ilary has been in the library today, the truded into her dream. All that Sarah remembers same library from which Virginia about her dream is the pasture, and that she was on Woolf was barred not so many years horseback, and a bell called her, loud and reverber- ago. Hilary finds an essay by Virginia Woolf in a collection called The ating across the fields. She rode fast to its source, pulled as if to a magnet. “Aah, good Sarah,” Margaret greets her. “It was a strange thing. I woke with the Comical Duchess in Common Reader, and Hilary likes it especially. It is called “The Duchess of Newcastle,” and Hilary reads it twice. my head and might bring her to life. And also a commitment I must have, for I seem to recall one. Do you know what that might be?” “Yes, Lady. Tea with Mister Critik this afternoon.” “Why, of course. Tea with dear Mister Critik. Oh my, must I be ridiculed this day? By the by, we shall see. But let us begin, for Fame’s High Tower is waiting!” And as Margaret dictates, Sarah writes swiftly, pausing occasionally to allow her Lady time to mull over the positioning of words and phrases. “Sarah! I shall name this A Comedy of the Apocry- ...there was a wild streak in Margaret, a love of finery and extravagance and fame, which was for ever upsetting the orderly arrangements of nature |p. 103]. Margaret could apply herself uninterruptedly to her writing. She could design fashions for herself and for her servants. She would scribble more and more furiously with fingers that became less and less able to form legible letters [p. 106]. One cannot help following the lure of her erratic and lovable personality as it meanders and twinkles through page after page. There is something noble and Quixotic and high-spirited, as well as crack-brained and bird-witted, about her. Her simplicity is so open; her intelligence so active; her sympathy with fairies so true and tender. She has the freakishness of an elf, the irresponsibility of some non-human creature, its heartlessness, and its charm [pp. 111-112). phal Ladies!” Margaret brings to life, not only the Comical Duchess, but also the Unfortunate Duchess, the Lady True Honour, and the Duke of Inconstancy. Here Hilary pauses. The description of Margaret Cavendish has disintegrated from “noble” to “some nonhuman creature.” This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms “I must find out more.” Hilary spends the afternoon and evening in the library and discovers pieces of Margaret Lucas Cavendish hidden among the stacks and rows of pages: two volumes of her dramatic verses, Playes (1662) and Plays Never Before a second-story window. Hilary thinks she can make out two women, hair loose and wild about their shoulders. But the heat of the fire wafts over the image and it is gone. The sun will soon be fully risen. Hilary has walked Printed (1668). The hand-cut parchment is yellow and all night, journeying from the library where Marga- bound in worn leather. The portraits of Margaret have ret Lucas Cavendish hid among the pages to this been torn away from the front of each volume. The prologues, epilogues, and dedications are soaked with justifications and apologies. For stone house where, centuries before, she used to live. And now the fire from inside that second-story room consumes the blue-yellow air outside its win- example: All the materials in my head did grow. All is my own, and nothing do I owe: Be all that I desire as when I die, My memory in my own works may lye [“A General Prologue to all my Playes,” Playes]. I pass my time rather with scribbling than writing, with words than wit, not that I speak much, because I am addicted to contemplation [A True Relation of the Birth, Breeding, and Life of Margaret Cavendish, p. 297). dow and travels down the drying leaves of the oaks. Encircling Hilary, the flames fuel themselves with pages of Lady Cavendish that have yet to be written. Hilary joins the flame in a consummation surpassing the boundaries of'time, because, she realizes, they do not exist. [Playes]...tire me with their empty words, dull speeches, long parts, ister Critik is ten tedious Acts, ill Actors; and the truth is, there is not enough variety in an old play to please me...this Play was writ by a Lady, who on feet tall, and his my Conscience hath neither Language, nor Learning, but what is native and natural [“An Introduction,” Playes]. eyes sweep Fame’s High Tower. His eyes are Again Hilary pauses. “What is language and learning only to be hushed by those around her. Hilary reads some of Margaret’s plays—The Convent of Pleasure and Nature’s Three Daughters and one called Pieces of a Play, which is just as long as any of the others. She also reads the criticisms of them: the broom that cleanses the Tower ofits dust, or what they see to be dust, even when the dust is sparkled confetti. Mister Critik likes neither sparkles nor confetti amid the grayness of his decor. One shade of color, whether it be gray or black or burgundy. For him, a brightly lit party subverts the true nature of life. “Reason! Her works frequently do not meet even the loosest standards of fictional probability and sometimes are incoherent... her printed works are marred by errors of grammar and syntax, erratic punctuation and eccentric spelling [McGuire, p. 203]. “Fictional probability,” Hilary repeats the phrase several times to herself. “What a contradiction,” she says aloud and is again hushed by those around her. Reason! Reason!” he shouts from his balcony. He must watch the way he leans, for the railing is loose. “They have told me to lay out the table with prunes and water,” he claims, “and thus I have.” And tea, for it is tea-time and a guest is expected. Only half-expecting the Lady Cavendish to make an appearance (for she is, by choice, a recluse), Mis- She reads on: ter Critik prepares a dose of prune tea, which he The Duchess was entirely devoid of any dramatic instinct. In all her plays there is hardly a single character with any semblance of life: her characters are mere abstractions, qualities, and humours, uttering the fantastic speeches and quaint conceits which she loved to write [Firth, p. xxvii]. = 70 The stream of patronizing words continues, but Hilary’s interest is sparked. does not quite finish gulping down before the front door gives notice. The man feels slightly askew and hurriedly stows his prune tea in a cupboard, next to and slightly behind a volume of criticism. Just as the Duchess of Newcastle, the Lady Margaret Lucas Cavendish, breezes in, with all the grace ofa fairy misplaced from the stage, he closes the glass door and turns. “My, she is beautiful,” Mister Critik thinks, not ilary walks among the oak trees and stares at the enormous stone house for the first time. Bashfully, yet with a certain aura of confidence, the nearby. The curve of the balcony is Lady steps to the right, allowing someone, apparently strong and perfect. She sees herself in a companion, to pass. Mister Critik catches the prune an earlier time as a Great Lady, tea just as it travels back up his esophagus. pensively or blissfully gazing at the landscape from Margaret’s friend is surely a woman, though Mis- one of those balconies. She moves closer to the ter Critik is daunted and appalled by her costume. house. The dim light ofa fire glows across the sill of She wears trousers, like a man, and boots that fasten This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms just above the ankles. She wears an odd-looking shirt of a loosely knitted assortment of colors and tex- But Mister Critik will not admit this, even to himself. And so he smiles. tures, which stops just short of her hips. The woman’s hair is cropped about the ears, and the whole usk falls -due to Mister Critik dulling the effect is somewhat bewildering. “Another character flame with his eyes, sweeping the from a drama of questionable ingenuity,” thinks Mis- sparkles off Fame’s High Tower and | ter Critik, who has been told that he is good at think- absorbing them into the black hole of | ing. “Surely the Lady Cavendish dreamt her up.” his decor. Someday the vacuum might “Lady Cavendish, my dear Duchess, I am unspeakably pleased to receive you as my guest. And, of course, this pleasure extends to your companion.” “I return the pleasure, Mister Critik, and would like to introduce you to my new friend, Hilary. Hilary is unfamiliar with this part of our world, and so, to educate her, I have invited her to join us. I trust spit them back out again, or perhaps somebody will enter and find them. The latter seems more likely. Hilary must return to the library; she has work to do. Margaret must go to rest in her Tower. She will find a place to hide amidst the pages. Margaret hands Hilary a volume of'writing she dared not give to Mister Critik. The two embrace before they part. that poses no problem.” “By all means, no,” says Mister Critik, and motions for the two women to sit on the sofa by the fire. Mister Critik follows: he always follows his guests. Mister Critik cannot sleep and gulps prune tea, inebriating himself. In this state he attempts to feed the liquid to the manuscript of plays given him by the Duchess. But the manuscript won’t drink and instead gets stained a bloody burgundy and drips ady Cavendish wears a gown of rose-colored taffetta trimmed with black lace, lowcut across the bosom and flowing at the wrists. Her hair is piled extraordinarily over her brow, tendrils hanging along each temple in perfect curls. When she turns to Mister Critik and hands him the latest volume of her dramas and one of her poems, he smiles, accepting them both with the utmost honor, onto the gray carpet. Panicked, he thinks ofa way to protect the carpet and sofa, for his things are expensive. Like a suckling child, he brings the manuscript to his mouth, but more quickly than he is able to suck the red liquid, the flame leaps from the fireplace, drying everything. He continues sucking, inhaling the dried flakes of prune tea, then the carpet, the sofa, the manuscript, and eventually even the fire itself. Thus dies Mister Critik, consumed by the flame Or SO it seems. he had always ignored. Much later he says (aside), “Your fairy poems are in the league of Herrick and Mennis, perhaps even Shakespeare. But your dramatic verses are horren- argaret sleeps soundly and dous—no sense of the three unities or of decorum. Mister Critik dies painfully and And one S-shaped verse, even if it exists, which I Hilary awakes. Hilary’s eyes pop open. In front of her are rows highly doubt, would compose an entire scene.” and stacks of books, dull brown And the Lady Cavendish, thrice noble and illustrious Duchess of Newcastle, responds (not so aside), in the fluorescent light. Imprinted on the pages of “I did much pleasure and delight these Playes to Margaret Lucas Cavendish’s writing seems to be an make; For all the times my Playes a making were, My image of her own face. She feels the burn of for- brain the stage, my thoughts were acting there.” gotten words branded into her flesh. 71 — The man has no response to give, and so he smiles It is late. The security guards pass through the and offers more tea. He himself goes without, await- building, reminding people that soon the doors will ing the moment of the women’s departure when he close. Vowing never to get trapped inside—or will have the opportunity to finish the prune tea outside—a building. Hilary packs up her things. But stowed behind his volume of criticism in the glass first she writes a list and tucks this list into a volume cupboard. For he knows that if he and Margaret were of writings she did not have upon entering the library: alone on a desert island, and Margaret made coco- Description of a New World by Margaret Lucas Caven- nut faces with three eyes and no nose and dried milk dish, Duchess of Newcastle. Though it was published for a mouth, she would be living by her imagination, in 1668, the pages are white and unwrinkled. List and and the art rules of coconut face-making would be book among her belongings, Hilary is now ready to as the snow is to the tropiċs. leave. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms BIBLIOGRAPHY Cavendish, Margaret Lucas, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673). CCXI Sociable Letters, London, 1664. ——. Grounds of Natural Philosophy, London 1668. . The Life of William Cavendish, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Newcastle, Earl of Ogle, Viscount Mansfield, and Baron of Bolsover, of Ogle, Bothal and Hepple, &c., London, 1675. . Nature’s Pictures Drawn by Fancie’s Pencil to the Life, London, 1656, 1671. (The first edition of which contains A True Relation of the Birth, Breeding, and Life of Margaret Cavendish, written by Herself.) . Observations upon Experimental Philosophy to which is added the Description of a New World, London, 1666, 1668. . Orations of Divers Sorts, London, 1662, 1668. ——. Philosophical and Physical Opinions, London, 1655, 1663. . Philosophical Fancies, London, n.d. ——. Philosophical Letters, or Modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy maintained by several learned authors of the age, London, 1664. . Playes, London, 1662 (contains twenty-one plays). . Plays Never Before Printed, London, 1668 (contains five Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1980. Firth, C.H., ed. Memories of the Duke of Newcastle. London: Routledge; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., n.d. Gagen, Jean. “Honor and Fame in the Works of the Duchess of Newcastle.” Studies in Philology, July 1959: 519—538. Gorgeau, Angeline. The Whole Duty of a Woman. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Grant, Douglas. Margaret the First. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957. Hampsten, Elizabeth. “Petticoat Authors: 1660-1720.” Women’s Studies 7 (1980): 21-28. McGuire, Mary Ann. “Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, on the Nature and Status of Women.” International Journal of Women’s Studies, 1:2: 193-206. Morgan, Fidelis. The Female Wits: Women Playwrights of the Restoration, London: Virago, 1981. Paloma, Dolores. “Margaret Cavendish, Defining the Female Self.” Women’s Studies 6 (1979): 411-422. Perry, Henry Ten Eyck. The First Duchess of Newcastle and Her Husband as Figures in Literary History. (Harvard Studies in English, vol. 4). Boston, London: Ginn & Co., 1918. Woolf, Virginia. “The Duchess of Newcastle.” The Common Reader. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1925. x plays). . Poems and Fancies, London, 1664, 1668. Karen J. Burstein wrote this essay while a student at Hamp- . The World’s Olio, London, 1655, 1671. shire College in Amherst, Mass. It is a response to the deletion Cotton, Nancy. Women Playwrights in England, c. 1363—1750. of women writers from the canon. INA) This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Critics AMY EDGINGTON 2 1 Critics say my collages are not fine art, As I see it, what I'm here to do just bits and pieces of other people’s work. is to tell the truth But I say that artists always borrow, in any voice it wants to use—- and if they borrow well, a song, a howl, or a whisper. when we view their work The hardest thing about art we will always feel is just to do it without question. a thrill of recognition, To be an artist means to dare as we see something familiar to paint and write lots of bad stuff that we have never seen before. that is only fit for the compost heap Critics say my poems are not well crafted, but I say that it was never my intention (but nothing beats compost for starting seeds). Being udged an artist in this world to be artful or crafty, means only showing the people not if that has anything to do who have power and money with the straight-laced teachers I had in school, exactly what they want to see. who refused to look at emotions, And how original is that? unless I dressed them like fancy dolls It’s the oldest trick in the book, if not the oldest profession. Nothing naked, p/eave, and certainly no genitals! I use criticism when it’s useful. So please don’t tell me to take art lessons or creative writing courses. One poet friend said to me: I don’t have the time or money, This poem is too short and I have no room to internalize to say all you want it to say. academic opinions: my head is too full She was right, and I went on of my own ideas that demand to be seen and heard to write a much better, longer poem. like anybody else’s children. This was good advice: not telling me Anyway, I never learned art in school. what to write about or how to do it, I learned that only silence or implying that I'd never get it right will satisfy every critic. because I lacked some inherent talent, But I failed to find silence or that really s/e could say it bearable. better than I ever could. At its best, though, criticism is always a very sharp tool: May 1987 remember never to offer or grasp the blade instead of the handle. 73 — At its worst, criticism becomes a self-serving authority figure, a nosy landlord living inside our heads, getting rich on our fear and self-doubt. He peeks in our windows when we are naked; he knocks on our door at midnight, demanding we pay the back rent; then he says we’re no good anyway and threatens to kick us out in the cold. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Beatın EMMA AMOS BEATING THE ODDSFORBA,BFA, ANDMFAART MAJORS. Fewer than five out of 100 art school graduates are making art ten years later. That's a lousy statistic. Despite the many artists we know, see, and read about, there are enormous numbers more who educated themselves to be artists but gave up somewhere along the way. MOVE to a city with galleries, museums, and art hools. LIVE with or marry an artist. Two can cover more ground than one. LEARN to eat and live VERY cheaply. KEEP up with your classmates. Exchange names and GET financial aid from doting parents, aunts, family friends. addresses, including parents’ addresses in case of moves: FIND work in a job that allows some flexibility in hours, such KEEP a file of artists’ colonies, summer programs, and as sales, framing, gallery sitting, conservation, or design. people who can and will write good references for you. y y MAKE time to make art. Get up early on Saturdays and Sundays and work from 9:00 to 3:00 before doing shop- Dont ping, laundry, etc. NO EXCUSES! MAKE a weekly appointment to go to galleries, museums, experimental dance, theatre. CREATE a group of artist friends to exchange studio DON’T walk your slides around to galleries. Youll get TAKE slides of your work every three months. Take at least „ adozen shots of each work so you don't have to make copies right away. Keep your résumé up to date. Mail your too discouraged. Send them. DON’T stay in the same dead-end job for more than a year. Nowthat.you’ve established an artmaking rhythm, \Show young, unknown artists. Send a SASE for their return. APPLY for scholarships to the good summer art schools. you neéd to 'addrėss- lifetimegoals. Prepare to start training fof a specific jöBExamples:.Graduate school for teaching, conservatiónmuseŭin Work. Grad school or special classes GET accepted to three group shows your first year out. for, SPNA textile ‘design, industrial design, computer art, display.” CURATE a show—including your own work, of course DON’T wait until the last term of school to plan for —and find an organization to host the show for free. Invite your art career. your friends, the press, and galleries. DON’T call your old professors, the art office, or the JOIN the College Art Association. Great job listings. LOOK in art magazines and newspapers for pertinent articles, opportunities, and grant listings. APPLY for your home-state's artists grants as soon as you're eligible. MATCH your work to the galleries and curators 'who show work that seems responsive to your own. Get on their mailing lists and GO TO ALL THEIR OPENINGS. dean to help you find a job at graduation. DONT 1) livein a no-art town or 2) with an unsupportive roommate, and (3) try not to live at home if at all possible. DON’T overprice your work. DON’T frame your work unless youw’re showing it at a gallery with a chance for sales. Use reusable frames. Keep your sizes uniform. DON’T forget to make u iar and T pakab. DON’T GIVE UR. Nao) Education — 74 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms , BUT THE SOMI Y AND EVEHY SOT F r , | s BANN e npani 4 Paa s ! F. RAIM THEN IF WE AR" WOMEN 10 THE SAME TASKS MEN WE MUST TEACH THEM NEA TRAINING FO MIND YND BODY "SAME THINGS. THEY MUSI HAVE =.. AND ALSO BE TAUGH: TUE ART = w THE SAME TWO BRANCHES OF i 5. WWNELR, DORS WO TRATAN. s E W MF WA, AM H EAT DIEFEHEWLE K HAT SAY SHM HEK AKI WÒ : Women, andofpainting, wallprinting piece, Tocollage, Soar Nancy Spero Socrates Nancy Spero (detail), is one 1979, the founding typewriter members of II. A.I.R. handprinting Gallery. on Herpaper, most 20"x9'. recent Photo: projectDavid is anReynolds. installation at Smith College Museum of Art, Notes in Time on resies 25 — S£ This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms desperate fear, grotesyue PY wrneyuty, and con tCtUy RICHARD e ) he chairman’s reputation was well established. >» Sre imagined her interview with the chairman and considered how she might best present herself. IOO NBAVEDON Jr A SJ e M he knew the problems an interview entailed and Ow to edit her portfolio to make her work he imagined herself to be a model instructor... wondered how she would maneuver. comprehensible to him? COMPOSITION, CONTENT, FEMINISM, FORMALISM, MARXISM, MODERNISM ..…. ~ J. 7 >», A Ow to come across without coming on? Sin realized that the chairman did not share her values. How could she communicate her qualifications without her politics? «An other aspects of her life by Leigh Kane she found a variety of solutions to < : c , this problem. and Diane Lontius Leigh Kane is an artist/activist/educator who teaches media studies at Carleton College near Minneapolis. —— 7G This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms > >» H. know that the department was under Sre was intelligent, articulate, and determined. pressure to hire a woman. He thought about the prospect with some anticipation. It had been weeks since his last affair. > : and hoped she could convince him S was hungry for the job of her skills. Æ he job required extensive teaching experience, an impressive exhibition record, willingness to work with colleagues, and numerous departmental duties. ... capable of the varied Da she measure up to the responsibilities of a expectations? full-time position. CL HA alliances with others the activism, the women’s caucus, offered her support and inspired the poster collective, the reading L Art of group, the writing, the family, i aeher: work. : the child, the lover... ? Education Diane Pontius is a photographer, video artist, and teacher currently living in Philadelphia. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms several years ago I decided to go to New and apply the laws. Pull in, push in, lifi York to study dance professionally. After up—the desired image is definitely teaching at a university, I was looking for- male, androgynous at best, but never fe- ward to being in an environment that male with curves and roundness, which values learning with the body and study- are considered “appropriate only for the ing in a field where women have been Middle Eastern belly dancer,” our teach- visible and important, historically. At the er tells us. Such a contrast to the way Rina same time, I was terrified. To my mind, Singha spoke of her training in Indian I did not fit the typical image of'a dance dance in the video “Women in Asian student, and at the age of thirty I had Dance.” “We worked on two pieces, never studied dance full time. After con- four hours a day for six months, repeatsidering several studios, I finally chose ing them over and over again, sometimes the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab because of with slight variations and recitation of the their belief that given time, work, and rhythmic patterns. In this way the piece guidance, anybody can learn to dance. I and its timing became a part of our was also impressed by the continuity of body.” She then demonstrated one of the school’s teaching staff, which spans three generations of dancers, including Nos of our education. You have already Hanya Holm who is in her nineties and learned enough. Now you must learn to one ofthe pioneers of modern dance in give up, to make room. It takes courage, America. The following are journal ex- but there is no other way.” cerpts about my experience in the studio and my research on the history of There is much to learn from the body, women in dance. and not just dance either. The physicality of our selves is basic to everything I had my first class with Hanya and was totally taken by her. “Mostly fear and familiarity,” she said, “that’s what keeps us from doing. First we must undo all the — 78 her practice pieces; it could not have been more than five minutes in all. How I long to train in this way, slowly repeating what we need to know from the inside. Our training is done much too quickly, and we are not allowed the time to really sense the place of movement in the body. we do, yet it is one of'the most neglected aspects of our upbringing and education, which often serve to trap the reflexes and cauterize the instincts. Bringing those back to life is, as I’m finding out, This learning is difficult and painful, physically and psychologically, as I touch habits deeply embedded in my muscles. Yet I've come to be grateful for the pain, an excruciating process, physically and psychically. Briefly I felt my whole body thinking—a moment of vibration or alertness, not just in the head but in the legs, the torso, the arms. A sense of radiating outward from inner movement. A glimmer that blood, muscle, and bone are knowledgeable and sentient: consciousness in the curves of muscles, the rushing of blood, the exchange of fluids and air. Cellular knowledge ..…. In some ways the approach to the body is very male: analyze, analyze, analyze, This content downloaded from f:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms even to watch for it, because it means my body,” I said. “Do not let your mind changes are underway and sensation is dominate your body,” she replied. “The being developed. mind is there to clarify what the body will do. Trust your body.” The deeper I go into women and dance the more I recognize myself, get glimpses More and more I am seeing/sensing how of what has been lost but is still alive in deeply we as women internalize the fact my instincts and in the living layer of my that our bodies are not our own, how body. Yesterday I was reading about Ka- deeply the colonization goes. What do buki theater, where women are prohib- we need to free ourselves from the in- ited from formal participation despite side? What are the conditions for the the fact that they created the Kabuki freedom of the body? It is as if we had dance form. Predictably, this form was to recompose our most basic posture to taken away from them by men, and they find the point or source ofall other pos- were outlawed from their own creation. sibilities. Yet a germ of their sensibility remains in the integrity of the form, the wholeness Looking at one of the young women ofthe dances, which do not fall into ab- today and thinking, Yes, that’s me ten straction. Here in the geste I had a mo- years ago if only ... I have to be careful ment of recognition, a tugging in my not to fall into bitterness or pity. I am body saying, Yes, we passed here, as I where I am and there is nothing to do remembered what has fallen into silence, about that except work harder. Clean- can no longer be said but is still en- ing out channels, bones, tendons, liga- trusted to the body. ments, socket joints, hinge joints. Refin- ishing the antique lovingly. x Today speaking with Hanya I told her I am confused about the relation between Rachel Vigier lives and works in New York City. She is currently at work on a collection of essays m mind and body. “My mind doesn’t know about women, dance, and the body entitled Ges- what to do with itself when I listen to tures of Genius. 79 —, EĐ á K A ta Ap This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms JOAN HERBST SHAPIRO his year I had the lucky experience of learn- original compositions that refer to African and AfroAmerican cultures. Sometimes they combine diverse elements, such as a contemporary rock song sungin ing group Women of the Calabash. the style of South African workers’ choirs. Their pre- The shekere is a West African instrument that sentation is a spectacular mix of percussive music, comes from the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Used as a vocals, movement, and dance. powerful instrument to call spiritual forces, it is played for religious ceremonies and occasions. The instru- the audience to participate—“You'’re gonna clap your ment is made from a hollowed-out gourd, or cala- hands. You're going to sing and dance.” The liveli- bash, which serves as a drum. Beads strung on a net ness of the rhythms, with beautiful spacious melo- encircling the gourd add a rattle sound: dies spreading over all, is entrancing. Vocals complement percussive rhythms. Sometimes there is a dra- DA dee DA dee DA dee, DA DA DA dee matic rhythmic contrast between the first and sec- DA dee DA dee DA dee, DA DA DA dee ond parts of a song. re beat from the hollow interior of the calabash. The that the musicians were members of'a class she taught dee or che is a rattle sound created by the beads. The called Egbe Omo Shekere (“Children of the Cala- gourd is held semihorizontally between the player's bash”). She said that the class met every Sunday in a hands. As it is pushed by one hand and received by West Village studio and that anyone could come. I the other, the beads fly up and snap as they hit the decided to go. gourd. Che! The bass is sounded by either hand, hitting the calabash as it is thrust back and forth be- cavernous Westbeth basement. I feel shy, yet I want tween the player’s hands. Hearing the instrument to connect to this music, so I join the circle of musi- for the first time, I felt strongly drawn to its power cians and stand up as part of the group. No one is and energy. more amazed than I. I am carried away. Clapping my hands and stamping my feet I think that this music is settings. Traditionally the instrument is used as like ...yes, like pure affirmation. If ever I were seri- backup in a group of drums. The original contribu— 80 ously sick, this music would heal me. tion of Women ofthe Calabash is the use of'shekeres played together as the featured instrument. In this rapt. Introductions are informal, occurring after the context one clearly hears both the rattle and bass warm-ups that begin the class. We go around the voices. At the time Women of the Calabash began circle, calling out our first names. The attitude toward playing, this was an untried idea. Its musical appeal time and attendance is relaxed. Class is scheduled can be measured by the fact that currently it has been adopted by other musical groups. from 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P., but usually begins a little late and runs on after 2:00. People come when they nA R can and leave when they have to. The music consists of complementary rhythmic brates off the cement walls. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms N vious learning experiences. When I ask Madeleine if pressions as well as words, projecting enthusiasm or the class is patterned on traditional African teaching delight in the music, showing off skill, or miming methods, she replies that she does not know. Essen- sleepiness if the rhythm is flagging. She can be tially she has developed her method of teaching in clownish—imitating my overly serious expression response to things she has found difficult in her own until we break up laughing. learning experiences. She says, “Most musicians have endured a lot of put-down experiences, and they teach that way.” In this class the flow of music is never interrupted by criticism. No one is ever told that they’re wrong. Someone just shows them something they can do while the music continues. There is no testing, no putting people on the spot. Made- her mother. leine likes to create situations in which people can The class is like a gift—the gift of a more life- enjoy playing, whether it’s in the circle of the class or at a low-key performance or through group participation in a parade. Heresies 25 I8 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Classes are not sequential but rather an ongoing vious classroom experiences, in which students were continuum in which beginners and experienced often pitted against one another. I found this class players participate together. This permits people to both illuminating and healing—in contrast to “edugo at their own pace, to pick up as much as they can cational” experiences I’ve had elsewhere. as fast or as slowly as they can. “When I first was learn- I believe that methods and systems of education ; _ ing,” Madeleine comments, “drummers would tell express the values of the people or cultures that creme, ‘Stand back and play the one.’ There’s so much ate them. The implicit value underlying most Ameri- ego involved among musicians. It limits what they can education, it seems, is how to get ahead in the are willing to show you.” She says that she is not material world in competition with everyone else interested in students imitating her style but in giv- who is trying to get ahead. The spiritual basis of the ing them a basic vocabulary of rhythms and patterns shekere class is unity, not competition. It is assumed with which they can devise their own language. that when one joins the circle, he or she becomes I strongly sense an intangible spiritual presence in part of the whole. Within that whole, each individ- this class. While Yoruba tradition and spirituality ual is treated with deep respect, appreciation, and aren't specifically discussed, they provide a founda- support. The class is founded on values of loving the Kabuya P. Bowens The Final Call, 1989, gouache and m/m papers, triptych, each panel 12"x17". Photo: Glenn Saffo. Presently working with the Studio in a School Association as an artist/instructor, Kabuya P. Bowen is also spending nine months as artist-in-residence at Longwood (Bronx Council for the Arts). She is a native of Miami and has exhibited in both the New York and Miami areas. tion for much of the music we play. music, having fun together, paying attention, develn The African model of music-making is commu- oping skills, and making a contribution. I would like 82 nal in its orientation. This differs from classical West- to see these values more prevalent in our society and — ern tradition, which treats music as a highly special- learning situations. s ized activity in which musicians and audience are Madeleine teaches because she really has somestrictly separated. As in African musical tradition, my thing to give directly to people—she loves turning shekere class is a social and participatory activity in them on to the instrument. I go because I love the which individual development is supported by the music and want to connect to its power and energy. group. IfI am doing well, I sense the appreciation of It isn’t about getting ahead or competition or im- the whole group. If I get lost, somêèone will smile proving one’s marketability or preparation for some- from across the circle, catch my eye, and demon- thing. It’s about playing together. v strate a rhythm I'can play. The first time this hap- si Joan Herbst Shapiro is an artist and environmental educator : : : who lives in New York City. Her current work is concerned with pened I was astonished. This experience of group healing our alienation from ourselves, one another, and the support was strikingly different from most of my pre- natural/spiritual world. The Art of Education This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms a sE [v4 AA CAROL WOLFE KONEK In 1987, during the three-week International Women’s Decade Forum and Con- of several hundred people gathered around them. Young men started asking ference in Nairobi, several of us gathered Dana questions about this ‘strange West- at night to discuss all we had taken in ern sexual practice. She told them she throughout the day. We had listened to mi- was a lesbian and talked about the emo- grant women, refugee women, and women in exile. We had listened to women out- litical and cultural biases against the preference. She was quite articulate. They female circumcision. We talked late into were fascinated.” by revelations of atrocities that implicated us all. “And the police were there all this time?” Billie asked. sure nothing got out of control. And of course they were also listening. At one pened to Dana today. “Dame Nita Barrow point they took several young men away.” asked the women in the international les- “Do you suppose the police detained bian group to give up their booth. She said forum, and no lesbian materials could be handed out.” “How can the conference censor anyone?” Billie asked. “The women who were staffing the booth didn't ask any questions. They just moved their materials to the grassy square.” Anna told us Dana had spoken for al- N most five hours, that she was undaunted, D that she was speaking from the heart of a silence many women had occupied o years. Dana became a liberator, a folk hero B ping in to Dana's room to congratulate her. My own thought was that she might now be viewed as a threat. “They were watching the crowd to make One evening Anna came to the room exclaiming, “You wor't believe what hap- no lesbian issues would be debated at the quired FBI files at the conference. | tional basis for the preference and the po- raged by sex tourism, bride-burning, and the night, trying to resolve feelings evoked City and later discovered that we had ac- 7 those men? Is is illegal to listen to such discussions?” | asked, remembering my friend Njinga’s story of his father's detention, the deplorable conditions in the jails, and the impossibility of getting legal defense, whether guilty or innocent. The next day I was attracted to a cluster of animated people in the center of the Å square, and | recognized the women from the lesbian information booth. A young man N politely inquired if he could ask me a ques- Viv.4 tion. | responded that he could. DO “If you please, would you mind explain- | / SY of life?” O ing to me and ny friends this lesbian way S0% I was charmed by the man's curious, Wy courteous diction and realized that the de- WWZ% Anna thumbed through Sisterhood /s Global until she found the laws on homo- fensiveness and hostility that might infuse W V sexuality in the Kenyan chapter: “It is ille- such a question posed by a Western man n gal under the Penal Code (Sec. 162) to have were absent in this man's demeanor. “I don't W in the program. I wasn't surprised that the carnal knowledge of any person against the planners were worried about the response order of nature and is punishable by four- mind discussing this with you. What would A you like to know?” By now there were fifteen N i No lesbian workshops had been listed j . | : of the Kenyan government to this topic, teen years imprisonment. The law does considering the missionary influence on not specifically mention lesbianism.” ..…. S : N E TNE SONSS a T SE S Be SA Eaa VERAZ T v education. It had become increasingly apA| parent that every government had a vested N interest in perpetuating its own form of female subordination and that the preservation of silence was essential to this l purpose. “So what happened?” I asked. “Anna, you must tell Dana to be careful,” I said, realizing as | spoke how cautious and conventional | sounded. But | vividly recalled the Mexico City conference in 1975 and ny first realization that many governments see the women’s movement d “Did the women object to their treatment?” as a threat to nationalism. My companion N “No. They sat passively on the ground and | were certain we were being followed group. | or twenty young people, mostly men, but l N also a few women, on the outskirts of the Y “How is it that lesbians can make love?” ##(N “They can make love as any two people || ) can make love.” v p Several of the young men stifled their IVÆØS laughter. “Oh, no, they can't,” said the L leader. I plunged ahead, determined to be gen- J tle. “Making love is possible between any B SSS 2 9 SN AN This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Alex Stavitsky Dominican Republic, June 1989, photograph. ~~ A Alex Stavitsky Dominican Republic, June 1989, photograph. / ノレ Currently a photo asdistant, Alex Stavitsky wants to ude photography to cha llenge preconceived idead of femininity, politice, people, and their varioud cultured. ] She wad in Nicaragua for the 1990 electiond. る WA いく Sd, MN 0> 4OE( ANN / 人 人 PAS > VE BN Y KS UN SN WY KA y/ トト This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms SVE p believe that penetration is the most imporPIN tant part of the sex act.” I paused , hoping they understood. There were several nods. Y “But penetration is not always the most important or pleasing part of lovemaking for a behind me seemed to be moving closer. woman must be reacting to something. “In our country there is often disrespect between men and women. Daughters often learn to fear their fathers and then also find “You would ignore the matter of sin?” asked the second man, speaking somewhat more aggressively than before. “I am saying that love between two j woman. In our culture there are many they cannot depend on the respect of other f Women who believe men äre too interested men. Men in our culture sometimes make l in penetration. Lovemaking goes too fast for disgusting remarks to women in public pounding of my pulse and of my anger at | A the woman when the man is thinking only places. We have music and movies that the indoctrination of these men who had 1 of reaching his goal.” I paused again. “Is it the same in your culture?” “But without that, there is nothing,” ), added another man. “A man's point of view may be different, but think of making love from a woman's point of view. Women like to be embraced. They like to be held and caressed and to feel that they are precious to the one who loves them.” “Yes, we know.” “They like to speak and to be understood. Some women tell me they are conquered, ; like territory—taken, without regard for their feelings or their response.” i| A man who had been silent spoke softly. N “Yes I have heard women say so.” ! “While we are talking like this, there is equate sex and violence, and there are men who rape, brutalize, and sometimes kill women. No woman in our culture is safe from this violence.” “In our culture some of these things are happening, too.” “I understand from talking to women at this conference, | continued, that until recently a man had the right to beat his wife, and that laws against wife-beating are not always enforced, even now.” Agreement from my listeners. “It is the women cannot be a sin, that only violence K can be a sin,” | concluded, aware of the seemed so sweet and polite until I reached || a the bedrock of their belief. V When I met Billie and Anna in the Peace V Tent at the end of the day, I confessed | A now understood how Dana was compelled IW to answer the questions of the Kenyans and N that I too had become their instructor. Anna hoped I hadn't gotten myself in V trouble and began telling me about Dana's experience that day. As Dana read announcements in the bulletin area, a woman spoke to her. Never taking her eyes from same in my country. We are a long way from the board, the woman said “Do not look at arriving at understanding between men and or appear to talk to me. I heard your talk in women. We are looking for ways to stop the the public square. I know young women violence and create understanding. Perhaps who need your message, and yet there is someday men will listen to women and try no information in my country. If you could to understand what they think, how they send books and articles to this address, you H something else I would like to discuss with feel, and what they want.” could save lives.” She tacked a note to the v you,” I added, searching for tact. “In my country women are often abused by men. life-styles?” came the question. WAN I V si Sometimes fathers do not value their daughters. Men beat their wives, and also their children.” “And then there will be no more lesbian “No, no. There will still be lesbian life- bulletin board and continued speaking. | am a teacher in a school for girls. From time to time close relationships develop styles. When women are no longer territory between the girls, perhaps love relationships to be conquered or property to be owned, ...and the girls have no way of learning that they will be free to love whomever they their experience is not unique. Several times please. Women will then be free to choose there have been suicides, double suicides more than once. It is very tragic. If I could ence, | fear this is a problem everywhere. choose, they will no longer be offended by You ask me what lesbians do. What two this choice.” women do, | am told, for I am not a lesbian, is to love each other with tenderness and W concern for the pleasure of each other" Ý “And this trouble between men and i women ...you think it makes women prefer N making love with other women?" “What about religious and moral laws which must be obeyed?” asked my first questioner. | realized | was confronting a very polite wall. tell them there are books to read, books by women who choose love, perhaps some of A these girls could be saved” e Anna and | wondered if there was a way to send the books, if the woman receiving them would be endangered. We knew there p “Most religions teach the principles of love and respect, and yet many marriages was censorship andschool felt that a package v mailed from one to another might be opened by the authorities. BI “No. Not necessarily. Women who love are based on contempt and abuse. Moral- d women are not rejecting men. They are lov- ity would require that people are never re- ing women because they find women beau- quired to submit to intimacy with someone H tiful and loving and interesting.” who does not love and respect them.” Only hollow in response. She said she was just J now did I become uneasy that the guard waiting to go home. Something was very, B “But you think women are afraid of men?” The next day I met Dana in the hall; | asked for the latest news, but her voice was J AZIZA This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms very wrong. What had happened to this in- with the freedom | felt in the square. With does heroism reside? Heroic actions tran- spiring, patient woman? all those people around me, listening, | felt scend despair, but the person who herself “Saturday night, a block from here, I was that the world was becoming a place where is heroic doesn't always experience it that mugged. A man grabbed me from behind, everything could be spoken aloud. | felt so way. Dana went home feeling defeated, but twisted my arm behind me, and asked for accepted for who I was. So loved by all the her courage had an enduring effect on other my money. | took it out of my pocket and people who gathered around me. Then the gave it to him. When he saw it was only mugging. It was as though it was deliber- twenty shillings, he was furious. He jerked ate. As though I were being—” my arm behind me, and as | looked over “— punished for speaking?” my shoulder, I saw a knife. Then he punched “Yes, Silenced.” me in the stomach.” “Why didn't you tell us?” “All the usual reasons. I had so many feelings. I felt stupid. Responsible. You know the list. | couldn't fight. It was as though | I tried to convince Dana that it was most likely random violence, not retaliation. “But I feel diminished. It ruined my courage.” people, and I wanted to make something of her experience that she may be unable to. There is also a beautiful political parable in what occurred. We need to be aware of the abuse we experience at the hands of our sisters, the oppression we ourselves create for women. The action of the conference's conveners—excising all lesbian “Your courage touched all those who information from the official forum— served | were a little girl again. As though | were a heard you. Think how you changed lives only to create a more powerful platform for helpless three-year-old rather than who | by speaking to them in their silence.” the ideas and more motivation for lesbian really am. /’m a marathon runner. I'm Dana managed to say she would try to spokespersons to rise to the challenge. In an athlete. And ! let him hit me. | stood hold on to that thought and that she hoped trying to silence them, Dame Barrow suc- there obediently and let him have my the passage of years would make it easier money.” to focus on that aspect of the conference. “You felt you should have fought back, Has it? Victims of violence—whether eco- and that since you didn't, you were nomic, physical, or academic violence— responsible?” recover at different rates, though it has been ceeded in giving them a greater voice. ¥ Carol Wolfe Konek is an associate dean and faculty member in the Center for Women’s Studies at Wichita State University. She writes about the international women’s movement, the women’s / peace movement, and women recovering from "Maybe. And maybe this comes together chemical dependencies This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Ai A, l am incarcerated in a women's prison in $ mon trend in all of the prison systems in inhabit internal Diso will continue to the United States, except for a very few suffer unnecessarily. For a society that which have not been seriously affected by the need for AIDS education in the prison system in order to bring an end to the cruel The court systems generally uphold the treatment of people with AIDS is a poor D.O.C’s measures because of the antici- showing of sincerity. and barbaric treatment of those individuals pated political outcry of a society that is living in prisons who suffer from this deadly equally uneducated about the facts of disease. the virus. Instead of educating inmates and admin- professes to be humane and interested in the welfare of its citizens, the government's New Jersey. I wish to bring to your attention The author of this letter must remain anonymous because the system referred to above has taken drastic measures to stop all outside communication dealing with the subject of AIDS. This in- At this writing there is just one female istrators and staff about the facts of AIDS, inmate confined to a Special Medical Unit prisons allow rumors to be the only source in the only female institution in the State of of information. This hinders the treatment New Jersey (this inmate is referred to as of the inmates who suffer from AIDS and Jane Doe in one specific case). However, consequently increases the fear of prison- in 1988 alone there were two deaths that ers and staff. For example, upon entering occurred as a result of the lack of proper this women's institution, an inmate receives medical treatment. These women were se- one pamphlet that is highly outdated and riously ill but were denied the “special medi- contains obsolete information. At some time cal treatment” that is reserved for “Jane during an inmate's stay-at the institution a Doe”—a woman who has been in complete film is shown. This film does not include remission from a bout with PCP in June any medical information. It is a film made 1987. Both women who died were con- by dying inmates in New York State's prison firmed'to have been carrying the AIDS virus. cludes the 24-hour lockdown for over a month of the author herself for actively advocating exposure of the system's treatment of AIDS inmates. The author dedicates this letter to J.R., for her unbe- lievable strength, courage, and determination, which is her motivation to continue this fight. Dear Folks I'm buying my mother a subscription to Heresies because she is somewhat clueless about the topics that your magazine discusses. Please send her a little “gift card” if you have them ...…. l'Il put it under system, and in it the inmates make a final It is a proven medical fact that isolation plea to others not to follow in their footsteps. from all social contact, whether verbal, Unfortunately, by the time an individual is physical or visual, is detrimental to the im- incarcerated it is too late to reconsider and mune system of a human being. Medical avoid behaviors that have already taken fact also supports the notion that AIDS is place. not easily transmittable, and is a behavior- Despite proven medical facts, the State ally responsible virus. Despite these facts, of New Jersey's Department of Corrections our society continues to support the theory chooses to institute primitive methods of that it is safer to confine those who suffer treatment of AIDS inmates. While a diag- from AIDS in a “leper colony” setting. There the tree or something. Maybe she'll stop ironing my dad's shirts. I read and use Heresies extensively. | have been researching the gender gap that exists in the artworld and Heresies has lent me some unique insights. Keep it up, etc. As far as I know, I'm the only male that reads your magazine (at my school at least). But I also read military reports and NCO 87 — Magazine to keep informed on all sides. Cheers, nosis of “full-blown AIDS” is in no way a is a reason that people are frightened, and diagnosis of increased infectiousness, the that is because of our government's atti- C.C.—Hamilton, New York < -3 D.O.C. isolates prisoners suffering from full- tude in perpetuating crisis-level educational blown AIDS from the remaining population. programming, not only within the correc- In addition, prisoners are denied access to tional system but in society in general. With- legal rights as afforded to them through the out support from the public and without issue offered some intriguing questions 8th and 14th Amendments to the United education, thousands of inmates —as well about women and higher education, and | States Constitution. This seems to be a com- as free men and women with AIDS who wanted to share some of my experiences. Poli Sci in '65 Your flyer about the upcoming education Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms At thirty | was a political science major, attending a university that was part of the me, and kissed me—not passionately or romantically, but hard. I| immediately got the California state college system. It was the message about what | was expected to do 1965—66 term, and | was to graduate in to get my grade changed upward. 1966, after having completed my first two Well, two can play the game. |I let him years at a junior college. I had been a high kiss me, and when he got to the point of school dropout, had two children and a wanting to go to a more private setting, | husband, did all the housework, and told him I couldn't that day, as I had a hus- had to commute thirty miles one way to band who would wonder where | was. He school. suggested we “make an appointment,” There were only three political science professors, as the school was newly which we did. The next day | went to my only female political science professor at the opened—lI was in the first (four-year) grad- university and told her the story. She said uating class. The “leading male” prof was she knew a way to fix it. She called him on aloof and rarely allowed me to speak, but the phone, told him she was my adviser, being older I had the guts to speak up any- that | was graduating in a month, and that way. Word soon got to me from other stu- she had to know my grade in advance of dents that he couldn't understand why a receiving the transcript. He told her | had married woman was going to college: What an A. Later in the day he called me at home, would she do when she got out? and | had the great pleasure of saying No mentors at that place, | can tell you! Of course, l-wouldn't have known a mentor “Sucker,” and hanging up. In spite of her having helped me in this situation, my “sav- if I saw one. But my college days were one ior” apparently never did anything for any of the factors that later led me to become a of the other women students, nor did she raging feminist. In my last semester | was short of money for books and fees and tried to borrow from the college emergency fund. As a married woman, | was refused a loan. I cashed in one of my children’s and my own life insur- ance policies to get $250. SEXUAL HARASSMENT While attending university, | decided to make up some work I had started in 1964 at another state school. I contacted my former professor, who said I could make up the work by writing a paper. I did so, and he sent me a grade lower than | thought | deserved. When | called to complain, he become involved in the women's movement as far as I know. GRADUATION It’s possible I was the top student among the political science majors, but my unseasoned new school decided to have only one graduating classification— “with honors” — for people with averages of 3.0 and above. | had a 3.5 average, completing four years in three with two semesters off in between, so I couldn't be faulted for not being a serious student. In my last semester | carried twenty- one units while doing dishes, laundry, kids’ homework, and dealing with a husband, since replaced, who was suddenly threatened by my impending graduation. asked me to see him in his office, but after One fellow student (male) whose average arriving there he suggested we talk over cof- fee at the cafeteria. Everything seemed nor- was under three points was “liked” by the department, so they created the classifica- mal until we got to the cafeteria and he pro- posed that we have a drink instead. Well, | tion “With Distinction” for him and arranged his entry into the master’s program at a was thirty years old and had had drinks with men before, including other professors, so without thinking much about it, | agreed. We went to a nearby bar and ordered. All of a sudden he turned to me, grabbed major university. In sisterhood, Barbara A. St. John Editor, Teaching Equity This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 89 — Heresies 25 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms am trying to be a mediøAl student. Or—lI am that his excruciating leg pain has stopped. medical student. Who is this I, and what is this role? I hide in the bathroom sometimes, for pri- The rest of the week, as | learned to diagnose ear MARTHA REED HERBERT infections and sore throats, the usual ailments of children, I watched Martin's impact on the community of vacy, or perhaps to cry. | weep, feeling like a doctors in the hospital. Everyone knew his story and soldier in the medical army, a cipher in my little white coat with my toy doctor tools in my pockets, felt chastened; a doctor two weeks previously hadn't pretending competence. Only rarely, and barely, does even noticed the mass on his back. What a frighten- the gaze of my superiors discern any qualities l've ing oversight! Our future patients with back pain will come to treasure over nearly four decades as my self. bring Martin to mind, and remind us never to treat l am to learn the skills and the telegraphic communi- complaints as merely routine. I work in an enormous tertiary care medical center, cation style of the doctor's world. What relevance is my self—my insights, my associations—to this task? with esteemed experts and the highest technology. Outside, the park benches across the street are part Just as an airline pilot speaking over a scratchy radio would inject dangerous ambiguity by broadcasting of the neighborhood's housing stock. And the drug metaphors about clouds, I as a doctor must be pre- trade in the neighborhood may be as big a business as the hospital. A rumor among local pregnant teen- cise and concise, or someone might die. agers that crack eases labor pains influences even Martin, a ten-year-old boy, was the first patient | saw in pediatrics. I had looked forward to this rota- the nonusers to come in high for delivery. If a urine toxicology screen reveals crack, they take the baby tion because | love children. Peter Pan's “I won't grow up” is one of my theme songs. Kids aren't yet fully In a small Their world is play and imagination. Martin's parents community where people live together their first exam by the intern found nothing wrong, except for a large and painless swelling by his lower spine whole lives, to myself, I now often pathetically serve as translator. But why are these Native American and African-look- is no way to to examine the boy and then whispered in small clusters in the hall. I kept the family company as best can't even talk with them, since so many speak no English. Because | managed to teach some Spanish generations, there truth. The examining room became a crossroads of specialists from all over the hospital who descended taught Spanish; as a result, after all the rhetoric about how we should relate humanely to our patients, we and for many saw that none of Martin's pain could be explained by trauma, our eyes met to honor the awful emerging ber that much raw information. But with all the school’s zeal to prepare us for our work, we weren't that looked as if a whale were coming up for air. | helped the neurologist do the second exam. As we schools recently told my school to cut down their curriculum by 25 percent because no one can remem- now his legs were hurting, too. Young boys love horseplay even more than | do, I thought to myself. The no crack rehab programs. The national accreditation association for medical told us his back had been hurting since someone had kicked him a few months ago in the playground, and away, and the only way the mother can get her baby back is to get in a crack rehab program. But there are suckered, bribed, and beaten into believing bullshit. ing people speaking Spanish? On weekends I've been reading about genocide. pretend that the Mick Taussig's Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man talks about the holocaust inflicted by the Putu- I could. Martin was admitted a few hours later, and was soon misfortune of one leaves the others pled him for life in just a few more days. Not that he's likely to live for more than another year; his cancer is wildly disseminated. Even though he hasn't been told his prognosis, he does know that he can walk, and mayo rubber profiteers on the Indians. Unspeakable brutality and the murder of millions, rationalized by rushed to emergency neurosurgery to free his spine from the pressure of a tumor that would have crip- projections of the white man's own barbarism onto the victims. Yet while the whites despised the Indi- unaffected. ans, they still turned to them for their healing, because strangely it seemed to work. Does my brand of healing work? How many times The Art of Education =90 | This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Lynne Cohen have I turned my clinical gaze upon some Hispanic The white man brought not just new kinds of germs mother with her stuffed-nosed child and repeated the to sicken bodies, but a plague to kill cultures. In a incantation of my attending physician: “Your child small community where people live together their has a viral illness. Don't worry about it; come back in whole lives, and for many generations, there is no a few days if it doesn't get better, or right away if the way to pretend that the misfortune of one leaves fever gets very high.” And the mother meekly accepts the others unaffected. So where, then, is the boun- my pronouncement and goes to the desk to fill out the Medicaid paperwork. dary between reweaving the social web and restoring the body's integrity? And where do we want the boun- By what authority do I deem the child to be stricken with an innocuous virus? As one of the more forthright attending physicians confided in me, “When we tell them this, we're really just blowing hot air out of dary to be? What is a viral illness, anyway? Native healing systems didn't have the category of viral illness. Does that prove they were merely hocus-pocus? Is it simply our mouths. If we wanted to prove it, we'd have to run that Western medicine is more thorough and scienti- viral cultures, and they take too long and are too ex- fic? Then why is the molecular biology of viruses so pensive anyway. And even then there's usually no treatment.” abstracted from the social context of contagion? And why is the body reduced to a set of physical func- Why has this mother been reduced to turning to tions? How do I tell my patients that their illnesses the likes of me—indeed, the likes of any of us—for are equally caused by exploitation, uprootedness, and her medical advice? I am told that native medicines used to work a lot better before the white man cam2. violencę? And why are we reduced to me, the budding professional, having to tell them? How did they Heresies 25 L6 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms gain what we professionals call ignorance? back into the socia/ body. And even this social body is too often mechanical. hile Europeans were destroying native cultures abroad, they were burning the bearers of their own cultures’ folk knowledge at In my preclinical psychiatry course, we interviewed a nun from a conservative church who was hospitalized for depression. She told us she had been work- the stake. Women and native peoples were ing in a mission in South America, and went into crisis hunted, degraded, and killed to make way because she had never imagined such poverty. When for mechanistic thinking and the rule of the market. she questioned why God would allow such misery, she And expansionism and pursuit of profit seemed to be was told by her superiors that such thoughts were fueled by a visceral horror of sensuality and rooted- sinful. The psychiatrist teaching us made sure we ness. Nature and natives, women and witches were asked all the standard biopsychiatric questions about seen as unruly and disorderly, needing to be subdued depression: ‘Have you been having trouble sleeping? and controlled. Science vehemently excluded unmea- Has your appetite changed? Are you tired? Do you surable sense perception, and any knowledge not feel low self-esteem? Are you having trouble concen- mathematizable was strictly second class. | learn this trating? Are you finding it hard to make decisions? Do too in my medical training, as they transform me from you have feelings of hopelessness?” I was the only a they into a we. “We're only interested in the facts,” one in the room who asked her about South America I was told recently when | gave an interpretation dur- and her church. When | asked her if she'd ever heard ing rounds. But what is a fact? A fact is something of Liberation Theology, the teacher cut me off. That that someone is around to measure and document. night I complained bitterly to a radical psychiatrist That means that most things that happen don't get friend, expressing my horror that a coherent woman to be facts. would be incarcerated in a mental ward and kept from So what things are fact enough to earn entry into the medical record? Diagnosis: malignant mechanis- learning about the context of her crisis. “Martha,” my friend said to me, ‘stay horrified.” tic market economy in Europe; leading to robbery, genocide, and destruction of native lands; followed have recently crossed a threshold, moving from by violent uprooting; then chronic racism and exploi- seeing the hospital as an alien and inhospitable tation, with poor heating, poor nutrition, and over- culture to dreaming about it every night and crowding, providing a grand welcome for pathogens. finding it intriguing. This is good, because it’s If I could write that in the chart, it would no longer be enough to give the medicines and advise the bed rest hard to learn without falling in love, or at least having a little fling. But it is also dangerous. | am feel- that many in truth cannot afford to take. But only in ing the seductive power now of the medical team, and scattered progressive pockets do practitioners of so- of the hospital world. l’d barely even imagined such a cial medicine even attempt to move beyond seeing complex community of cooperation. The medical cen- illness as an individual's problem to putting the virus ter where | work and study employs about forty thou- H osa Y NAE rSe98a 0 9252s 282%, s Green Recreationals w o3 Ministry of Peace Training OSERE 9 590920; D9200 "o" 2930808 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms sand people. I do not know very much about the Mouths move much faster than faces or gestures can functioning of the whole: it overwhelms me. | barely keep pace. Eyes only track horizontally, or perhaps down know the parts of it where | am starting to participate. | to a page, but they do sometimes smile. can hardly conceive how to bridge the gap between What do such eyes not see? Of what does such knowl- calculating body fluid management and giving com- edge remain ignorant? I| sometimes wonder whether passion and comfort. my very thoughtfulness and tenderness betray the trust Only recently, while helping a physical examiner more of my patients. If I put them off guard, if | allay their skilled than I am, did I glimpse that sensitively palpat- suspicions, into what have | seduced them? One day in ing someone's abdomen for masses, or thoughtfully dis- pediatrics, we rounded on the cardiology ward to see cerning unusual heart sounds, could be a way of the “interesting findings.” A two-year-old girl, born with expressing love. The act of putting a stethoscope on a gross heart malformation, had been given a heart someone's body could be done with both tenderness transplant. Already back from death several times, she and utmost respect. I saw the reverence with which is kept on an immunosuppressive drug that has grown one could bear—not merely witness, but know/edgeable black hair all over her arms and legs, and sideburns on witness to another's physical being. And some of my her face. Her immune system is kept from rejecting physician preceptors have even taught me in this way. the alien heart, but it will also fail to fight infection or I treasure my times with my patients, for both the cancer, of which she will probably die. As I approached leisure of slow thoroughness | am granted as a stu- her chest with my stethoscope, probably the fifteenth dent, and for the ease and grace of conversation with person to do so in as many minutes, she raised up her regular people. It's easier for me to be they than we, leg and fiercely kicked my hand away. I backed off. even in my white coat, which reminds us who is who in She'd made herself as clear as she could, I thought, the hospital. But these intervals punctuate a day spent without knowing how to talk. The next student, though, in a different time warp. In the amount of time it takes me to keep track of my three patients, my interns keep was undaunted and placed his stethoscope on her How do I tell my track of a whole floor and my senior residents keep track of the whole hospital. Moments of pride I've felt patients that their in grasping my patient's case have felt smaller beside the doings of these others, who already know my pa- exploitation, told them she would have a longer life? Did they tell her how new the procedure is and how risky the drugs? and violence? have? Did the surgeons ask the parents to consecrate Did they discuss what kind of a life their child would can help to think about a single patient. Perhaps there is a different kind of grace operating their daughter to the advancement of medical science? | And why are we here: the virtuosity of coordinating complicated information. Like a foreigner who can finally understand guage that | still can barely speak. And the language is the budding “Have you ever listened to your heartbeat?” He said professional, tened. He looked very interested. How many doctors no. She put her stethoscope in his ears, and he lis- deviation from its unstated normal range opens out to had seen him, in the half of his life that he’s spent in having to tell skiing a steep, fast slope where the trees don't matter much unless they're in the way. Yet it still seems odd to Another patient, eight years old, had a very loud heart murmur that we all went to hear. My friend asked him, full of numbers, spit out rapidly, where the order re- a universe of pathophysiological significance. It’s like wonder if the parents are too numb by now to see their own daughter's rage. reduced to me, enough words to hear sentences, | am learning a lan- veals the identity of each, and where a single figure's formed from a dead duck to a live guinea pig? Had they uprootedness, choose which patients to send for tests. | am still amazed at case conferences to see how many people What had the surgeons told her parents? How had they persuaded them to allow their daughter to be trans- tem. | do not page the neurologist or endocrinologist for a consult on my own initiative. I do not (or not much) gled some trinkets above the girl's face. ‘Look at the pretty toys," he said. equally caused by sometimes medically important. But I do not yet have authority or knowledge to bring to bear the larger sys- sion on her face. An even clearer message, but this time unheeded. Finishing his exam, the student dan- illnesses are tient’s whole story and much more. True, my greater intimacy lets me uncover, or recall, details which are chest. The girl furiously kicked her arms and legs, and shook her head from side to side with a rageful expres- the hospital, without thinking to offer him their stethoscopes? them? I teach my patients what I'm doing whenever | can, me how little “affect,” as doctors call it , is expressed whenever they show the slightest interest. Before | went in this communication. Even the humor is deadpan. to medical school, I taught biology and basic science Heresies 25 — E€6 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Joni Sternbach Untitled, 1989, photograph. to working-class adults. While teaching I saw the most her aunt. Having escaped from that dire fate myself, | poignant desire to learn, matched of course by the pau- wanted to save her, too. | lavished praise on her city or resources society assigns to such low-priority intelligence—to her mother (in Spanish), to the attend- human beings: no labs or equipment, no libraries, and ing physicians, to anyone who could mirror it back to me as a teacher, self-taught in science with my art and her. And I gave her my instruments, and let her exam- humanities degrees. Yet | taught them better than | ine me. She looked into my eyes with my ophthalmo- was later taught in school myself. I nurtured then—and scope and saw the delicate red blood vessels spidering still nurture—a vision of a people's reappropriation of their way along the yellow retina toward the optic nerve science. And | truly believe you can seduce anyone if —and she even saw them pulsing with the heartbeat. you figure out how to tickle their curiosity. Play and She saw my eardrum, with the tiny sound-conducting intrigue can melt hard armor, and they are the way bones behind it, and the opalescent way it reflects the back, I think, to connected creativity, to thinking for light. She looked inside my nose and peered up into ourselves and together about how to live on this earth. the tall, dark, and narrow nasal cavern with its sheer, l am daunted now, inside the belly of the monster, by steep, curving pink walls. She listened to my heart and the enormous effort and reevaluation this vision de- her mother’s and her brother's and her own. | taught mands. Maybe | should stick with the play and com- her how to measure blood pressure. | told her that passion, and forget the knowledge and skill. But it’s there's nothing worse than being deadly bored, and that too late for that; curiosity has me hooked. she shouldn't let anyone stop her from dreaming big dreams. “Go to college,” I said, “You'll thrive on the ne day, when the clinic was slow, an eight- challenge, and it will be fun.” And I hope I gave her year-old girl came in with her sick little something to remember. With the choices I saw her brother. While she bubbled over with ques- facing, I didn't stop to discuss what she might forget. tions about every little thing I did, she told me how she could never go to college because it would be too hard—she wanted to be a secretary like Martha R. Herbert is a teacher, writer, medical student, and unrepentant materialist utopian. The Art of efori ejg —- 94 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms NOTICE This is to inform our readers that the “Women on Men” issue is being delayed as a result of our former office manager having removed without permission more than $12,000 from the Heresies corporation account (monies that were a combination of state and federal grants awarded for the publication of the “Women on Men” issue). In addition, at that time she also collected and removed all the materials for the “Women on Men” issue. To date she has refused to return either the funds or the materials to us. Heresies Collective, Inc. has been in litigation with her and her husband, who was also a signatory on the account into which the funds were originally placed, but to date we have been unable to settle. An injunction was obtained by our lawyers against the defendants in the case entitled Heresies v. Kenny and Alexander, which is pending in the New York County Supreme Court. We expect to go to trial before the end of this year to resolve this matter. Further information can be obtained from our attorneys, Alterman & Boop, P.C., 349 Broadway, New York, NY 10013, Tel. 212-226-2800. CAREL MOISEIWITSCH Subscribe to HERESIES Yvonne Lozoya s poster is one of ninety-one posters on dropout prevention, women O rY cC | S e and work, and women's history available from the Organization for Equal Education of the Sexes, 808 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Catalogue $2. ... you wort be ready for the 1990s. °... .... a A JOURNAL OF IDEAS. ISSUeSs RADICAL FEMINIST Ura, i | : NTA Y Lise pj e74 : $23 /individuals 1NI e nR Away : $33/institutions Translations Reviews Essa VA Outside the U.S., please add $6 per four issues for postage. All foreign « checks must be drawn on a U.S. bank. Anna, 7, TRI ' 7Że Moo, VIAL [y " and the VEs SI Writing which addresses the root assumptions... Heresies the very ground on which we’re SIITIA $14/year - individuals, $20/year - institutions, $16/year - out of U.\S. RO. BOX 1306 SAMPLE COPY: $6.00/$7.00. CANAL STREET STATION TRIVIA P.O. Box 606 N. Amberst, MA 01059 NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10013 This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ' b674 đ MADHOUSE MADHOUSE KATE MILLETT In 1972 through misguided family intervention I was caught and held in a California madhouse. And again in 1980, this time in Ireland where my sympathy with the hunger strikers and my ‘record’ made it possible for the police to commit me indefinitely to a back ward asylum in County Clare. Kate Millett is a New York sculptor and writer. She has been sculpting in , mixed media for f 30 years. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Sio FEER SEIRENA : : ASEE AoA Claire Moore The Secret, artist's book, ca. 1987. Claire Moore 1912—1988 The Secret was one of Claire Moore’s last hand-editioned books. A painter, writer, and teacher, Claire mimeographed her drawings and visual stories in book form before today’s copy machines were in broad use. Many of her books are in the Museum of Modern Art library and the Franklin Furnace Archive. Claire studied in New York with Werner Drewes and Fernand Leger and worked alongside Jackson Pollock in the mural painting workshop of David Siquieros. She married, painted, and studied with David Park in California before returning to New York to raise her daughter, Nellie, as a single parent. The figure and words about space and human anxieties, placed in a setting of outer space, were the subject of Claire's paintings of the last years. A mentor to many artists, writers, and poets, Claire was optimistic about the future. She died in August 1988 before the openings of a show of paintings at June Kelly Gallery and a show of works on paper at Susan Teller Gallery. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 0 ۱ 0 Ole AOA “OCR ‫ و‬3 ` ISSN 0146-3411 $6.75 ‫ارا ا تلا للا‬ This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2 Te o TT r ‫ا‬ This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I JUST WORKED,. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I SUPPOSE MY WORK WAS ROOTED IN THE WORK OF ARTISTS WHO CAME H J This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Í S TO THOSE WHO RESPOND, A WORK OF ART IS THE VISUAL, VERRAL, AURAL EVIDENCE OF A SINGULAR IDENTITY. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms SECRET CF ART IS THAT IT IS 80 SIMPLE, TO STATE This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ТНЕ ЅЕСВЕТ ВЕІОМСОЗ ТО БУЕВҮОМЕ, – МНІСН 1$ ЮНҮ І ҒЕЕІ ЕМВАНВАЅЅЕ) ТВҮІМІ ТО ЕХРІАТМ АВТ. This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms IT IS ALWAYS THE SAME SECRET, REVEALED AT DIFFERENT TIMES AND PLACES IN DIFFERENT WAYS. ART IS THE PRIKAL SECRET THAT This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The nd This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms A A = RR ESSERE This content downloaded from 134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:09:44 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms