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This issue of Heresies arises out of our need to challenge the heritage of secrecy, silence, and isolation
which has been a necessity for lesbians who make art.

lesbians, white, college-educated, and mostly middle
class women who live in New York and have a background in the arts. Unique constraints governed our

Because we have no recognizable community with a

choice of selections: the unavailability of material by

sense of history, we seek to begin one by affirming and

lesbians not ready to come out, or not willing to partici-

making visible the excellence of our efforts. As lesbians,
we choose to create an issue devoted exclusively to work

pate in a heterosexual journal; our own protectiveness
which forced us to exclude material which we saw as

by lesbians in the context of a feminist publication. We
understand that in this decision there exists an implicit

dangerous, either because it presented ideas offensive to

danger of tokenism: that this may be the only issue of
Heresies in which a substantial amount of lesbian mate-

developed manner, or because it invaded our privacy in

rial will appear. At the same time, the decision reflects
our belief that feminist aesthetics and politics would not
exist and will not continue to develop without the vision
and energy of women whose sole commitment is to
women.
Perhaps our greatest challenge as a collective has been
to remain faithful to the truth of our experience, its
beauty and its pain, as we present it to an audience
which has punished us for our very existence within it.
Because of our position within a predominately heterosexual feminist journal, we had to struggle against the
desire to make the definitive lesbian art issue. We resisted this pressure and created an issue which quite
frankly reflects the political and esthetic bias of the majority of the collective. We share no single political position, yet biases which informed our choice of material

our personal experience, or presented ideas in an unsuch a way as to expose us to abuse and misunderstanding. In each and every instance in the selection of work,
we insisted on a clear and responsible exposition of
ideas.

The difficult process of selection of material always
took us to a confrontation with our vulnerability, selfdoubt, confusion and personal pain. We wish to thank
the hundreds of contributors who, by submitting their
work, risked a similar difficulty. It is clear to us that
lesbians have merely begun an exploration of their
unique experience through making and talking about
their art.

An important responsibility rests with lesbians and
with the feminist community: to vigorously seek out
and publish lesbian art work in lesbian publications and
in feminist journals such as Heresies. Without this effort, a feminist world view cannot be created.

were certainly conditioned by the fact that we are all

HERESIES is an idea-oriented journal devoted to the examination of art and politics from a feminist perspective. We believe that
what is commonly called art can have a political impact, and that in the making of art and of all cultural artifacts our identities as
women play a distinct role. We hope that HERESIES will stimulate dialogue around radical political and aesthetic theory, encourage
the writing of the history of femina sapiens, and generate new creative energies among women. It will be a place where diversity can be
articulated. We are committed to the broadening of the definition and function of art.

HERESIES is structured as a collective of feminists, some of whom are also socialists, marxists, lesbian feminists or anarchists;
our fields include painting, sculpture, writing, anthropology, literature, performance, art history, architecture and filmmaking. While
the themes of the individual issues will be determined by the collective, each issue will have a different editorial staff made up of
women who want to work on that issue as well as members of the collective. Proposals for issues may be conceived and presented to
the HERESIES Collective by groups of women not associated with the collective. Each issue will take a different visual form, chosen by
the group responsible. HERESIES will try to be accountable to and in touch with the international feminist community. An open
evaluation meeting will be held after the appearance of each issue. Themes will be announced well in advance in order to collect
material from many sources. (See inside of back cover for list of projected issues.) Possibly satellite pamphlets and broadsides will be
produced continuing the discussion of each central theme.
As women, we are aware that historically the connections between our lives, our arts and our ideas have been suppressed. Once
these connections are clarified they can function as a means to dissolve the alienation between artist and audience, and to understand
the relationship between art and politics, work and workers. As a step toward a demystification of art, we reject the standard relationship of criticism to art within the present system, which has often become the relationship of advertiser to product. We will not
advertise a new set of genius-products just because they are made by women. We are not committed to any particular style of
aesthetic, nor to the competitive mentality that pervades the art world. Our view of feminism is one of process and change, and we feel
that in the process of this dialogue we can foster a change in the meaning of art.

THE COLLECTIVE: Ida Applebroog, Patsy Beckert, Joan Braderman, Mary Beth Edelson, Su Friedrich, Janet Froelich, Harmony
Hammond, Sue Heinemann, Elizabeth Hess, Joyce Kozloff, Arlene Ladden, Lucy Lippard, Marty Pottenger, Miriam Schapiro, Amy
Sillman, Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon, Pat Steir, May Stevens, Susana Torre, Elizabeth Weatherford, Sally Webster, Nina Yankowitz.

PICTURE CAPTION (opposite page): Mary Ann Willson. Mare Maid. c. 1820. Watercolor. Courtesy N.Y. State Historical Society.
FOOTNOTES (opposite page): R. Lionel Delisser, Picturesque Catskills: Green Country, Pictorial Publishing Co., Northampton,
Mass., 1894. Republished in 1967 by Hope Farm Press, Cornwallville, New York. 2. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History, Thomas
Crowell Co., New York, 1976 .

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“About two miles below. Greenville, on the road to Freehold, there lived, early in the present
century, two old maids.
“They owned a little log hut there, and a small piece of property surrounding it, in common. They
were supposed to be sisters, but in fact were not related by the ties of blood in any way. They had
both of them, in their younger days, experienced a romance that had broken their hearts, and the

bond of sorrow between them had drawn the two close to each other in womanly sympathy.
Together they had come from the old country to Connecticut, and from there to this place, seeking
peace and forgetfulness in the wilderness. They never told their story or anything in fact relating to
themselves that could serve as a clue to their identity or past life.
“They spent their time in the necessary work about the log house and garden which was filled with
wild flowers and ferns, and in painting water color pictures which they sold among the neighboring
settlers for small sums; the highest price being asked was twenty-five cents. These paintings. ..are
unique in the extreme, showing great originality in conception, drawing and color, as well as in the
medium employed for their production. Their subjects were generally selected from the Bible or profane history, in which they seemed to have been well-versed. The paper they used was the wrappings
of candles and tea boxes, or something of that sort. The pigments were of home manufacture. They
would hunt through the woods and fields for certain flowers, berries and weeds, which they would
boil or bruise to obtain the color they desired. These crude materials were sometimes helped with the
addition of brick dust, and in fact by anything that these primitive artists found suitable for the work
in hand.
“The lady known as Miss Wilson (sic) was the artist-in-chief; the other, Miss Brundage (sic), the

farmer and housekeeper... Their paintings are scattered, by purchase, from Canada to Mobile and
are now highly prized by the owners.”'
Mary Ann Willson and Miss Brundidge are more familiar to lesbians as “Patience” and “Sarah,”
subjects of the fictional biography by Alma Routsong (pseudonym Isabel Miller), self-published for
the first time in 1967 as A Place For Us. Information about these women is hard to find; a few of the
paintings are reproduced in the December, 1955, issue of American Heritage; the New York Historical Society owns “Mare Maid,” but has no supporting documents on Willson’s life. Most of the available information was included in a 1976 issue of Antiques magazine.

In an interview with Jonathan Katz which appears in Gay American History, Alma Routsong
describes her discovery of Willson and Brundidge and discusses the problems she faced in trying to
market a positive lesbian novel in the 1960's. The following is an excerpt from their conversation :

“My lover and I were touring New York State and were visiting the folk art museum at
Cooperstown. I was wandering through it, not really concentrating on anything, when my lover. .….
called me back, pointing to this picture of a mermaid by Mary Ann Willson. There was a card beside
it that said Miss Willson and her ‘farmerette’ companion lived and worked together in Greenville
Town, Greene County, New York, circa 1820. Then we went into the next room—a small library—
and found a book by Lipman and Winchester, called Primitive Painters in America, with a short
piece about Mary Ann Willson. It said that she and Miss Brundidge had a “romantic attachment.” I
was absolutely taken by it. I didn't want to travel any more. I didn't want to see Harriet Tubman’s

book about them.” e

bed. I wanted to go home and research Willson and Brundidge, find out all about them, and write a

Z/N

) E/F

A

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I'm a writer who struggles constantly with the urge to remain silent.

yet I will not obscure the importance of lesbianism to my life
and art. The muse and I are inextricably entwined and she is a

And I understood our collective process as a struggle with
silence. Like an individual isolated lesbian, we worked first on

woman. I1 struggle continually against any restrictions on my

self-validation. We talked about the famous respected closet

and suppresses from discussion and history (even in the

cases—could we get them to come out or figure some way to

feminist community) the essentialness of lesbianism to the
creative lives of women.

claim them. (Claiming the “great ones” is a way for a despised

identity while questioning why this culture relentlessly omits

group to feel good about itself.) And we spent many many

However, there was a far deeper reason for my panic. After

meetings doing consciousness-raising on what it means to be

nine months of working on this issue I felt that our greatest

lesbian artists—talking, some of us, about issues we had never

unfaced demon was our own homophobia absorbed by all of

discussed before. My excitement in working on this issue of

us in different ways from a culture so homophobic that it ruth-

Heresies centered around the hope that many lesbian artists
would write us, share their work, and contribute to this

lessly suppresses and punished all exploration of female

dialogue.

perately need visibility and credibility, gave us a common

The standard I used in judging work was based on my wish
to be inclusive—to present as much diversity as possible, to

sexuality. This, coupled with the fact that lesbian artists desunexamined goal: visibility as matured and serious artists.
This is only a beginning. Omitted from the issue is any

present clearly articulated articles even if I disagreed with their

dialogue that examines the role of lesbianism as central to

content.

women claiming full power over their sexuality and that such

Others in the collective felt differently. This we discovered

power is the root of strong and unique art. Do not for a

as we worked and worked and no longer had time just to talk

minute imagine that art has to be explicitly about sex or any-

to each other. We had been too busy when we started—dis-

thing so simplistic. I am speaking rather to the fact that a

cussing our similarities, our struggles, our fears, and our op-

person must be able to put the full force of herself behind her

portunities as lesbian artists—to get very far in discussing our
differences.

work. Fear of being seen as sexual, fear of the audience, fear of

Cynthia Carr

offending heterosexual friends, fear of retribution for creating
or being in the issue are only a few of the fears that are real
and need to be faced before we can initiate a discussion that
begins from a point that assumes that lesbianism is the key to
the powerfulness of all women.
Betsy Damon

The only talent I bring to the lesbian collective is my sexual
preference, a scorn of self-important pretension, a nose for
drivel, and a desire to see to it that we say it like it is. In the
past we have done ourselves and our work a terrible damage
by lying about our experience. Driven by a need for the comfort of a common political position, we have all too often

I wanted an issue on lesbian art and artists that would provoke me; an issue that would challenge all the assumptions I
have about lesbians and art; an issue that would leave me

allowed rhetoric to pass for truth. Seeking an accommodation
with the straight world, we have lied about our essential dif-

filled with questions and with the energy with which to

ference. And in a spirit of loyalty we have compromised our-

and disturbed by what they read here, finding glimpses of
themselves, as well as a sense of what is missing. What stories
are still untold?

selves by supporting thinking and work which is simply bad.
There is very little sense of humor in us. We have, by this
excusable example, leaned heavily on many closet doors

explore the questions further. I wanted lesbians to be excited

What are lesbians? What are artists? In trying to reach a

which might otherwise have sprung open. It was my hope that

working definition of these two most basic questions, a sense

with this issue we might present truly good work by lesbians.

of my own alienation from the task before us began to grow.

Now, as I am about to be pasted up and mechanicaled, I can

This alienation came from being forced to examine sexuality

say that the effort has been exhausting and perilous. And cer-

from within a patriarchal context. A context which has

tainly I am too close to the final product to say that we have
succeeded.

created distinctions and categories in order to maintain its
own power and privilege. The advantages gained by society's
“power-brokers” through perpetuating and emphasizing the

Betsy Crowell

differences among racial, economic, sexual, and religious
groups are clear. The most apparent difference between myself
and a heterosexual woman; or myself (white, middle-class),

I usually think of myself as part scientist and part magician
with certain skills that sometimes make art. Neither feminism

and a Chicano working-class woman—is one of privilege.
And for me, as a lesbian, as white, as middle-class, to maintain and perpetuate differences that ultimately exist only to

nor lesbianism determine the form and content of my work yet

deny privilege to some, seems wrong. One way I see myself as

it was only with the security of the former and the coming to

a lesbian perpetuating differences is in my focusing on what is

terms with the latter (the muse) that my life and art began to

and what is not a lesbian. “A woman who does not sleep with

be uniquely and overtly me.

men.” “Any woman who calls herself a lesbian.” “A woman

Initially I worked on the issue seeking a community to
explore in depth the relationship of lesbianism to the artist and
to discover what would happen if lesbian art and artists were
brought together. Our editorial collective’s discussions were

that loves and sleeps with other women.” “What if she sleeps
with a man one time? Is she still a lesbian?” “What if she used
to sleep with men, used to be married to one, and doesn't now,
but can't predict the future?” “What is the difference between a

some of the most provoking and intimate that I have experi-

woman-identified-woman and a lesbian?” It was in trying to

enced, yet after each I felt a sense of panic. I know that lesbians have made great art, I know that lesbians have been

answer questions like these that a sense of futility and absurdity developed. I am not a lesbian. I make love only with

major contributors to culture, and I believe that lesbianism in

women. I am in every way what society calls a lesbian. I will

the largest and most powerful sense of the word has been cen-

call myself and insist upon being called a lesbian as long as

tral not peripheral to the creative world of woman, yet I was

something called a heterosexual or bisexual exists. In all pro-

worried that we wouldn't receive sufficient “good” material. I

bability, I am referrıng to a sexuality that will never exist

also feared being viewed through society's homophobic lenses

inside me. A simple sexuality, without reference to another's

2

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gender. All of this is related to the question of circumstance

I've been painting for twelve years—as a feminist I feel I've

(the time and space I live in) and therefore related to strategy

been making “my own” art for six of those years—and have

(the means of change): an area I'm far less clear about than
that of alienation.

identified myself as a lesbian for four years. We continue, the
work and I, the commitment growing stronger, the relation-

The dilemma for me is that regardless of how I view the role

ship deeper. As I am less anxious that the work will leave me,

such distinctions serve in this society, I am brutally oppressed

or that others won't approve, I step out of my protective

by them, as they have been accepted by most everyone. The

world and find myself increasingly concerned with feminist

fact that I am a lesbian has a profound affect on my life. (My

political issues. I know how my work functions for me, but

job, my family, my friends always hang in the balance.) While

how does it fit into a larger social political view of feminism?
I have to admit that,I came to this issue with a lot of expec-

believing that “heterosexual” and “lesbian” are concepts that
directly serve to oppress us all, I know full well that as a les-

tations. From the beginning, I conceived of a whole issue

‘ bian I am intentionally persecuted and isolated by this society.

devoted to lesbian art as political. I had hoped it would give

The nearest weapon to me with which to fight back is the

lesbian artists visibility (especially lesbian visual artists who

taking of the concept and the word lesbian and claiming it as

have virtually been ignored), create dialogue and community

my own. My continuing to work on this issue is the result of
that conclusion.

between lesbian visual artists and writers, remove the separa-

The term “artist” serves a very similar function as the word
“lesbian,” though the specific effect upon society is quite different. The term “artist” distinguishes between those who are
artists and those who are not. To me, an artist is a person who
works without sham. One who works with integrity. The
three most basic tools are a sense of self, honesty, and imagination. These are also three of the greatest enemies of this

tion between lesbian art and politics, and bring an art consciousness to the lesbian community and a lesbian consciousness to the feminist art community. Since lesbian artists are so
often isolated, I had hoped that in this special collective context we would take risks, ask questions, explore ideas, and
theorize. Like a painter exhibiting for the first time, I wanted
to show it all.

Now that we have worked for almost a year on this issue, I

society. With good reason all three of these qualities are

have very mixed feelings. I think the work presented in this

suppressed in most people at a very early age and replaced
with subservience, confusion, and conformity. The expressing

issue is excellent. The problem is not the art itself, for much

of oneself creatively demands not only a sense of self, honesty,

blem is what's missing, and what is missing is a context for the

and imagination; but time...the time to listen, the time to
concentrate. To have time, is one of the most important

work. I am disappointed that this issue has avoided controversial material and has continued the artistic fear of conscious

instances of privilege (and therefore oppression) in this

political discussion. We have avoided a larger social political

society. If everyone had access to the same opportunities as

context for our work, as though it would somehow interfere

everyone else—would there be such a creature as “artist?” Art

with the work or take away from its power and meaning. To

strong work has been and is being made by lesbians. The pro-

would not have to speak for everyone if everyone could speak

think politically doesn't mean we can't see creatively.

for themselves. Because of the privilege accorded to and/or

If artmaking is an integral part of feminist revolution as I
believe it is, we should be asking the following questions:
1. What is the role and function of lesbian feminist art in the

fought for by artists in this society, the presumptuous assumption that some of us whether by genius, skill, or inspiration are

lesbian movement?

better able to express “our” circumstance—I refuse to call
myself or others “artists.” Accepting money for work and

2. What is its role and function in the feminist movement?

associating with art institutions only contributes to the class

3. How does lesbian feminist art relate to larger social strug-

system of art and artists. There are poets, performers, cooks
and the like among us. These words refer to what we do. But
“artist” refers to who we are in a context that inescapably
implies a difference that furthers oppression rather than

gles for change in a society where lesbians and others will
no longer be discriminated against?
4. How does lesbian feminist art affect and transform culture?

challenging it.

The discussion of these questions is far more important than

The most important point to me, as it refers to this issue, is

the answers. I believe that to be a lesbian artist is in itself poli-

that just as the words “lesbian” and “artist” exist within a

tical, but I also think in these days of homophobic backlash,

context and are affected by a circumstance, so does this issue.

that we need to push further and analyze all patriarchal institutions which control our lives. I feel that we have not allowed

Marty Pottenger

ourselves (because we're artists?) to deal with important issues
of lesbian separatism, socialist lesbians, lesbian sensibility, the
relationship of lesbianism to feminism, and the issues of race
and class. These subjects are not rhetorical, cliched, or irrele-

I want people to understand that to be a lesbian feminist is
to be undefined, complex, groping, newly born, uncategoriz-

vant to artmaking. To me they are very real and important in
determining the quality of lesbian art.

able and uncategorized—i.e. not a “Lesbian” as she has been
Harmony Hammond

culturally defined. I work and live for the day when the
damnable categories of human behavior are gone. And
towards this end, I am a part of Heresies and the lesbian issue.
I don't for a moment believe that we are presenting (or that

My impetus to work on this issue was rooted in the despera-

we even looked for) any answers or final solutions in this
issue. There were frightening moments when I felt that we had

tion and frustration I was experiencing working as a lesbian

to say it all right now or never. As far as I'm concerned that's
a reasonable and not too paranoid reaction to a culture which

painter within a very circumscribed.peer group. I had begun to
do what most lesbians have always done in creating a private

“gives us” NO place NO voice NO credibility NO trust. We

world of reinforcement. I no longer believe these pockets of

just have to keep stretching, shoving, insisting, confronting,

isolated support groups can bear the strain of what it means to

and pursuing whatever goals we each find most politically

be a lesbian in a culture predicated on misogyny and homo-

important and personally fulfilling. I find all the challenge I

phobia. This issue was an attempt to seek out lesbian artists

need in keeping my faith in the strength of the combined
effòrts of feminists and in taking seriously my individual acts

and publicize the fact of their existence to myself, other lesbians and other women. The dangers and ramifications of

of survival and growth in this death culture.

exposing myself and others in a solitary lesbian issue of a

I am committed to photography and the written word, to

magazine whose audience and founders are predominately

outrageous and humorous art, to women, to the chaos of

straight are inherent and menacing. But no matter what the

reconstruction, and to publishing as a way to become visible,

extent of this issue's token quality I believe that the contents

to be heard and felt by no matter how small or select an
audience.

pursue with integrity essential questions and possibilities

Su Friedrich

facing all women.
K. Webster
3

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I believe we are lesbians largely because we realize on some
level that the demands of heterosexual roles are rooted in a
tradition of violence to women’s bodies and minds. This tradition is consciously and unconsciously ritualized; it is large
and powerful, life determining in fact. Feminism can and must
help alter the tradition but cannot ultimately transcend it.
Some of us have tried to transcend it, could not, don’t believe
anybody can at this time, and reject it. Equality is a myth that
liberal feminism and theories of androgyny nourish. Selfhatred, doubt, and homophobia on some level are operative in
all our lives. In spite of this, and in defiance of this, I believe
lesbianism is fundamentally about self-preservation and selflove in a culture that would have it otherwise. The choice to
make art is directly aided and energized by such positive
impulses.
The connections between artist's lives and their artistic
creations have historically been acknowledged, probed and
even embellished upon. However, the very existence of lesbian
lives has inveterately been denied. The connections between
our lives and our work must be constructed and recognized,
by ourselves, and eventually by others. It is essential that
these connections and their powerful political ramifications be
given credence, and a loud, loud voice. Despite my terror at
signing my name to this magazine, my convictions are

I've been a lesbian and I've been a painter for a long time. I
have little respect for rhetoric, politics that squeeze the life's
blood out of artists, or theories of lesbian sensibility or lesbian imagery formulated out of daydreams.
I don't like being isolated in this magazine because my lesbian artist sisters out there refuse to come out. Backlash is on
its way, but we don't even need backlash—we have the sanctity of the closet.

Id like to personally dedicate this issue to all the women
who we know are lesbians and who have made it big in the last
forty years—as artists, as dealers, and as intellectuals—for
their steadfastness in the denial of their queerness. The
starkness of their lives led me to cherish honest living and to
search for an alternate route for making art.
I want to share what I have learned in my twenty years of
being a painter and a lesbian with lesbians who want a strong
identity as artists. I am interested in work. I am first a painter.
I am not interested in formulating politics or in promoting a
lesbian universe. I am in this despite my doubts about the productivity of collective enterprise and despite the distance it
takes me from my work.
Louise Fishman

strengthened over and over: the presence of lesbians and lesbian artists must be affirmed. The third issue of Heresies is an
attempt in this direction. My personal dedication is to all lesbian artists who understandably remain silent, in hopes that
they won't always have to.
Rose Fichtenholtz

When I am making a work of art I am making it first and
foremost therapeutically for myself, and I am alone in my
studio and feeling usually very lonely. At this time there is
only a vague sense that it is also for other women artists and
women who like to look at art. And even when I have finished
working on it and it is an expression of my own formulated
and particular visual bias, it is still not yet complete. Women

This issue of Heresies has had a particularly difficult built-in
problem. Heresies’ usual policy is not to print monographs of
contemporary artists, but the invisibility of lesbian artists and
the need for dialogue of every kind among lesbians moved us
to consider altering the monograph policy in various ways.
Essentially, because we decided to publish only lesbian-made
material, the issue itself is monographical: Ourselves, our
thought, our work.
We used a discussion and voting process to determine what
to publish. The question of inclusivity /exclusivity has been a
source of trouble for us as a collective; it was a problem that
we never resolved methodically. One direction that I felt the
urge to follow was to print as much as we could, since this
issue could be seen as a vehicle by which to strengthen a
“women's culture.” As it has been defined by some women, a
women's culture is based in part on the principle of representation of as many of oür voices as possible with the idea that the
many voices make a beautiful choir.
However, in the end I was committed to print only that
material which I felt was most powerful. This outlook can be
and has been seen as an alternative to the “many voices”
method of creating a women’s culture. I agree that what I
deem “powerful” is colored by personal biases, some of which
must be examined closely for their validity. But to try to
reflect what was “out there” seemed foolish. I felt that it was
more honest to print what I believe in; that is, not just what I
agree with ideologically but what agrees with me esthetically.
Unfortunately the usual editorial message is that to deny space
to something is to imply its worthlessness, and that, conversely, to print something is to assert its worth.
As an editor I have reflected only my own biases and
opinions. I have done so only with the hope that other lesbians
will investigate our lives true to their own opinions and
values—and that we will analyze our differences with an eye
towards our diverse pasts and our collective future.

come to my studio and look at it and see things that I was too
close to see and the painting's meaning becomes larger. And
still it is not yet finished. It seasons awhile in front of its small
audiences and insistently sits before them and I bring people in
front of it and say, “Yes, this is my art; this is my experience,”
until in some way it is recognized, analyzed and absorbed.
Then it is finished. It is finished when it goes public, is recognized, given meaning.
Women have managed somehow to survive in a womanhating culture, but rarely have they found ways to complete
expression in the culture. We know better than most that the
personal is political because when we have insisted upon our
personal viewpoint, when we have insisted Upon Our art, we
have been burned, mutilated, raped and put away—at best,
ridiculed. Exposure, even sometimes to each other, is dangerous; fraught with memories of past violence, visions of future
violence, the feeling that we will be considered crazy if we let
others know who we are and what we think. We have no historical or political context to decide which parts of us remain
intact after suffering consistent negation and brutality.
Who we choose as an audience is of vital consideration as
long as exposure is dangerous. I sign my name to this issue
with a great sense of purpose as well as real trepidation. Every
day I am aware that people think I am crazy because I am a lesbian and that violence may be done to me because of it. This
will continue long after male institutions grant us our civil
rights. It will continue until we make the reality of our experience clear. Women have often had strength in the private
domain, are safer there. When we have brought our experience,
our work, our ideas to the world we have been repudiated
and endangered. It is time to be particular and rigorous in
our language and ideas, to articulate our needs and biases, and
to insist, “Yes, this is our art; yes, this is our experience,” in a
voice that can not be refuted.
Christine Wade

Amy Sillman

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BERTHA HARRIS
The original version of this paper was intended for, and

of the inedible by the unspeakable. It is also the pursuit

presented to, academics at a Forum on Homosexual
Literature at the 1974 Modern Language Association

larly. As lesbians are “unspeakable” so is “lesbianism” a

Convention. The paper was entitled, “The Purification

taste for the “inedible.” Literature (in any form) is like

of the unspeakable by the inedible; and it is this particu-

of Monstrosity: The Lesbian As Literature.” Since then, I

the fox, a luxury; a peripheral pastime, because it is

have written other versions on this subject of the lesbian

inedible; and so is lesbianism. Lesbians and lesbian liter-

as monster in literature; and have begun to realize that I

ature are unspeakable and inedible. Most contemporary

can only finally complete what I have to say in book-

attempts to make both palatable and “speakable” (to put

length form. So I've started writing the book. The ver-

a fox in every home's Sunday pot)—universally accept-

sion below contains the theory and a partial analysis. For

able and welcome—are tantamount to grinding up cha-

examples here, however, I have chosen mostly instances

teaubriand into winkieburgers.

of popular literature—such as Dracula, Jaws, Burnt

To those acquainted with reading (but most people,

Offerings, etc. Expanded, this essay on the idea of lesbian

and most lesbians, do not read) what is being called les-

monstrosity in popular fiction will form one chapter of

bian literature these days is sheer winkieburger; and

the book I am preparing.

around and about that “literature” is afoot a movement

to make the world safe for winkieburger—although
To misappropriate Oscar Wilde's remark about the
English and fox-hunting: lesbian literature is the pursuit

tree-worshippers on our west coast will not touch it;

and ritualists who periodically burn their menstrual
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blood prefer to do that instead. Most lesbians (like

and wear male underwear any longer—and while we see

everyone else) would rather feel than read; they thus

her operating in what some might very loosely call a

achieve their most longed-for goal: to be like everyone
else. And that is too bad. Lesbians, instead, might have

been great, as some literature is: unassimilable, awesome, dangerous, outrageous, different: distinguished.
Lesbians, as some literature is, might have been mon-

strous—and thus have everything. Monsters are, and

“cultural” context of tree-hugging, feminist folk/rock,

vegetarianism and goddess-worship, her aggressive,
strong, even magnificent image is by and large taken on
by her beholder still inside the heterosexual/patriarchal
definition of moral and political reality. Lesbian literature is not a matter of a woman plus a woman in bed.

have always been, invented to express what ordinary

As the devout seek to “prove” a matriarchal pre-history

people cannot: feeling. Monsters (among other things)

by pointing to circular forms in cave painting; as still

are emblems of feeling in patriarchy, The enemy of the

others cherish bizarre snippets of human detritus as the

monster is phallic materialism, which demands that
chaos be shaped and ordered, made sexually econom-

acts of lesbianism are positive proof—both in and out of

ical, around the emblem of a cock. The literature of

literature—of the existence of lesbians. As though we

phallic materialism is about reducing “chaos” (wilderness, Woman, imagination, the erotic) into an erect (predictable) order (by means of rifles and missiles, fire and

foreskin of Jesus—lesbians overwhelmingly believe that

were spending all our lives in the courts of law, we rely
almost entirely on materiality as evidence of truth. It is

concrete, the ritual of marriage and the double bed;

sexual materiality, of course, that is these days the
supreme evidence, not only of truth and love but,

genital spasm). The story is about what it means to be a

indeed, that one is alive. And perhaps it has always been

cock; and what it means to be the other end of the cock.
The most inventive of these stories is regularly awarded

so; and perhaps it is best that it is so. But lesbians have
been unable to enact a completely lesbian reality—and

the Nobel Prize. “Invention” in these stories regularly

therefore, a literature—because of such reliance on the

takes the form of what constitutes the other end of the

sensational as proof of existence: because we have been

cock: what form the monster will take.
Most writers of imaginative literature (by which I
mean fiction and poetry)—and their attentive readers—
do not understand that a lesbian form significantly differing from the patriarchal form I have described is not
achieved through sexual substitution. For example, two

women (instead of a woman and a man) overcoming

the apotheosis of the sensational, defined utterly by
sexual behavior and no other kind. As such, we have

served an emotionally crippled society well: imagined
as entirely sexual, we are also imagined as complete:
i.e., a human form (therefore natural) engaging in unnatural (therefore supernatural) activity. Law, basing its
decision on material evidence, thus shows what is out of

parental opposition, surviving the wilderness, enjoying

law; and makes the divine, which is worshipped; and

domestic bliss together, achieving orgasm with a finger

makes the criminal, which is brutalized—and adored,

instead of a penis is only Romeo and Juliet again with

two differences: happy endings—of both kinds. A
woman suffering in Tolstoyan detail over another
woman (instead of a man) overwhelms with catalogues

of sexual candor; genital explicitness substituting for
Napoleon's entry into Moscow. It is not that these, and
all the others, are not “good” books. They are—and so
are the excruciatingly refined recollections of a dear old
lady who mistakes the chirrups of a female sociologist
for the call of the Wild. Anything is, after all, better
than nothing. My complaint lies in the fact that these
individual turnabouts of heterosexual reality seem, to
many, to constitute a literary expression of lesbian sensibility; and as such distract us from the apprehension of
lesbian reality.
The great service of literature is to show us who we
are. Put more simply, we tend to behave, and think, as
books show us how to behave and think (and I am being
deliberately naive here—I do know that movies and television have almost completely taken over the role of
books as behavior show-ers and shapers). Lesbians, historically bereft of cultural, political and moral context,
have especially relied on imaginative literature to dream

themselves into situations of cultural, political and
moral power. Twenty years ago, without Molly Bolt,

we were Rhett Butler and Stephen Gordon and the
Count of Monte Cristo. It is, of course, much more to

the point to be Molly Bolt—or Patience or Sarah or
Mrs. Stevens. The trouble with this process (vulgarly
referred to as “identifying with”) is that while the new
lesbian hero is certainly safer for our mental health than
Rhett or the Count of Stephen—we do not have to associate power and adventure with the penis any longer;
we do not have to call on God to cure us of “inversion”

Female monster with two heads. From Boaistuau's Histories
Prodigeuses, Paris, 1573.

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and for the same reasons the “divine” is worshipped:

she can be shown (as her bleeding testifies) to be impure.

because of its difference. Human beings tend to adore

Such a cooptive process is accompanied by huge erup-

that which they are not, but long to be; or, given the

tions of guilt and fear which, in literary creation (as well

“chance,” can be; and this is a wish for salvation—and

as myth), takes the form of the monster: the quintes-

salvaging. Such a wish, expressed in an entirely whole

sence of all that is female; and female enraged.

social context, makes a literature in which heroes appear

The amount of collective guilt by those who hold

performing great tasks of strength, love, endurance,

power over women can be effectively measured at any

intellectuality, suffering. Each task accomplished for the

one time by the amount of “monster” literature that is

hero means transcendence, not only for the hero but for

published during that time. Especially if such literature

the culture whose need he has accomplished. The task

is popular with the public (as it was in nineteenth cen-

itself changes from time to time; from place to place;

tury Europe and as it is now in twentieth century Amer-

but its purpose—transcendence—does not. The lesbian

ica) we can be certain that two emotions have seized the

equivalent of such a hero in literature is the monster.

general imagination: extreme fear that those who have

Monsters, heroes, criminals and lesbians (and some-

been tricked of power are conspiring to regain it—and

times saints and gods) have the following traits in com-

will—and that artificial restraints on the wild (such as

mon: an ability to make a life outside the social norm

marriage) are collapsing; and a great longing (accom-

that seems both enviable and frightening to those inside;

panied by remorse and nostalgia for “real” wildness) for

an actual or imagined power to concentrate which may
whose object is to solve a problem; marks of difference

the conspiracy to succeed. While Mary Shelley was
composing Frankenstein, William Blake was observing
the havoc the Industrial Revolution was wreaking on

that are physically manifested and both horrify and

England's green nature. Mary Shelley's monster rises out

thrill; a desire to avenge its own (and sometimes others)

of “dark Satanic Mills” as pure evil and as a result of evil

outcast misery: through destruction or through forcing

inflicted on the natural: “Oh Horror!—let me fly this

a change in the world that will admit it and its kind; an

dreadful monster of my own creation!” Frankenstein's

ability to seduce and tempt others into its “evil” ways;

monster longs to be loved; many monsters feel that love

super-human power.

will cure their alienation. Significantly (perhaps unique-

be either emotionally or intellectually expressed—but

From boy to man to old man, the male body changes

ly among monsters) Mary Shelley isO wishes it could

hardly at all. The changes it does incur are hardly dra-

read and write. Blake's “dark Satanic Mills” have

matic. From girl to woman to old woman, the female

advanced into the last half of the twentieth century

body is in constant flux; and to the primitive imagina-

transformed into sophisticated technological death; and

tion (which we all have) female physical change is the

almost daily a new monster is mass-distributed in paper-

matter of all magic; the genesis of all fear; the stuff of

back. Vampires, poltergeists, witches are being refur-

all mythic and fictive exaggeration. The female bleeds.
She bleeds, but does not die from bleeding. She grows
breasts: breasts springing from the nothing that is chest.

Her hips spread; her waist indents; her belly grows
huge. In great physical turbulence, she produces life, her
selfs replica, and seemingly at her will and unaided. Her
body can feed this new life. Such a creature with such
power—not only over life itself but power over the continuing life of the community—must be dealt with: her
power over life must be met with an equivalent power.
The most obvious form that this new invented power
(invented through motives of fear and envy) will take is
the power to choose whether the woman will live or die.
Her power over life must be matched with a power over
her death. This invented power over woman is enacted
in various overlapping stages: she is made sacred and
worshipped (because she is outside the male “norm ”).
Through worship, it is hoped, she will be propitiated—
she will not turn her magic inside out and cause death
instead of on-going life. She is made profane, stripped
of her magical properties, reduced to “mere” flesh. In
this form she embodies horror and thrill and, especially,
evil. For fear that she herself will turn her magic insideout, the community appropriates that decision and does

it instead. In both divine and obscure forms, the
woman's magic is under the control of others and she is

rendered powerless. To experience powerlessness is to
experience death. Further, both forms of control have
the added effects of “taming” that which was perceived
as wild, and therefore dangerous. For the male to appear
wild, he must create a contrast to tameness; in effect,

steal woman's wildness and use it as drag: become
magic himself. And he will become divine, by contrast,
if she can be made profane. And he will become pure if

L EA
:
t Z

P z

SSRs
~ f
>Z

The m headed Barbara Urselin, born in 1641 in Augsburg,
from Aldrovandus' Opera Omnia Monstrum Historia, 1668.

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bished in modern guise: Ann Rice deliberately recreates

power to destroy her husband and son; and at last can

old Dracula as a dream of eroticism; but old Dracula,

enjoy not only a room of her own but an entire, and

from the nineteenth century, still threatens his worthy

rather lovely, house of her own. Blood, as in the case of

pursuers (intent on making the world safe from “vampires”) that he will take their women away from them
and turn them (the men) into his jackals. An adolescent
girl, abominated because she is “different” elects to let
difference serve her instead of defeat her, and turns the
“shame” of menstruation into a bloom of napalm. The

natural conspires with the supernatural—as it always
has through monster literature; and, through the union,

the vampire, is the transforming agent. Frequently patriarchal guilt will, besides the monster, produce types of
men to suffer and eventually defeat her. Bram Stoker's
Dracula and Peter Benchley’s Jaws are exactly the same
in this respect: a man of the past, a man of the present
and a man of the (technological) future unite emotionally and as workers to kill the being whose erotic rage
most threatens their sexual control; and the crucial les-

produces both a configuration of love that is non-phal-

son of male/skill bonding against female/creature union

lic; and of power that is counter-phallic. A maiden plus

is again reinforced. Of this genre, Jaws—whose direct

a beast produces a monster: that is, “unspoiled” nature

ancestor is the old tale of “Beauty and the Beast”—is the

(unfucked, unsocialized) whose image is the maiden
who will find herself (sometimes through happenstance,
sometimes even deliberately) in league with the supernatural. Together, they terrify, and must be separated
(by the phallus)—one, commonly, transformed to wife ;

the other exchanged for husband. While patriarchal
guilt has invented the monster to manifest its guilt,
patriarchal need to reenact triumph over the monster is
so far a greater urge. But Burnt Offerings, another massmarket paperback, is an interesting switch; as is Carrie.
Carrie, though she herself is killed in the holocaust her
rage creates, seems as alive after death as she was before.
“Can female anger be quenched by the grave?” seems to

be the question. Certainly, the vampire’s cannot—except by the stake through the heart: along, stiff, pointed
object ‘snuffing out eternal life through love’s symbol.
While Burnt Offerings is thematically similar to Shirley
Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (but thematically
only; literary merit is not an issue here); and while
there is material lesbian content in Jackson’s novel and
not in the other, Burnt Offerings is one of the few mon-

ster tales with a happy monster ending. The young
housewife, with the help of the vicious house, gleefully

turns into a witch (or witch variant), uses her new

most clearly lesbian. Maiden, beast and nature are fused

in one giant, ravenous killer form whose freedom
depends upon the wipeout of the nuclear-familied,
heterosexual beach and all its supporting structures.
And this time it takes more than mere phallic flesh to

subjugate the monster: the penis (the pointed stake
through the heart) has become great tubes of lethal
explosive. As vagina dentata grows even longer, stronger incisors, so must the weaponry to blow it up—and
teach it a lesson—increase in diameter, length and ability to shoot straight. When Djuna Barnes wrote Nightwood she was creating, in the silent, devouring magic of

her lesbian, Robin Vote, a sleepless swimmer in the
depths of all our imaginations; and her new name is
Jaws—and her ancient name, Beauty.
But lesbian literature, which, in patriarchy is necessarily monster literature, has begun to take new shapes
utterly independent and free of the male tradition: as it
must, to produce any kind of happy ending. With only
a few exceptions, the old monster is experiencing its
most telling re-rendering in the imaginative literature
from the independent women’s presses, where it is being
returned to its original female shape. The old fearsome
disguises, the gruesome costumes of terror are being

stripped away, revealing what was there all along: a
free woman declaring through art, for the first time,
what a lesbian is. Much of what a lesbian is, this new
BUYS AND GIRLS! Qu RARE UGDASKNS,
IAH m SESUTIFUL AS APHRODITE, WISE AS

WETER THAN HERCULES ~ HAS T TARE CABE OA
THACE THE Sar RTL Y T TELL YOU MORE WOLD REVEAL

THE ASTONISHING SUAPRISES IN THE TALE CF

"WONDER WOMAN,

=AMAZON
STESS
BABY SITTER!
SOPE

work is telling us, is that which has been unspeakable
about women. In June Arnold's The Cook and The Carpenter, we learn that political passion is a direct result of
physical passion among women. In Linda Marie's I Must
Not Rock and Nancy Lee Hall's The True Story of a
Drunken Mother the “common” language of the common woman that Judy Grahn prophesied in The Common Woman poems is at least an esthetic reality. In June
Arnold's Sister Gin to be old and fat is also to be a lover.
Pat Parker's poetry shows that it is even possible to be

Black and stay Black when one is a lesbian. In M.F.
Beal's Angel Dance and in my own novel, Lover, men
are dangerous to the lives of women: and so they are

killed. Such works, from such places, constitute the
beginnings of the future of lesbian literature and serve
to show what the lesbian is becoming: a creature of
tooth and claw, of passion and purpose: unassimilable,

awesome, dangerous, outrageous, different: distin-

guished.

Copyright © by Bertha Harris.

Wonder Woman by Charles Moulton. May 1957. D.C.

National Comics.

Bertha Harris is a novelist, a feminist, a mother, an essayist,
an editor, a teacher, a misanthropist and a lesbian. Her most
recent novel is Lover, published by Daughters, Inc.

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The enemies of She Who call her various names

a whore, a whore
a fishwife a cunt a harlot a harlot a pussy
a doxie a tail a fishwife a whore a hole a slit
a cunt a bitch a slut a slit a hole a whore a hole
a vixen/ a piece of ass/ a dame-filly-mare

dove-cow-pig-chick-cat-kitten-bird
dog-dish/ a dumb blonde
you black bitch-you white bitch-you brown bitch-you yellow
bitch-you fat bitch-you stupid bitch-you stinking bitchyou little bitch-you old bitch-a cheap bitch-a high class
bitch-a 2 bit whore-a 2 dollar whore-a ten dollar
whore-a million dollar-mistress
a hole a slut a cunt a slit a cut
a slash a hole a slit a piece
of shit, a piece of shit, a piece of shit

She Who bears it

bear down, breathe
bear down, bear down, breathe
bear down, bear down, bear down, breathe
She Who lies down in the darkness and bears it
She Who lies down in the lightness and bears it
the labor of She Who carries and bears is the first labor
all over the world

the waters arę breaking everywhere
everywhere the waters are breaking
the labor of She Who carries and bears
and raises and rears is the first labor,
there is no other first labor.

Judy Grahn

Judy Grahn is a thirty-seven year old poet. Her books include
The Common Woman and Edward the Dyke. The above
poem is from She Who, A Graphic Book of Poems which was
recently published by Diana Press. She is working on a matriarchal novel.

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7000 Year Old Woman. Performance #2, a street event, fully clothed. Photo by Su Friedrich
10

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THE 7000 YEAR OLD WOMAN
Betsy Damon
Photographs by Su Friedrich

Who is she? I will tell you what I know about her which is very little. She is my sister, mother, my
grandmothers, my great grandmothers, friends and lovers. She is my woman line of 7000 years and she is me,
the me that I know very little about. She found me in Los Angeles in spring, 1975. I began imagining myself
covered with small bags filled with flour. For the next two years I constantly saw the image with one change. She
became a clown and I decided to paint my body and face white. Only after completing the first Sacred Grove,
did I identify her as a 7000-year-old woman. While I was more and more in awe of her and did not know very
much about her, naming her was the first step towards performing her.
What has become clear is that I am a facilitator for her. I have some skills and discipline but she has her own
magic. I learn about her through the performances, that is, through her existence.

Performance #1: A Sacred Grove Collaboration
Cayman Gallery, New York
March 21, 1977
Description of the piece:
I painted my body, face and hair white and blackened my lips. Hanging from and covering my body were 420
small bags filled with 60 pounds of flour that I had colored a full range of reds from dark earth red to pink and
yellow. To begin the piece I squatted in the center of the gallery while another woman drew a spiral out from me
which connected to a large circle delineated by women who created a space with a sonic meditation. Very slowly
I stood and walked the spiral puncturing and cutting the bags with a pair of scissors. I had in mind the slow
deliberateness of Japanese Noh theater, but none of the gestures were planned and at one point I found myself
feeling so exposed that I tried to put the bags back on. The ponderous slowness combined with the intrinsic
violence of the cutting and the sensuous beauty of the bags created a constant tension. By the end of the
performance the bags on my body were transformed into a floor sculpture. I invited the audience to take the
bags home and perform their own rites.
The 7000 year old woman will exist in many places and many aspects in the future.

This piece is about time; remembering time; moving out through time and moving back through time;
claiming past time and future time. At the end of the piece I had a certain knowledge about the metaphysical
relationship of time; the accumulation of time, and women’s relationship to time past. I came out of the piece
with a knowledge about the burden of time. A woman sixty years old is maybe twenty times more burdened
than the thirty-year-old by her story. While I don't understand the mathematics of this I did feel it to be true. If
we had had 7000 years of celebrated female energy this would be different.

During the performance I was a bird
a clown
a whore
a bagged woman
an ancient fertility goddess
heavy-light
a strip-tease artist
sensuous and beautiful
After the performance I was certain that at some time in history women were so connected to their strength
that the ideas of mother, wife, lesbian, witch as we know them did not exist.

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Performance #2: A Street Event
Claiming a space on Prince Street near West Broadway, New York

May 21, 1977 1-3p.m.

Description of the event:
7000 year old woman existed on the street for two hours unprotected except by a sand circle, yellow triangles
and her energy. As I was preparing the bags in the studio I imagined her in light colors, part clown and part an
ancient spring person who would hang out in the street. I asked one woman, Su Friedrich, to assist me. At home
I painted my body, hair and face white and blackened my lips. I wore underpants and a shirt. We began by
delineating a space with a sand circle. In the center we ceremoniously arranged all the bags. I stood in the center
while Su tied the bags on my body aware constantly of the shield the bags were providing. There were 400 bags
filled with pale red, yellow, orange and purple flour. This became an intimate ritual of its own which lasted
nearly an hour. When this was done Su left the circle and I remained with my only protection, the bags. There
were a few bags left over which I tossed to the audience, hoping to capture some of the clown and establish
contact with the audience. However, my sense of vulnerability was overwhelming, I could not move from the
center of the circle and did not want to begin cutting the bags off. Friends brought flowers, boys threw eggs and I
could feel the intense reactions of the audience. I was in a constant struggle with a group of street boys who
wanted me or the bags and could never get enough. They were balanced by the many girls and women who were
silently engrossed. Finally I stood and slowly walked the circle cutting the bags away, letting the flour spill out or
handing the bags to the viewers. Without the bags to protect me, my sense of vulnerability was intolerable and I
returned to the center and squatted to finish the piece. Throughout the performance, Amy Sillman painted
yellow triangles around the sand circle. Her activity, more intimately connected with the cobble stones and
always at the mercy of the crowd was the only buttress between me and the crowd.
Some additional reactions and notes on the event: Su and I were exhausted after the piece. All that I could say
was that I had been a guerrilla fighter for two hours. This feeling was so powerful that it obscured everything

normal space. |

else. For two hours I created a female space. However, I never knew until that afternoon how completely all
things female had been eradicated from our streets. So totally is this true that we do not even notice that she is
missing. I experienced much unanticipated violence during the event, yet I felt that I was a natural person in a

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Performance #2: A Street Event
A description by Su Friedrich who assisted in the performance of the event
Betsy's magic circle:
The 7000 year old woman’s Sacred Grove.
My temporary refuge, my stage.

Private activities becoming public, intimate gestures between Betsy and me being questioned, observed,
encouraged or debased by the fluctuating crowd. Westchester ladies, street tough boys, perplexed and absorbed
girls, Soho thinkers and smirkers, women friends, Catholic grandmothers—a strange (re)union, our temporary
bond being this massive cryptic 7000-year-old woman.
Intimate gestures: tying the bags on Betsy's chalk white body layer by layer, led along by whispered directions
from her but gaining my own momentum as I absorb the colors and textures, the soft, firm, heavy bags laid out
on the ground in front of her like offerings, like children’s clothes, like flowers, these useless but nevertheless
significant treasures.
Our theatre, our ritual of preparation reminded me of the decoration rituals shared by young girls, by my
friends and me: brushing Veronica's long blonde hair, helping my sister into her dress before the party, quiet

conversations on our common “secrets” of what is pretty or strong or burdensome about ourselves; sharing
nervous anticipation, mutual support for the eventual, inevitable journey outside our female circle; feeling
positive about ourselves, feeling protected, so as to be strong outside, on the stage.
I lost some of that inner tension and private interaction when I had to assume my more familiar public role of
photographer as she continued the piece. Through the lens I observed the crowd, the same people who had just

been watching me and therefore somehow had power over me. There was the enchanted young girl whose
concentration and comfort was shattered when an egg landed nearby and soiled her dress; the greedy, arrogant
boys who had no qualms about entering the space to take as many bags as possible (to be used down the street
later in a fight); and the many 20-30-40 year old men and women whose interests ranged from trying to guess her
gender (“no woman has a jawline like that”) to staring transfixed and delighted at the apparition of a woman,

white faced and laden with sixty pounds of rose- and jonquil-colored bags making a substantial, private,
controlled but romantic/ theatrical space for herself.
My immediate attraction to her visually is the direct reference (unconscious: Betsy has never seen them) to the
beautiful “warrior vests” of certain African nations: cloth jackets heavily laden with magic tokens of leather,
wood and stone, used essentially as “arrow proof” vests in war.

Hugeness, protection, ponderous weight, gentle colors, sensuous textures, tenuous construction and so
temporary as the bags were slashed open, letting the colors pour out and cover the ground, leaving a soft pink
trail, a circular trail of footsteps and discarded bags.
Betsy Damon is a performer, sculptor and mother who recently moved to New York City. Over the last five years she has
been a visiting artist and lecturer at many universities, involved in feminist art programs, and founded a Feminist Studio in
Ithaca, New York.
Su Friedrich is a freelance photographer who is interested in doing projects which explore fantasy and deception.

13

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they're always curious

they're always curious about what you eat as if you were
some strange breed still unclassified by darwin & whether
you cook every night & wouldn't it be easier for you to
buy frozen dinners but i am quick to point out that my intravenous tubing has been taken out and they back up saying i
could never just cook for one person but i tell them it's
the same exactly the same as for two except half

but more they're curious about what you do when the urge
is on & if you use a coke bottle or some psychedelic dildo
or electric vibrator or just the good old finger or whole
hand & do you mannippppulllaaatttte yourself into a clit
orgasm or just kind of keep digging away at yourself & if
you mind it & when you have affairs doesn’t it hurt when it’s
over & it certainly must be lonely to go back to the old finger
& they always cluck over the amount of space you require
& certainly the extra bedroom seems unnecessary & i try to
explain that i like to move around & that i get antsy when
i have the urge so that it's nice to have an extra place
to go when you're lonely & after all it seems small compensation for using the good old finger & they're surprised because they never thought of it that way & it does seem reasonable come to think of it

& they kind of probe about your future & if you have a will or
why you bother to accumulate all that stuff or what you plan
to do with your old age & aren't you scared about being put
away somewhere or found on your bathroom floor dead after
your downstairs neighbor has smelled you out but then of course
you don't have the worry of who goes first though of course
you know couples live longer for they have something to live
for & i try to explain i live for myself even when in love but
it's a hard concept to explain when you feel lonely

Irena Klepfisz is an editor of Conditions. A collection of her poetry,
Periods of Stress, is available from Out and Out Books.

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“Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the

the process of making art. Although only fragments are

truth of our experience. Our future depends on the

presented here, at least it is a beginning for the sharing
of “secrets.”

sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake,
beyond the personal, in the project of describing our
reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.” *
Adrienne Rich

It was difficult for us to focus on the energizing effects
of our lesbianism on our work. Obviously, this is the
area which needs the most thought. Some of us sense
that we have special powers and great potential to make

The Tapes are the edited comments of ten lesbian

the best art. Why is that? Coming out gave most of us a

visual artists who met as a group in New York City

great deal of energy for our work. But what is it about

during the winter of 1977. Even though many of us had

being a lesbian that really affects our work directly and

had prior experience in feminist and lesbian groups,

makes it different from other work, if it is different?

none of us had ever before sat down to talk about our

What does lesbian art look like? This subject was only

lesbianism and our art. For each of us, this new group

touched upon during our discussions. The fact that there

experience was profoundly moving. Discovering after

is only a handful of us scattered here and there and even

our first meeting that the experiences of the “older” les-

less who are exhibiting our work or who have a degree

bian artists (age 30-45 years) seemed vastly different

of visibility as artists and as lesbians seems to indicate

than those of the younger artists, we found it necessary

the powerful male machinery and the myths which con-

to separate into two smaller groups. The Tapes repre-

trol an artist even in her studio. The anguish of working

sent, with the exception of the “Coming Out” section,

that is evidenced in this article is. some indication of how

the thinking of the older group. At some time we hope

much guilt we carry around with us for having done it

the younger group, which continued to meet, will pro-

at all. As a community, we seem to be in a comparable

duce a similar statement.

place to that of the feminist art community five years

With our goal being to share our experiences as les-

ago, yet with the double jeopardy of coming out as les-

bian artists, we found ourselves discussing a myriad of

bians as well as artists. Our need for community is over-

issues, the highlights of which are presented here. A

whelming and yet, as The Tapes reveal, we have ambiv-

number of surprising facts emerged. Only two of us had

alence even about that. Forming a community is almost

identified as lesbians for more than four years. As would

impossible when ninety percent of its potential members

be expected, the experience of being a lesbian in the fif-

choose to remain in the closet. I see The Tapes as a

ties and sixties had a strong impact on our politics and

nudge toward a common ground for lesbian artists. At

attitudes. The majority of the group had not experienced

the very least, it will provide information about how

the quality of oppression, repression, rage, and despair

some of us live and work and what we are thinking

that only the fifties could inspire. Four out of six of us in

about—examples of the fact of our existence.
Louise Fishman

the older group are mothers and the subject of mother-

hood became one of the most profound and painful
issues to emerge. That the institution of motherhood for
these women artists was a greater source of oppression
than that of being identified as a lesbian and that their
motherhood functioned initially as a survival mechanism were both striking revelations. A less surprising dis-

COMING OUT
“My mother found me in bed with a woman when I was
sixteen. I was scared to death. She walked over to me
and said, ‘You are swine’ and slapped me as hard as she
could. I raced out of the house and I was out in the

cussion included the complexity of relationships with

night.... My mother never looked for me.... I dis-

our mothers, sources of great difficulty as well as inspir-

gusted myself, and yet, this relationship was my only

ation. The section which mentions established women

artists is short because of the probability of being taken

happiness. With all the politics, that rejection is never
diminished."

to court for divulging some of our personal knowledge
or sharing some well-worn secrets about those mighty

“I am thirty-eight. I came out as a lesbian twenty-one

ladies. The sections on anger, energy, and work should

years ago, in 1956. I came out publicly about five years

be further amplified by other lesbian artists. This is the

ago, at a Women’s Ad Hoc Committee meeting. There

area of The Tapes which I find most important to me as

was no comment from anyone there. It was as if I'd

a painter—the information which was kept a mystery to

sneezed. When I came out I also made an important

most of us—probably to maintain certain myths about

commitment to being an artist. The two seemed to go
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hand in hand in nourishing each other... My father

“I feel that I came out through the Women's Movement,

stopped supporting me and for the first time I was forced

with a certain support group around me which made it!

to start thinking about how I was going to survive.”

very easy; very, very, comfortable. That support
group, combined with my work, was a place where I

“I didn't watch a movie, watch a TV program, have a

could deal with certain parts of myself, so I really con-

conversation with a man for two years. I didn't read a

fronted my lesbianism in my work and it was just a

critical art journal, nothing. Ideally, I would have liked

matter then of removing the hidden parts of it in my

to have lived that experience for ten years, intensely
involved with another woman.”

work, taking the layers away, admitting what was in
the work. Once that was bared, it was obvious. I think
that I found a real support group in being a lesbian.

“I felt a speedy and incredible rush of energy for awhile.

That was not a painful experience for me. But what I

However, I think an equal amount of energy, a different

had not found was a support group as a lesbian artist. I

kind of energy, goes into just sustaining the center of

am pretty fortunate. I am always hired as a visiting les-

myself around being a lesbian.”

bian artist. I can be out pretty much wherever I go."

“In coming out, I felt magical for the first time in my

“I came out within the past year. I think it is directly

life, and I felt I could use that magic in my painting.”

related to focusing on whether I could be a painter or
not.”

“I am twenty-three. I came out about a year ago. When
I was in art school a lesbian painter came to speak. I

“It seems very clear to me that I am different and it takes

think the response she got made me realize there was no

me a long time to remember that it's because I am a

way a woman could have her experience, her art taken

lesbian... feel that when I came out I went in. It's like

seriously (let alone come out as a lesbian) in that con-

everyone I know seems to come out. And I have been

text. I dated one of my male professors, believing it to

thinking lately about the people who don't. My relation-

be a sure method of getting attention for myself as an

ships with them have been very different and not as

artist... I've got to be a lesbian in order to be a painter

important.”

because there is no other way in this world that I can
make art that is my own. I feel that I do have a strong

support group. Two lesbians/painters/friends live in

my building. We've been to the same art school and listened to the same rhetoric. I don't want to talk like the

“I am twenty-two. I came out at school last year. I know
I've been a lesbian for a long time but it was a matter of
being afraid to admit it to myself. But I think I was
smart enough along the way to cultivate friends who

boys do. I want my language to come directly from my

were supportive and sympathetic and shared a lot of my

work. We are having a very hard time with this (lan-

feelings and ideas so that by the time I was ready to

guage) which may have to do with still not believing in
ourselves.”

come out publicly I had already surrounded myself with

people who would support me.... Iam a painter and
one of the things that really concerns me now is bringing
together my feelings about being a lesbian and my feelings about painting, because I feel as though they have
been really separate. Now I'm trying to empty out a lot
of the garbage from school. The rhetoric is sort of clattering in my head... One of the big problems I have in
painting is that I feel that my paintings aren't mine. I
have trouble doing them and I feel they don't come from
me. For that reason I have a feeling I am always lying.
Lying to myself and not taking myself or the work
seriously.”

MOTHERHOOD
“I have been denied my motherhood. I am not allowed
to have my children, to have a say about where my children go to school or what's to become of them. I am permitted to see them on weekends. I am not permitted to
take my children for two months in the summer... I
was not allowed to have my children in my loft for two
years because I am schizophrenic and because I went to
a looney bin. And because I am considered by my society and by my husband not fit to be a mother. The children have made the bridge by coming to me and making

other things possible.... I would not choose to have

my children all year round because I want to paint. But I
would choose to have them for a month or six weeks in
the summer and I am not permitted that.”

“My children are some of my closest friends. I am the
only person here who has made the choice to throw my
lot in with the kids. I have kept peace and haven't gone

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through the terrible struggles and pain which you all

ended up killing herself at the age of fifty-nine, after

have. But on the other hand, I am thirty-eight years old

spending thirty years studying painting, including a

and have no work which really moves me. It’s going to

summer with Siqueiros and a year at the Barnes Founda-

take me a long time now to develop that, having made

tion. She had fifteen or so one-woman shows and is in

the choice I made. I have paid a big price for that

four major museum collections. She married a man who

choice.”

was a writer and an intellectual who hated her energy

“I don't have children and my family doesn't think I'm a

and her gift and spent all his waking hours beating her
down. On her death bed she was worried that he would

person because I haven't. I had an abortion. It was a

not be able to get along without her, despite the fact that

choice that I'm only beginning to forgive myself for

he had watched her as she slowly killed herself and did

now. Before that I thought abortion was murder. But

nothing to help. Both of their concerns for their men

when I got pregnant I didn't care. I would rather kill

overshadowed any real help they could give me.

than to have men in my life. I couldn't have been a
painter. Everything would have been destroyed.”

“My mother is totally into self-denial. She is a very cre-

“I don't feel my lesbian oppression as greatly as I have

behind the man.”

ative, positive woman.... She is “the great woman
felt oppression as a mother. That isolation is just so
brutal that I had to get out of it. It was killing me. I

“The death of my mother-in-law woke me up to a direct

don’t feel that about being a lesbian.”

vision of the content of my anger and my need for a rite
of passage..….…. I perceived her death as all her woman-

“For me, having a child was the only way there could be

energy turned against her. I had the incredible feeling

a possible experience of direct physical love, because I

that I was going to die too if I didn't do something. My

could not feel any honest physical love with a male and

selves had gotten highly separated. I was feeling very

physical love with a female was taboo. So that was my

unreal. . .and her death coincided with that.”

inspiration to have a child.... But then when I had the
child I had nothing but hatred for it because it took me

“My mother died this year. She kept worrying that I

from the studio.”

would be alone because I didn't have children. I never
worried about that before. . .but those being her parting

“Having a child was the only way I knew to love myself.

words, I was filled with worry.”

I loved being pregnant. I had incredible energy. I was
creative... I fell in love with my body. I was back in

“Agnes Martin told me that she was not free to be a

my studio very quickly. It didn't interfere with my

painter until her mother died and she told me I would be

work. I had a good marriage. But I really felt that I had

that way too. She said, 'I was on the Staten Island ferry

to leave it. I felt that way before I came out.... When I

and I heard my mother call “Agnes” and I knew that she

came out it scared the shit out of me. At first I thought

had died and I was happy because I was free to paint

that no one liked me anymore, even my best friends. I
stopped asking things of people. Then a year later I left
my children. I got to the point where I found myselt
crying week after week after week and then I lived with
them again and I think you cannot do that unless you
have a lot of support. I have lost a lot of time and history is against me.”
“My major quilt paintings came out of my first pregnancy when I had the twins. I was tapping into their growth

and I painted ten enormous quilts during that pregnancy.”
“There was no social understanding for a woman who
became a mother to separate herself to become an artist.
I think it is categorically impossible to do both. ..without help. I left a six-month-old baby. And I cried for
three years.”

OUR MOTHERS
“I come from a family which includes two women artists, my mother and my aunt, but neither of them presented me with a real alternative to becoming a secretary, a teacher, or a housewife because of their terrible
and unfulfilled struggle to make art. My mother never

stopped being a housewife, never was able to totally
pursue her work, although she paints much of the time
and is fairly sophisticated in her knowledge of art. She is
serious but never has made a mark for herself. She will
never stop being primarily my father's wife. My aunt

was an alcoholic, had two nervous breakdowns and

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and I could let go of caring about her.’ ...As you

“The New York political art world is decadent... It's

know, Agnes was alone and totally accepted the joy of

perverted to the point that no one in it can have a noble,

her own aloneness. People have different needs."

honest, or true friendship... I find the work of that

community to be abysmally dull, boring, repetitive,
“I remember being downstairs in my basement studio in

incestuous, and I don't think anybody has had an idea

my parent's house when I was in college. I was painting

since Duchamp.”

a black painting. I went upstairs to have a cup of coffee
and my mother came out of her studio and said, ‘I'm

“Some women are a lot like Garbo cashing in on homo-

working on a black painting!’ She thought it was won-

sexual and heterosexual males. She's the muse on the

derful because it meant we were.one and the same per-

pedestal. These women make themselves goddesses.

son. That was a very frightening intrusion to me, yet

Men accept them and gradually their work is also per-

there was something mystical about it.”

mitted. But the men define what kind of women they are
going to accept and how they are going to accept them.”

“As a child and as a young woman, I was constantly
seeking female support—in terms of love, and especially
as it related to my sense of selfness as an artist and a

“Inspiration never comes from fame. The male bureaucratic power system from which I receive my support

poet. Anytime I made a bid for female support the dis-

absolutely is a star system, a bad translation of the

cussion was always that I was too sloppy, if I would

movie system into the art world.”

only comb my hair some man would find me attractive.
When I would go to a female for support, had that
woman ever reached out.. .but she didn't. She gave me
a whole list of what I was doing wrong and why I wasn't
making it in straight society. What I needed was to
straighten out and be like other women. That support
was the same I got from my mother and father.”

THE ART WORLD

"Two of our country's most famous and respected
women artists have never expressed their lesbianism
publicly. But it became quite clear to me that any
woman who made it through to creative art had expressed lesbianism because they had expressed the totally feminine position in the universe."

ENERGY (A DIALOGUE)
“I have to take naps after I make two moves back and
forth to the painting. I work very intensely for those
moments and I sleep for an hour to prepare myself for
more work,”

r

“When I have my psychic energies up to do a piece, that
is when my full self is its healthiest. I am having a flower. As a woman I have options that very few other
people on this planet have: to bring forth flowers.”

“Energy is something I'm constantly struggling with. It's

very important for me to know the place it comes

from.”

“It is sparked by love, in its divinest form. It comes from

being in love and catching passion. The passion can
come from another person. It can come from your

mind.”

“Maybe my struggle is on a more basic level—which is
how to use the love that I have.”

“How to use it constructively. And not to have wrong
loves. I've spent my life having wrong loves.”

“Wrong loves are in my past now. Misusing energy is
what gets in my way.”

“That's my magilla. I am a libertine. I am a spendthrift
with energy.I am profligate and I should be locked up. 1
sit on six sticks of dynamite just to sit on the dynamite.

And then nothing's done.... I am always shorting. I
collapse because before I've ever gotten to anything, I
have used all the energy. I have never learned how to
use the space between the fuse and the time the dynamite
goes off. ..….I spend a lot of time in bed recovering from
energy attacks.”
“All my life I have been punished for my energy. Did
they ever call you a strong, domineering female?”

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“No. But have you ever been told by somebody that

And I don't want to destroy that by putting politics all

you need more rest than anyone else? That you're

over it. So that the one place I am totally human, the

burning the candle at both ends? My father once told me

only place where I am the best possible person—which

that while I'm going I should stick a broom up my ass

is in my art—gets fucked up with hating my father,

and sweep on my way.”

resenting my brother, and being angry at all males and
straight women.”

WORK
“The experience of working is a microcosm of my whole
life.. .the way I coerce a shape into forming, the sever-

ity of my discipline...and the enormous doubting.
Now I am making paintings on paper that are about a

way of birthing a shape. Originally the shapes were
about exterior spaces. They are starting to be more

“When I'm getting ready for a show I'm thinking about
my paintings all the time, and every time I do something
connected to the show I have difficulty being sexual. I
don't have a sexual feeling in my body. I feel like I'm
dying. One thing I've learned in the last ten years is that
if you aren't sexual with people they leave.”

about internal spaces. I start with nothing in my head,
on the paper, and with no feeling of a history of previ-

“After a show, I've left several parties in my honor,

ous work. When I am in front of a painting I don't even

generally crying. I walk home and lock the door and if

know how to hold a pencil, I forget everything I

anybody is dumb enough to come and pound on the

know. ..as if I was starting out at three years of age...

door and say ‘Why aren't you coming to the party?', I

The way I suffer a form through, there are so many

things I will not allow to happen...the way I won't

scream 'I never want to see you again.’ It doesn't generally endear me to them.”

allow them to happen in my life.... This is a source of
a lot of power and a lot of problems in the work. I can't
accept a painting as having any meaning until it has
gone through changes and changes, until many things

“My work process is so painful to me that I always need
reassurance from other women that it's OK, that it’s
legitimate.”

are lost and it looks very simple and it doesn't look at all
like it has gone through what it has gone through. The
painting becomes separate and doesn't feel as though I

“I used to think my work was very related to a lot of
things that were going on in contemporary painting and

had made it. I've discovered lately that the lines in my

I used to think there were certain young painters who

painting sometimes read as if they were ‘light’ and some-

were very important. I've been thinking more and more

times as an ‘edge,’ like the way light sometimes falls on a

about the fact that with few exceptions they really don't

bird flying outside my window, one minute it is soaked

have the kind of quality I thought they had. If we're

with light, the next, the bird has moved out of the light

really going to do it, let's go back to the great art of the

and I can see its outline against the sky.”

past. We set our sights too low. As lesbians we have the
potential for making great art.”

“I use very specific, concrete imagery whenever I am
intensely exploring something. And then I abstract until
I can claim my image. As I understand it better, that’s

how I would describe my process. My life has gone
through dramatic changes and my work just diaries
them. The big breakthrough was when I did a whole

environment on pain.... I realized then that I had
finally claimed my pain. It freed me to celebrate, to do
performance, to do ritual.”
“What you have to do to get yourself to paint, doing
one stroke and going to bed for four hours. .….(is) that
Jungian thing of exposing the underlevels. You've made
a mask and become a spirit. And so you have to do
things or you won't come back. . .that old shaman thing
. . .you go to heal somebody and you catch their disease
and may never come back. It's like that. You go beyond.
You pay psychically in going to the underlayer of the
personality structure and bringing up stuff that you
don't know and don't know where it's going. I never
even dealt with birth nor would I want to because I tend
to be a classical artist and my art is removed from my
emotions. I am not an expressionist. Maybe that's what
keeps me from going bananas.”
“My work is very secretive. There are a lot of cubbyholes and dark spaces that one could get caught where
the light doesn't come in. And the light distorts what
the thing is and only gives you a hint of what that form
looks like.”

“The only time I am not angry is when I am painting.

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ANGER
“We each carry around enormous rage. I think that the

myself as a woman sexually and finding my course as an
artist is a simultaneous process.”

threat in my life has been that my rage would destroy
me, and until very recently, that has been a real possi-

“There's that level of physical comfort, being able to

bility. We need to focus our rage so that it becomes

relax, that's really important and it naturally affects my
work.”

usable energy.”

“It has been a lesbian’s role to be angry. I object to that

“It’s that level of risk we encounter so much of the time

as a pressure for my own identity.”

...it allows me the ability to take more risks in my
work.”

“There are different moral degrees of anger. There's the
anger where I say I could really murder. And that’s

“I think it's good that men denied me a peer relationship.

absolute, malicious sin. And I believe it’s sin to my

It made me stronger in my resolve that the art was

advantage. Then there is anger because I have been done

important.”

in until I'm forty-five and stopped from being able to be
an artist because I've had to go to bed for nine or ten

“I've received the encouragement and the validation of

months because I've been hurt. And that is an anger that

my existence for things I have been vaguely, slowly

I self-indulgently allow myself to be plowed under with

moving toward all my life.”

. . .andit’s a question of character strength to overcome
that. And then there's an anger of Dammit, I'm going to

“The more out front I become as a lesbian the more

do it, which I think fuses the work and is a very healthy

affirmation I receive from other lesbians and some

anger. .….in itself it can be a very useful and motivating

straight women.”

force. .….or it can be very self-defeating and you can get
in a very paranoid fixation that can destroy you.”

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF OUR LESBIANISM
ON OUR WORK

“T've been less terrified to make changes..….so that I am
now able to go into music or dance.”
“We don't relate to men much which makes it much

“Before the Gay Liberation Movement I felt like a

easier for us to make art. I can be a primitive in my own

maniac, not able to accept the reality of my queerness. I

time because of the fact that I am a lesbian. That gives

couldn't direct my full energy to my work."

me a lot of energy for my work, a lot of choice. My
work can become more peculiar and its peculiarity is

“(Being a lesbian) allows my womanness to be all mine.
I have all that force behind my work. And that’s what

makes a difference.... The whole process of finding

not threatening to me.”

COMMUNITY
“I feel very confused as to what my community is. There
is no lesbian community of artists, no economic community... Iam certain that if it was a lesbian political
gathering (instead of my show) there would have been a
community. There is a power community for political
events. And yet the artist is way ahead of politics in a
way. The lesbian art community could never get the

support which the lesbian political community can

receive.”

“I was never very much accepted by the lesbian radical
community. I was mystical and religious. I had had this
background of being involved with men, but at the same
time, I had always known Agnes Martin and written
about her... Then I went to work with the Byrd Hoffman School. The Byrd Hoffman School was creating art

out of personal madness. It was a predominantly
homosexual community. I found it personally very helpful. That community was rather like Harry Stack Sullivan's homosexual ward at Shepherd Pratt Hospital. The
idea of a healing community, people healing each other.
I came out in that group."

“It’s becoming clearer to me, on hearing everybody talk,
that if we don't get a community together we're not
going to survive. I have seen so many brilliant women—
with all kinds of personal power—fail. They have killed
themselves, gone mad, dissipated their energies. With
Arain.
the pride of lesbiana we could all still go down the

“We are a group of people who have traditionally been

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covert, secretive, about every move we make. You can't

“We must develop a context for women’s art, which is

come out on the job, you can't tell your parents, you're

influenced by so much of what you are describing. We

not sure you want to tell your kids yet. It's such a tradi-

must ask questions, is there a feminist sensibility, or

tional pattern to be secretive that it's like a story about a

even a lesbian sensibility? We make art in the context of

bunch of prospectors who couldn't sit next to each other

other art. ..and we need the context of other women’s

on the porch because they might shoot each other if

art to make our own art unique. The visible art is the

somebody got too close. Secretiveness breeds a very

male art; that is the art that affects us. The other art

territorial sense about protection and armament.”

which has affected me I have sought out, such as the art

“I certainly think that we have the least options in terms

beginning visibility of the art of other women. It is a

of funding, money, gallery space, critics. If we want to

very slow process. The more visibility the better. The

of non-Western cultures or non-white art. And now, the

be visible there are no options. At all. God forbid that

more we talk about our work, the better. Out of this,

there should be a lesbian show in the Museum of

something will emerge which is clearer about who we

Modern Art and that somebody would condescendingly

are as artists, as mothers, and as lesbians.”

write about it in The New York Times. The last thing
they would see is the painting. I always get told by men
how angry I am, how hostile I am, how domineering I

Information about the participants in The Tapes: all are

white and college-educated; four of the women are

am. And I'm sure I am. I think that because lesbians are
the outcasts of the sexual world, much more so than

three from upper-middle-class backgrounds; and six

male homosexuals, by being pariahs or lepers we have

from middle-class backgrounds. All live in New York

a sort of honesty of despair.”

City. We range in age from twenty-one to forty-five
years. Two women have identified as lesbians for about

“If there was more of a connection for my work, more

eighteen years, the rest from one to four years. One

of a lesbian art community, it might ease up some of my

woman is in art school, six are painters, one woman is

panic about putting my work out into a totally remote

involved in ritual performance and makes sculpture,

space.”

one is presently making a theater piece, and one is a
photographer. Some of us work part-time jobs, a couple

“The idea of community is slightly threatening because

of us teach and collect unemployment when we can, and

of the fact that it involves more commitments to other

one of us works full-time. All of the women, except for

people. The more I become involved with painting, the

two, are in the collective responsible for the third issue

“I think that what we are looking for is intelligent,

of Heresies. Participants for the three sessions were
Bestsy Crowell, Betsy Damon, Louise Fishman, Harmony Hammond, Sarah Whitworth, and Ann Wilson.

inspirational material from other human beings. And

Also participating in the first discussion on “Coming

fewer people I want around me.”

honest feedback. ..I am looking for a creative milieu in

Out” were Rose Fichtenholtz, Amy Sillman, Christine

which to function.”

Wade, and Kathy Webster. Betsy Crowell took photo-

“What I've been hunting for is a type of community in

graphs and assisted in transcribing and editing the final
material.

which the life as well as the art give caliber to the spirit.”
“Community is hard because of the demons of jealousy
and competitiveness.”

*“Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” Rich, Adrienne.
Heresies, Vol. 1, January, 1977, p. 25.

“Everyone here has stated that what we respect is rigor
and discipline in ourselves. I would like a community
that has that commitment.”

“One thing I've found out over the years of being very

idealistic about collaboration is that collaboration is

usually about who gets to be president. It's a very political act that I don't think is possible outside of primitive

tribes where people are structured to do a dance
together, for centuries, for religious purposes.”
“There is great difficulty in developing language in an
historically male culture, with a male esthetic system,

being taught by males that Jackson Pollock was the
painter. Of course I like Fra Angelico and of course I
like Giotto, and of course I am inspired by Degas. But I
think our problem is to develop a valid female esthetic
system, a female language with almost no precedents.”
“I feel that it is very important for women to assert being
lesbians, to assert being totally feminine, because I think
a female support system of sexual sympathy is very
necessary in the arts.”

Louise Fishman is a painter who lives in New York City.
Betsy Crowell is a freelance photographer.
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Eighty year old woman photographer from New Hampshire. n.d.

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aa SERA

International Women’s Year Conference, Mexico City, 1975.
Dinner party at People’s Republic of China Embassy.

Bettye Lane's photographs have appeared in many publications, including WomenSports, Newsweek, Ms., The New York Times and
The National Observer. “Covering the women's movement over the past eight years has raised my level of consciousness on what it
means to be a woman in our society.”
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Feminist Publishing: An Antiquated Form?
Notes for a talk at the Old Wives Tales Bookstore, San Francisco, Ca,
Feb. 27, 1977
by Charlotte Bunch

especially
I, The Q nobody wants to talk about: (e at Omaha Women in Print Conference)
Why publish and write when nob reads anymore?
Or do people read anymore and if so, what?
k Why is reading important? --- besides the fact that we're in the business -(andpot to deny the value of other media forms):

l. To convey ideas/information -- especially those which aren't readily
available in tha male media -- feminist newspapers do this BUT
other forms of media (our own radio-TV, etc.) could do that job
without needing the written word.

2. To develop ind.creativity and imagination (I've been reading those
studies of effects of TV as passifier, pre-programming our images,

and they are frightening in their effect especially on children.)

I remember the RADIO -- you had to imagine how “The Shadow” or the
women on “Queen for a Day" looked -- you had to create as well as
receive.

3. Iħdividual passivity vs creativity is related to the process of rebellion
of peoples. ALL Revoùùtianary movts make literacy a high priority-it is seen as essential to giving people ability to think for selves,
to choose alternate ways, to rebel.
We assume our people are literate but our society is going post-literate
what are the implications of this for making radical change?

4. Reading-written word is still the cheapest,most available form for and pas rr
all to use. Anyone can get materials to do itland probably even 1<" Hormimeograph to disseminate their ideas, while vast amounts of money
are needed to do film, video, etc.
These underlying questions and trends in US society are our problem:

-literacy should be a feminist issue;

-teaching women to read, write, and think our priority;
These are essential to long-term struggles for change .

II. What is the specific importance of feminist publishing/writing?
-If pés - the written word is important, then its important
where, why, and how to do it.

I'm not talking about IND. morality or duty of why a particular person

publishes where -- that debate has polarized too easily and often
denies ind. complexities--

I mean the underlying basic issue Qf why feminist publishing is vital
to feminist writing +
to women's power
And why it should be supported as crucial to our future.
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First, I believe that the existence + visibility of feminist (and esp.
lesbian-feminist) writing that we have today is largely a result of
the existence of feminist presses, periodicals, journals, and books
over the past 10 years.
(Even that printed by male presses would not have happened if we had
not created and demonstrated the market.)
This is so not only because feminists print much of our own writing and
created the market -- But also -- even more -- because the existence
of feminist media has inspired and created new writing:
-new ways of thinking and working

-new topics for exploration in both fiction and non-fiction

When I say that feminist presses have created atmosphere 4 possibilities
that inspire more and more new work--

I don't just mean most recent, most “developed” presses...
(nor do I mean that all feminist press work is genius)

I mean that this is a process with a History: feminist publications
did not spring up out of nowhere to receive writings already there.
Feminist media has always been closely tied to the beginnings of women's movt.
since the days of the mimeograph machine, when our struggle to define
ourselves and control our lives was cranking out 500 copies of
‘Why Woren's Liberation?"
(We believed with a religious fervor that if only we could get more copies
out to more women so they knew what we knew -- than things would change.)

Those were times not only of religious fervor but also egotic energyz-.
even when %3 was "straight" in the women's liberation days of 1968-69,
soms of our most erotic times were spent around the mimeo machines...
Before we could admit to sexuality between women, it was there in our work together.
-feminist presses have always been integral to spreading our movt,.
We quickly saw that we needed more than occasional. mimeoed tracts

(although these still play a real role),

We saw the boys - right and left - chopping up our articles and interviews
in their presses -- if they ran them at all,
So about 1970--they began: Off Our Backs; It Airit Me Babe; Women: A Journal
of Liberation; Airft I A Woman, etc.
Now there are over 200 feminist newspapers, magazines, presses and publishers
and another 30-40 women's booksƏtres.
All of that material from mimeo to finely published books iś the feminist press.

III.

The Feminist Media exists for many reasons:

- not "just because the bys won't print us" -- (today theyfi11 print us,

we are popular and there are some ways to use that to our benefit)...
BUT OUR PRIORITY must always be to keep our media alive, growing, and expanding:
1) as a base of power made up of political and economic institutions
of our owne

2) as ans of controlling our words and how they are disseminated,
ever when we aren't papular,
3) as a method of creating new words/new work, which has been often

overlooked in debate about feminist presses, but interest most, so
bdsadurk I will end ths discussion wiku of this.
buwith a A

The feminist media are not passive receptacles for what's already been done--we are active creators of new models, directions, questions for thought
and action, both thru our existence and thru the work we seek out.

(Bərthaıwas to discuss this in fiction -- the difference between her experience
of doing a novel for Daughters Inc, compared to her previous 2 novels
with a male house was extraordinary.)
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Let me take my experience in non-fiction: O0B, The Furies, Quest.

Quest: our main goal (some call it obsession) is to create new feminist

theory that combines the best of political tracts and academic work.
We want to build/reflect theory and analysis based on experiences of the movt,. --of writers and activists

Yet informed by research and facts -- and countering the anti-intellectual
trends of the movt,

Now, obviously that's suicidal or quixotic or both --- Yet, after 3 years,
we feel that something is happening in theory that is partially because of us:
1) We don't wait for articles to fall from the sky --

our job is to solicit, cajole and seduce women to try to write theory...

(we will go to any length necessary to get an article)

2) It isn't just publishing ... it isn't even just editing..».
it is also teaching and learning what its all about:
-teaching activists how to write

-teaching academics how to write in a way that more people can read
-learning ourselves how to do it, how to recognize new forms, how to
ask the right questions to see what feminist theory is and can be,

The relationship of author, editor, and publisher in feminist publishing
is one of mutual creation involving debate, turmoil, growth---

But we all have a mutual desire to move forward -- we have a common stake
in the content and the results;
This is hardly shared by the boys in publishing who want us for money, but
not to advance feminism,

1V. In conclusion, the feminist media isn't then an "alternative" --it is our future (As June Arnold discusses the term in her article

for Quest on "Feminist Presses and Feminist Politics,")
It isn't a training ground to get you into the BIG TIME publishers,
as the "small press" ís often seen,
(Oh yes, I too had my "Big Time“ experience -- I published a women's liberation

anthology with Bobbs-Merrill in 1970 and it _disappeared; it had sold
out its original 60,000 copies as a special issue of Motive Ma azine,

promoted through the infeørmal grapevine of the movt. in 1969..

But it disappeared in 1970 as a male press book because they lost interest
and never promoted it despite its proven audience.) ;
No, the feminist media isn't just a stopgap --

--it isn't just ind, choices about where to publish, which can involve
various issues

--it is our future, as an institution and as the well-spring of our words

and thought and action.
It is our looking back and going forward in the written word.

Charlotte Bunch has written and edited numerous feminist works over the past ten years and is presently an editor of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly, a founder of the Public Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and is preparing an anthology, Not By Degrees: Essays in
Feminist Education, to be published soon by Daughters, Inc.
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27

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When she was a woman of forty, the photographer

sailed away again, he gave her permission to play with

clambered up a high fence beside the race track, focus-

it in his absence. Uncle Peter may have realized that in

ing her European press camera on the turn-of-thecentury automobile speed trials on Staten Island. One

friend who was with her raised his own camera to
record the photographer—so we can see Elizabeth Alice

Alice's hands the camera was something more than a
toy. During his frequent visits home, he showed his
enthusiastic niece how to use chemicals to develop the

negative images on the glass plates she exposed, and

Austen up there still, athletically balanced on her pre-

how to make prints from them. He and the Captain

carious perch, concentrating single-mindedly on the pic-

were probably the people who helped her further by

ture she is taking, oblivious to her observer and to the

installing, in an upstairs storage closet, a tiny home-built

other spectators around her and not giving a tinker’s

darkroom (which can still be seen today, with its deep

damn that her ankles are exposed below her long skirt in

shelves and remnants of Victorian linoleum, in the cityowned house on Staten Island).

a most unladylike manner. The lover who was to share
Alice's life and her enthusiasms for over fifty years, Gertrude Amelia Tate, is smiling quizzically at the second
photographer: she and he may be sharing amusement at
how very characteristic this unconventional pose is for
Alice.
From the time when she was very young, much about

Alice Austen's lifestyle and personality was unusual,
according to the social conventions of her time and

Young Alice spent hours on end in the darkroom,

developing plates and toning and fixing her prints.
Because there was no running water in the house when
she was young, she carried the plates and prints down to
the pump in the garden, to rinse them in basins of icy
cold water, winter and summer, sometimes changing the
rinse water as many as twenty-five times. By the time
she was eighteen years old (the earliest year from which

place. Just before or very soon after her birth in March,

any of her photographs survive), Alice Austen was an

1866, her father, an Englishman named Edward Munn,

experienced photographer with professional standards.

deserted her mother and vanished home to London,
never to be heard from again. The abandoned Mrs.
Munn, with her small baby and no means of support,
returned to her parents’ Victorian cottage on the east
shore of Staten Island. She stopped using her married
surname, and her bitterness toward her former husband

It is worth emphasizing how early this was in photo-

graphic history. Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) had only
just exposed his first negative by the time Alice’s skill
was perfected. Alice began to take photographs some

twenty years before Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
bought his first camera in Milwaukee and twenty years

communicated itself to her daughter. Small playmates

before Eugene Atget (1857-1927) began to record the

in the neighborhood soon discovered that one sure way

streets and people of Paris.

to enrage the little girl known as Alice Austen was to
call her “Alice Munn.”
Alice's strong personality was formed in the 1860's
and 1870's in her grandparents’ home, where she was
the only child in a household also shared by her mother,
her Aunt Minnie and Minnie’s husband, and her young
Uncle Peter, as well as by two or three resident Irish
maids. She was the center of attention for all these

The photographer whose work most closely resembles

Alice Austen's, Frances Benjamin Johnston, began
working as a photojournalist in Washington, D.C., in
the 1890's, when she and Alice were both in their thirties. These two women probably never met, and may
not even have heard of each other, but the similarities
between them are striking. Johnston never married, and
it is quite likely that she too was a lesbian, although “her

adults, who played games with her, humored her fits of

private life remains hidden behind a veil of Victorian

temper, encouraged her natural abilities at sports and

manners,” as one biographer has written. Like Austen,

mechanical skills, and helped to mold the unusual
young woman Alice became.

It was Aunt Minnie’s husband, a Danish-born sea
captain, who changed the very nature of Alice's life by
bringing home a camera in 1876. As he experimented
with the bulky wooden box and demonstrated it to the

family in the garden, Alice watched, enchanted.

she was well-connected socially and much-traveled,
unconventional in many ways according to the norms
of her society, a strong and independent woman whose

career also lasted into the 1930's. Johnston became
known for her portraits of the famous (Susan B.
Anthony, Alice Roosevelt, actresses, and the wives of

the Presidential Cabinet) and of the obscure (women

Although she was only ten years old, she was patient

workers, Blacks, Indians), and above all for the realism

and intelligent, and strong enough to hold the camera

of her documentary photographs (world expositions,

steadily on its tripod; her hands were naturally skillful
at adjusting the simple mechanism. When the Captain

Yellowstone Park, coal mines and battleships).
Austen, like Johnston, was a realistic documentary

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21 Y

Mrs. Cocroft did housework for Grandmother Austen while her husband was in the service. Their eleventh offspring
is in christening clothes. Photo by Alice Austen, November 1886.

Daisy Elliot, on the rings, Violet Ward (holding the football at left), her sister and other amateur gymnasts perform
for Alice's camera. Photo by Alice Austen, May 1893.
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photographer—something unusual around the turn of
the century, when the women photographers who were

she had to surmount the less tangible deterrent of Victorian social custom. The barriers to be overcome by

her contemporaries made pictures to illustrate Tenny-

the serious woman photographer (much more formid-

son's poems (Julia Margaret Cameron of England), por-

able a century ago than today) are described in The

trayed pretty landscapes, dressed children as cherubs,

Woman's Eye by Anne Tucker: “Not only must she find

posed themselves as nude dryads communing with

the time and energy to create, and establish her right to

nature (Annie Brigman of California), or, like Gertrude

do so, but she must know what she wants to express and

Käsebier of New York, tried to capture the Eternal Fem-

how best to express it. To achieve this, any artist has to

inine Essence in sentimentalized studio portraits of

explore and take risks, but so often a woman is handi-

mothers with their children. These other photographers

capped by her public image as a woman.... Explora-

typically used a soft, blurred focus and emphasized light

ation, whether of jungles or minds, is considered unfem-

and shadow in imitation of Impressionist painters,

inine and dangerous... Beyond the realm of fashion,

trying to prove that photographs were a form of Art by

women are not encouraged to be original, but to look

disguising the fact that they were made by mechanical

for approval.” Austen received all the approval she

means—the precise fact that Alice Austen enjoyed about

needed from her family, from Gertrude Tate, and from

her camera.

Austen lived in the real world and photographed
people and places as they actually appeared. She
focused her lens so sharply that every small detail of leaf

her close friends. Victorian society was not strong
enough to restrict her growth or to undermine her courage. She did exactly what she wanted to do.

Everywhere she went she took her photographic

or woodwork, facial expression or lettering on a sign,

equipment with her, some fifty pounds of it: cameras of

was recorded. She began with the subjects closest to her

different sizes, a tripod, magnesium flash attachment,

—her grandmother's bedroom filled with Oriental vases

and glass plates as big as eight by ten inches. In a horse-

and Victorian bric-a-brac, the household maids, and her

drawn buggy, she carried her equipment around the

girl friends in the garden posing with their tennis rac-

unpaved roads of rural Staten Island—to the first tennis

quets, banjos or swimming costumes.

club in the nation, to winter skating parties on the

Instead of romantic idylls of motherhood, Alice

Island's frozen ponds and creeks, to musicales in the

photographed the Austens’ harried-looking household
worker, Mrs. Cocroft, with her ten small daughters.

given in the private alley of her friend Julia Marsh's

Perhaps she let the Cocroft children arrange themselves
in the branches of her sumac, because she understood
that little girls seldom had a legitimate excuse for climb-

Wards’ house, to masquerades and to bowling parties
mansion. Because she very seldom went out of her way
to look for special photographic subjects, her pictures
reveal her own way of life and her personality. Popular

ing a tree. Certainly she never subjected children to the

and extraordinarily energetic, young Alice Austen

awful ordeal of posing in disguise as little angels. She

passed busy winters and happy summers in a social life

appreciated them as they were—inquisitive and busy,
mischievous and often hard-working (as when selling

sprees and pranks.

newspapers on the streets of Manhattan).
The women she recorded are as real and vigorous as

that was, in her own words, “larky,” full of carefree
But she took her photographic projects very seriously, even though she was not dependent upon them for

Alice herself. Other photographers in the 1880's and

her income. Time and time again, she transported her

1890's chose to portray nymph-like young women float-

equipment on the ferry to Manhattan to document, and

ing in unruffled ponds or dancing effortlessly on tiptoe
through flower-filled fields. Austen recorded her own

finally to publish in a small portfolio the people she
called the “Street Types of New York”—the city’s newly-

friends in heavy bathing suits that were calculated to

landed immigrants, street sweepers, rag pickers and

impede the movements of all but the strongest swim-

peddlers, the Irish postmen and policemen, the news-

mers, and she showed them doing gymnastic exercises

girls so poor that they went barefoot on the city streets,

to develop the strength their daily activities required.

and the Russian and Polish Jewish women who sold

The fact that Alice was a woman, often photographing women, adds a special dimension to her work. No
masculine camera could or would have invaded the private sanctum of the young Victorian lady, preserving
for us the bedrooms of Trude Eccleston, Julia Marsh,
Bessie Strong and of Alice herself, showing us all their
souvenirs and home-made decorations. Only a woman's
camera would record the unself-conscious affection of
young women for one another, and their mockery of the

conventional strictures of their society. Mrs. Snively
and Miss Sanford would never have kicked up their
skirts to reveal knees and ankles if a man had been
watching, nor would Alice and her close friends have
posed as cigarette-smoking depraved women or—worse
still—as dashing young men about town. Alice Austen

did not waste any time pondering the essence of
femininity.
The fact that she was a woman also means that it was
a considerable achievement to have produced a body of
work as large (perhaps 8,000 negatives made over more

Standing in for Austen, a maid demonstrates the way in which

than fifty years) and as excellent as hers. Austen did not

prints had to be washed, in ice cold water. “Clear Comfort”

have to worry about money when she was young, but

had no running water for many years. Photo by Alice Austen.
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these immigrants, from the 1890's until about 1910, in

In the early summer of 1945, aged seventy-nine and

an exhaustive series of photographs of the federal quar-

severely crippled by arthritis, Alice Austen was forcibly

antine facilities on Staten Island and on the nearby Hoff-

evicted from the home which her grandparents had

mann and Swinburn hospital islands. The earliest of

bought more than a century before and in which she had

these photos, undertaken as a semi-professional assign-

lived for all but the first few months of her life. Her

ment for the U.S. Public Health Service, was exhibited

house was not the only loss, for her personal papers dis-

in Buffalo at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901.
Alice traveled to that exposition with her camera, as
she had done to the World's Columbian Exposition in

Chicago in the summer of 1893. She once took her
photographic equipment along on a nine-day cruise
with four friends through the canals of New Jersey and
Delaware. On more conventional summer travels to the
mountain resorts of upstate New York or through New

appeared and some two thousand of her precious glass
negatives were hauled away to Newark, New Jersey, by
the junk dealer who bought the remaining contents of
her house for a mere $600. The surviving 3500 photographs were rescued by a quick-witted volunteer from
the Staten Island Historical Society, who spotted them
on the upper floor of the house before the dealer got
there.

England, she photographed scenic views and historic
monuments, and—even when hampered by a long-

the nearby town of St. George, where Gertrude adjusted

skirted traveling dress—gave not a moment's thought to

cheerfully to her new surroundings, but Alice sat in the

the obvious risk of crawling along a half-rotten log into

Alice and Gertrude moved into a small apartment in

wheelchair to which she was increasingly confined,

the middle of a rapid stream in pursuit of the perfect

staring with unseeing eyes at the view of New York har-

angle.

bor and mourning for her old home. She was ill as well

On one such summer excursion in 1899, visiting a

as miserably unhappy. Gertrude, after giving Alice love

Catskill hotel known as “Twilight Rest,” Alice met Ger-

and companionship for the more than thirty years they

trude Tate, who was recuperating there from a bad case

had lived together, was finally no longer able to give her

of typhoid fever. Gertrude was twenty-eight, a kinder-

the nursing care she needed. She went to live with her

garten teacher and professional dancing instructor, who

worked to support her younger sister and widowed
mother in Brooklyn. Judging from the small personal

photo album that commemorates that summer, Gertrude's spontaneous gaiety and warm humor enchanted
Alice, who was then thirty-three. Alice's casual sophisti-

married sister in Queens, and Alice, her money entirely
gone after a year in a sucċession of private nursing
homes, was in June, 1950, admitted as a legal pauper
into the hospital ward of the local poorhouse, the Staten
Island Farm Colony. She was eighty-four.
But the story has a happy ending. One year later, a

cation, her forceful and winning personality, and her

young editor in Manhattan set out a search for unpub-

comfortable lifestyle, opened Gertrude’s eyes to a wider

lished 19th-century photographs of American women.

world than she had known before. Gertrude began regu-

He discovered the Austen collection of 3500 photo-

larly to visit the Austen house on Staten Island, then to

graphs in the basement of the Staten Island Historical

spend long summer holidays in Europe with Alice. But

Society, and then discovered, to his horror, Miss Austen

not until 1917, when her younger sister and mother gave

herself in a ward of forty beds in the poorhouse. Oliver

up their Brooklyn house, did Gertrude, overriding her

Jensen, known today as one of the founders of the

family’s appalled objections over her “wrong devotion”

American Heritage Publishing Company, not only pub-

to Alice, finally move into the Austen house. She
arrived just in time to keep Alice company there during

lished her photos in his own book (The Revolt of American Women), but sold publication rights to Life, Holi-

her later years, for Aunt Minnie, at seventy-seven the

day and other national magazines, raising enough

last survivor of the family hosuehold, died the following

money to release the photographer from the poorhouse

year. Alice was then fifty-two, Gertrude in her midforties. They weathered the First World War with brisk
fortitude—Alice driving an ambulance for the local military hospital, both of them entertaining officers from
nearby Fort Wadsworth and organizing small parties in

and to establish her in a comfortable private nursing
home for the last few months of her life. She was interviewed on CBS television, entertained at a party for 300
guests (including many of the old friends who appeared
in her early photos), and honored with an exhibition of

their waterfront garden to wave Red Cross flags at the

her work in the Richmondtown Museum. “Isn't the

returning troop ships after Armistice.

whole idea like a fairy tale?” exulted Gertrude Tate,

Disaster struck in 1929, when Alice lost all her capital

in the stock market crash. She was sixty-three. She
stopped taking photographs in the 1930's, for film was

who visited Alice regularly and who helped to prepare
the guest lists.
Two months after the party, Alice suffered a slight

too expensive a luxury in years when she was hard

stroke and developed pneumonia in one lung. She died

pressed to pay bills for electricity, fuel oil or a telephone.

quietly in her wheelchair, in the morning sun on the

She mortgaged her house, then lost it when she failed to

meet mortgage payments to the bank—in spite of
income raised by Gertrude’s dancing classes, the piecemeal sale of the Austen family antiques, the taking in of
boarders, and the small restaurant she and Gertrude ran
in the house in the 1940's. The house was sold to new
owners, Who were not patient with two old and occa-

porch of the nursing home, in June 1952, aged eightysix. “My heart is so full of sorrow at my deep sense of
loss,” Gertrude wrote to Oliver Jensen. “She was a rare

sou], and her going leaves me bereft indeed.... God
was good to spare me these long years when she needed
me so much, so I can only thank him for answering my
prayer, that I might be with her to the end.”

sionally autocratic ladies.

© Ann Novotny, 1977. Photographs courtesy of the Staten
Island Historical Society.
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A B EAE a : E : :

. EHe ra É eN AS s aani : S : f
Violet Ward on her porch with an unidentified friend. Photo Alice Austen rests in her garden with Gertrude Tate. She had

by Alice Austen. been recording the hurricane damage of September 1944 (her

camera is at her right). Photo by Dr. Richard O. Cannon.

L

Ann Novotny is co-founder of a picture research company in New York. Her recent book, Alice's World: The Life and Photography
of An American Original, Alice Austen (1866-1952) is available from Research Reports, 315 W. 78th St. N.Y. 10024. The Friends of
Alice Austen House are raising funds to restore the photographer's old home and turn it into a small museum of her work.
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Class hierarchies and heterosexuality are patriarchal

romanticized as a chosen struggle of economic hardship

institutions which divide women, give some women

necessary to produce art rather than as a product of the

power over others, and destroy our strength. As a les-

alienation of artists from society.

bian feminist artist, I am interested in examining the

If art provides a way for us to perceive ourselves and

assumptions of class and heterosexuality in art, and the

the world around us, it seems necessary that we examine

role of lesbian art as a potential catalyst for social

what is validated as art. An excellent example of an

classless, and how this myth functions to separate us

attempt to write social history through art was the
exhibition “American Art,” a collection belonging to

from the reality of our lives and affects the way in which

John D. Rockefeller III, which was shown last fall at the

we see ourselves. Specifically, I want to discuss how we

Whitney Museum as our Bicentennial survey exhibition

change. This article will focus on the myth of art as

as lesbian artists need to defy this myth by developing

of American art. This collection contains one work by a

class consciousness, and incorporating it in the development of lesbian art and culture.

by Hispanic or Native American artists. The absence of

woman artist, one work by a Black artist, and no work
work by women and Third World artists in this and

THE MYTH
Fine art is a reflection of upper class interests, values,

most other collections and exhibitions, denies the experiences of most Americans. Not to see their experiences

reflect and serve the needs of a small group of corpor-

reflected in culture is to say that they don't exist.
Because art both creates and reflects social realities,

ate-government elite” (upper class white men) who

their absence becomes a political issue. As the artists

define culture in America and elsewhere if they can

writing in “an anti-catalogue” state: “Omission is one of

tastes, and patterns of thinking. The images found in art

profit from it. They found, fund, and run art museums,

the mechanisms by which fine art reinforces the values

set standards of taste, and have a vested interest in

and beliefs of the powerful and suppresses the experiences of others.”?

creating, validating, and supporting art whose form and
content justifies and furthers a patriarchal social order.’
Jackie St. Joan has defined this social order as:

Another mechanism reinforcing upper class values is
the myth of art as classless and universal. By creating
the myth of universal art, those in power teach us to

“...that system—intellectual, political, social, sexual,

identify with images and the experiences these images

psychological—which requires in the name of human

represent, which have nothing to do with our own class

progress that one group (in the history of the world, rich,

position. We are told that art, and therefore the artist, is

white men) controls and exploits the energies of another,

classless, and that our experiences are immaterial and

and in which women are particularly despised. It includes

should be ignored.

patriarchal institutions (heterosexuality, the nuclear family, private property, etc.) which are the tools of oppression as well as the patriarchal mind-constructs which, like
the capitalist mind-constructs, limit even our ability to
think beyond what is.

All classes accept this myth, for to question it would
be to reveal the oppressive political structures and social

institutions underlying patriarchal capitalist society.
Rita Mae Brown writes that “America is a country reluctant to recognize class differences. The American myth
crystallized is: This is the land of equal opportunity;

Rarely does fine art include images of workers, the
workplace, or daily survival. Rarely does it depict the

work hard, stay in line, you'll get ahead. (Getting ahead

always means money.) Identification with this myth

experiences of Blacks, Native Americans, women, or

of classlessness redirects us from dealing with our own

lesbians. When these images do appear, they seem out-

particular oppression as working class, as women, as

side the experience of those portrayed because they are

lesbians, etc. The artists in “an anti-catalogue” state:

romanticized or stereotyped, rather than real. For
instance, lesbian sexuality is rarely portrayed in visual
art and when it is, say in film, lesbians are presented in
butch/femme roles, as sick, masochistic, and sadistic,
and as though sexuality was the only important thing in
their lives. This limited male view hardly relates to my
experience as a lesbian. Nor do I feel that my identity as
an artist is realistically portrayed. The artist's life is

“The mystification of art depends upon two things—upon
our surrendering our capacity to judge and upon unquestioning acceptance of authority in place of the printed
word and the authority of scholarly titles and distinctions.
The mystification of art takes our passivity for granted. It
encourages us to look upon art as if art had no bearing on
experience.*

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Accepting the myth is accepting our invisibility and

they affected my work and work attitudes. Acting out a

powerlessness. To question cultural attitudes is to
question social conditions. Passivity smooths the pain

romanticized art life was my option to upward mobility.

of powerlessness and helps us to survive these condi-

patriarchal systems that give privilege to middle and

tions. We need to see that behavioral patterns affect

upper class women. Coming out as a lesbian with a

who becomes an artist, what artists create, what art is

feminist consciousness forced me to realize what class

validated as “quality,” and how art in turn reinforces

privilege I did and did not have, and what I would now

those patterns.

lose. Even the fact that I first came out to myself

Heterosexual women get their privilege from the same

through my art and not in bed is in itself a reflection of

HOW I BOUGHT THE MYTH
Thinking back to junior high school in the fifties, I see

my class position. As a feminist artist I had learned to
use my work as a place to confront fears and other

that one reason I chose to be an artist was to escape the

feelings privately in my studio. A woman working as a

daily pain of lower middle class life in Hometown—of

maid, a waitress, or a seamstress, does not have this

living in a duplex, taking a bus to school, and wearing

option.

hand-me-downs until I got a job at Lerner's and could

As a lesbian, however, I was forced to confront and

buy my own clothes. The guy I went with turned me on

give up illusions I had about being accepted and

to Mulligan, Coleman, Getz, and all that jazz and the

rewarded by the male art world where they treated art

beat writers Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Prevert. They were

“seriously.” To be public about being a lesbian means

“artists” and intellectuals, without money (like me), and

that your work may not be taken seriously, or may

romanticized. I thumbed my nose and fantasized riding

squeezed into a category of “camp” or “erotic art.”

naked down the highway. We fucked. I got a scholar-

Because you do not hang out with the right men or the

ship to the Saturday School of the Art Institute of
Chicago. I wanted to be a dress designer or fashion
illustrator because it sounded “classy” and “sophisti-

right women (those who hang out with the men) at the

cated.” If all else failed, I could be an art teacher.
In the museum I saw “real” painting and sculpture. I

right bars, and since the lesbian feminist community
doesn't yet support its visual artists, you are less likely

to make your work visible, to have professional
dialogue, and to support yourself through your work

remember sitting in front of the Pollock, the Rothko,

either directly (sales) or indirectly (teaching). For

and the Still, thinking that I could do those paintings,

women, the economic class system is largely determined

but not realizing that I was a woman and that it didn't

by their relationship to men. The higher up the man she

matter what I did. In the studios I saw art being made by

relates to, the more she benefits from the system. The

grubby students and I took note that the artist could

lesbian, by not relating to men does not benefit eco-

wear anything, say anything, and didn’t have to social-

nomically and has no privilege unless she is independ-

ize. The artist seemed special and not bound by class

ently wealthy. Most of us do not have that kind of

behavior. I would be an artist. Accepting fine art meant

renouncing my class background and stepping out of
the lower middle class life of Hometown into the universal world of the muses. Safe and protected at last. Who
ever heard of a middle class muse?

support and opportunity, and without support, it is
very difficult to continue making art. Historically,
known lesbian visual artists (Rosa Bonheur, Romaine
Brooks, etc.) were wealthy. Only they had the privilege

to continue making art despite their public lesbian
lifestyle.

THE MYTH SHATTERED:
CLASS IS HOW YOU SEE THE WORLD.
ART IS HOW YOU SEE THE WORLD.
It has taken me a long time to begin to understand
and accept my lower middle class background, and to
realize that the art world I entered wasn't an alternative

If we examine the relationship of lesbians to the class
system, and to patriarchy, we can get an idea of the
active role art can play in developing a culture that does
not make women powerless and invisible. In “Lesbians

and The Class Position of Women,” Margaret Small
writes:

to middle class society but that women, Blacks, and the

. . At this point in history, the primary role that lesbians

poor are also oppressed within the alternate “world of

have to play in the development of revolutionary con-

culture.” As long as society allowed me to be a “starving

sciousness is ideological. Because lesbians are objectively

attist” I did not question my own experiences, or how

outside of heterosexual reality, they have potential for
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developing an alternative ideology not limited by heterosexuality. Lesbians stand in a different relationship to
(the) three conditions that determine the class position of

turally. To refuse art that denies our existence and to
deny that art is apolitical and universal, is to actively

challenge the wealthy few and their supporters who

women (production, reproduction, sexuality). The lesbian does not have a domestic base that is defined by the

have been defining and controlling social order through

production of new labor power and maintenance of her
husband's labor power. Her relationship is in proletarian

identity in art is one means of resisting oppression. The

terms. The element of slave consciousness integral to
heterosexuality is missing.
I am interested in how we can do this through art.

Developing a class consciousness does not mean that
each work of art by a woman would have to directly
relate to women of all classes, but rather that the form

the manipulation of fine art. Demanding group and self
art-making process is a tool for making these demands
and changes.
Art is essentially work. Simone Weil writes that art is
a surplus commodity in this culture because it does not

have immediate consumption and is not shared and

used by the people. That artists are not part of the paid
work force further separates the productive from the

and content of the work, be it figurative or abstract,

consumptive classes. The work process (and the purpose

would somehow illuminate experience in such a way

of work) have always been external to the worker. Just

that it is shared with and includes rather than excludes
women from different backgrounds. Instead of presenting one universal experience that is supposed to represent ALL of us yet represents few, art should reflect and

give information—facts, emotional response, visual
accounting, ways of seeing into and understanding different experiences and feelings. We must acknowledge
our differences in order to learn about, support, and
work with each other. Thus I feel that to make art as a

as she writes that our main task is to discover how it is
possible for the work to be free and to integrate it, we
must free the art-making process so it is accessible and

understandable to everyone. The process should be as
available as the product.’
Acknowledging the existence of class structures, and
how through art they can affect cultural attitudes is just
a beginning—a necessary step one. In the long run, we
should not focus merely on the relationship of one class

lesbian with class consciousness has far-reaching cre-

to another, or on the relationship of art and class, but

ative and political potential for connecting women
through work. This means actively rejecting cultural

on defining a future classless society. The integration of

dictates, taking responsibility for our work, and ques-

tioning the concept of apolitical art. Art-making is
where consciousness is formed.

art into the lives of all people and not just the upper

class contributes to that vision. “Revolution presupposes not simply an economic and political transformation but also a technical and cultural one.”

ANALYSIS—REINTEGRATION
Ultimately it is a question of the function of art

FOOTNOTES

beyond the personal. It is not merely a matter of doing

work that doesn't oppress others, but also of doing
work that pushes further towards a redefinition and
transformation of culture. For me, coming out as a lesbian has a lot to do with developing a class conscious-

1. The Catalogue Committee of Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, an anti-catalogue, 1977. The catalogue
was written as a protest to the Whitney- exhibition,
“American Art, 1976.” I have included a condensed

ness, and that consciousness brought to my art: raises

version of a more detailed discussion of “how art is

questions of imagery, permanence, scale, ways of

mystified, how art exhibitions influence our views of

working, and concepts of art education. It raises ques-

tions of money and power, who sees my work, and
what effect I want it to have on others.
This does not mean that we as class conscious lesbian
artists must make paintings with recognizable figurative
imagery, that we must be downwardly mobile, give up
making art for “real political struggle,” or involve ourselves in the rhetorical circles of the artistic left. What it
does mean is not making or accepting class assumptions
about art such as what is allowable as art, who makes it,
who sees it, and what its function is to be. By removing
esthetic hierarchies and the need to pretend that we all
share the same experiences, meaning can become accessible and available.
Talk about “bringing art to the people” only reinforces

class distinctions. Class consciousness can be reflected
through our art by demystifying and deprivatizing the

history, and how collectors such as John D. Rockefeller
III benefit from cultural philanthropy.”
2. “A Lesbian Feminist: Jackie St. Joan,” an interview, in
Big Mama Rag, Jan-Feb, 1977, Vol.5, no. 1.
3. an anti-catalogue
4. Brown, Rita Mae, “The Last Straw,” Class and Feminism: A Collection of Essays From The Furies, edited by
Charlotte Bunch and Nancy Myron, Diana Press,
1974.

5. an anti-catalogue.
6. Small, Margaret, “Lesbians and the Class Position of
Women,” Lesbianism and the Women's Movemènt,
edited by Nancy Myron and Charlotte Bunch, Diana
Press, 1975.
7. Weil, Simone, First and Last Notebooks, translated by
Richard Rees, Oxford University Press, London, 1970,
p. 58-61.

8. First and Last Notebooks.

creative process. Presently it is difficult for a working
class woman who likes to write, paint, or dance even to
consider being a professional artist. When making art as

well as owning art ceases to be a privilege, and the
art-making process itself is available to women of dif-

ferent classes, races, and geographic backgrounds, we
can begin to understand the political potential of
creative expression.

As lesbians, we need our experience validated cul-

Harmony Hammond is a pàinter and sometimes writer who is
a member of the Heresies collective. She teaches at any university and feminist art program that will have her, and gives
workshops and lectures on lesbian artists and feminist artists.

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Yoland Skeet. Nancy—P.S. 160. 1975

Yoland Skeet is a filmmaker and photographer.
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We are soliciting

B

community, etc.)

m

E
e

eems most applicable

=

v

—
V)

And thank you.
Lesbian energy is the subject of my art.

I weave useful objects, bags, ponchos, saddle blankets, and more. These objects are strong and durable,
for I weave them with active lesbians in mind as customers. I want to make the best for lesbians. It is this
attitude which makes my work “lesbian art.”
In the physical realm, there is little to set my work

apart from another's weaving; it could be copied
exactly. But my feelings and thoughts, as I work, also
become part of my product, just as surely as the design

and color and threads themselves. This non-physical
aspect is like the lint between the fibers, inseparable
from the final product and, hopefully, seen and felt by
the viewer, user, and/or wearer. It is the part which
cannot be copied.
Obviously, this is a hard proposition to prove, but I
know from experience that it is true. Because I, as a
lesbian-separatist, am thinking strong, positive feelings

about lesbians and lesbianism as I work, lesbians are
drawn to my work. One told me she physically felt
warm glows pass through her body when she put on a
poncho; some have told me they feel strong with it.
One woman referred to stripes in the shoulders of a

negative thoughts and feelings about men and some
straight women as I work, and, consequently, they
often do not even notice my display. There is no magnetic energy to attract them. Not only are they not
attracted, but sometimes they feel repelled by my work.
This pleases me, because I feel very strongly that I only
want to sell to lesbians, and this way I don't have to
make any special effort to accomplish it.
My partner is a jeweler, and she has noticed the same

phenomenon. Many lesbians have told her that they
draw strength and self-esteem from her work, not only
from the lesbian symbol rings and pendants, but also
from stone rings that are not specifically “lesbian.” It is
the love for herself as a lesbian, and her concern for all
lesbians, which they are absorbing.
Any subject, then, may be lesbian art, and lesbian
subjects may not be lesbian art. What makes the difference, in my mind, is the thought and feeling about
lesbians which the maker feels as she works, the tangible
energy which becomes part of the product and is communicated to the consumer.
Jane Stedman
Aitkin, Minnesota

poncho as “power stripes.”
Also, as a lesbian-separatist, I sometimes am thinking
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Lesbianartist.
related the content was to the impulse that made me
I wish I had a lesbianartist button.
A small black and white button with six-point Optima
letters.
Intimate. Women would have to read it up close.
A button for a high-energy day.
Clearly the word makes me happy.
It didn't always.
I spent a lot of time not believing there was a connection between my sexuality and the art I made, not believing my two carefully separated adult identities had
been closely bound together even in childhood and, certainly not believing the content of my painting was
emotional.
Joining together two powerful words made me recognize the focus of my life and put me in touch with my
own work.
If I hadn't been a lesbian I wouldn't be an artist.
From girlhood I had admired strong women, loving
their intelligence and strength.
I focused on what. was woman-identified, experiencing a passion, not yet genital, not yet verbalized, that

want to be an artist in the first place.
When I was eight years old I had a game.
I would go out into a grove of trees away from the
other children and would take pieces of bark and sticks.
I would draw on them with nail polish and lipstick
and crayons, writing secret things about admiration for
women, about a crush on a woman.
While making these I was very intent; but then I
would get very frightened.

The slightest sound of anyone approaching would
make me hide them under leaves, bury them in the
ground.
In my work now I use wood and paint.
I make marks that spell out secrets, burying them under layers and layers of glossy color.
The secrets, repeated dozens of times, asserted and

recognized, then protected and hidden so well—some-

times I don't see them myself.

It's been a long time since I was eight years old, but
the secrets, the pain and happiness of loving women
were then and still are the motivation and content of my
work.

made me want to find an identity in work, in expression, in making paintings.
In making art, I hadn't before realized how closely

Maryann King
New York City

EA

Maryann King. Gaslight. 1977. Acrylic on wood. 38" x 45”.

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These are the questions I am asking:
What has your relationship been to asking questions?
Did you ask questions in school, at home? Why were
you asking?
How do you feel about asking questions now?
How do you feel when young people ask you questions?
Are there particular people you have difficulty hearing information from or situations in which it is hard to
hear information?
How does it feel when people give you information
you already have or about something you already know
about? Is it important to you that people know that you
know things?

Do you remember the first time you had a new
thought or idea, one that was totally your own? Was
there ever a conscious awareness of such a thing?
Have you ever had the feeling that you were the first
one to find or discover something, the first one to make
particular connections? Does that have anything to do
with art-making for you?
When did you realize you could and do affect the
world? Was there a time of realizing your power?
Do you remember the first time you did a public “political” act?

What is your relationship to beauty and beautiful
things?
When did you realize or decide you were an artist?
Which did you do?
How do you feel about the idea of art being a luxury?
Do you ever do unimportant things?
What did your parents do when you were growing
up?

What was your family’s attitudes towards art?
What was your relationship to conformity or being
different when you were growing up?
What were you like in high school? How are you different? How are you different than you thought you'd
be when you were in high school?
Some thoughts and answers:
Did you know that I am not really an actual artist?
When I was in first grade I found out that I could not
draw and I knew it then. I don't remember the exact
moment of realization.
I remember that for a long time, as a little girl, my
fantasy was that I would marry a struggling artist and
definitely never be one. I have been feeling a connection
between deciding to be a lesbian and taking control of
that fantasy and throwing it out the window for good. If
I am never going to marry someone, or have a man be

the “core of my existence,” that fantasy can never
become true. The struggling part of the fantasy is certainly out of my upper middle class background, where
I idealized and romanticized struggling, and it is also
part of the artist myth. Chronologically I decided to

from inside of me, saying who I was and what the world
was to me.

I remember when I was pretty young, in Sunday
school, doing a drawing of the Tower of Babel, which
was hung up with other drawings and my teacher said
that I was a good artist. She said it on my Sunday
school report card. That is the only memory I have of

being appreciated for “art work.” The next thing I
remember is being in first grade and having our teacher
put on music and we were supposed to draw to the
music with our eyes closed. Everyone else in the class
drew abstract drawings, apparently to the feeling and
rhythm of the music. I drew a house, a tree and a walk. I
did not get a star for my drawing and I think I was—I
must have been—very embarrassed. I remember in third
grade all of us making towels where we stitched threads
into the towels and I was the only one who did not make
a geometric design. I did some seagulls and an ocean
with a boat on it.
I knew that an artist was the one thing I would never
be! There was something about my absolute non-identification with the creativity or activity of “artist” which
had significance beyond the fact that I wasn't calling
myself an artist.
I am seeing that being a lesbian means valuing my
perceptions, as well as other women’s perceptions and
seeing that the world is a place I (we) have a right to be
in charge of. I realize my outsideness and with that
knowledge I begin to learn and then create beyond the
given reality, and live beyond it.
There is a kind of question that is thought-provoking
and “interesting” that I feel very involved in thinking
about and asking. It has to do with some awarenesses
that I have come to through being alive, particularly in
the past few years. These questions stay with me and I
love them and they feel like my “art.” They are the
results of awakening parts of me that have been shut
down, not allowed to grow. I catch a glimmer of the me
that really exists, fully alive, spontaneous, responsible,
creative, awake and aware and active and unafraid. The
feeling of a “first time” or a “new discovery” has to do
with breaking through from that old space of hurt and
shut down to the way I can be, the way every person
can be, all the time.

There is something very important to me about
saying that I am a lesbian, that I am a feminist, that I am
an artist, that I am a Jew, that I am a woman, that I am
from an upper middle class family, that I am white, etc.
It has to do with owning parts of me, with feeling them,
with being public, with all of me out, not ashamed of
anything that I am. In that way it feels very active to say
lam.

Ellen Ledley
Pasedena, California

become an artist before I decided to become a lesbian,
but they are and were part of the same process; of
saying that my life is important, of valuing my life and
my self as a woman, of beginning to let go of living for
others and seeing myself in the eyes of others and also

giving up that deeply ingrained and conditioned
woman's sense that only when I am giving, am I worthwhile, do I deserve to live etc.
At the time that I decided that I wasn't an artist, I
really decided it. I knew then that creativity and all that
went with it was not part of me or my life. There was a
stopping of the expression of my self, of the creating
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AMERICAN BEAUTIES

PRESENTING
AMERICAN BEAUTIES
COMBS
MASS MADE
PLASTIC INDUSTRIAL
SHARP EDGED
WIDE TOOTH MONSTERS THAT RAKE MY HEAD
TAKE THEM ALL AWAY
MELT THEM
COVER THEM WITH DIAMONDS
MAKE THEM THE LITTLE SHINING BEAUTIES

pieces.

Being and growing up lesbian always put me out of

sync with my peers. I never did understand certain
phenomena of our times. Do you remember screaming
at your first Elvis Presley movie? Mine was Love Me
Tender. I saw a whole generation of women screaming

at the images and evocations of male sexual provocation. I sat in the audience wondering what it was that
these women were feeling. I didn’t feel like screaming. I

thought it was strange the way my friends were
behaving, but always I felt the undercurrent that I was
the one that was wrong.
We have been brought up to respond to certain cul-

turally defined stimulations. I didn't respond. I went
through school unaffected by the captain of the football,
basketball, soccer, wrestling, and chess teams. Without
these things there was little else. My friendships with
women were steady but painful, when one by one they
had their first crush with the new boy in town. They

moved, talked and pleased one huge romantic ideal—
falling in love and marriage. Sex was already there;

their tease and their rape. Living in rural Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, didn't provide any alternative lifestyle, not in the fifties.
When I came out as a lesbian it was wonderful. A
whole life began to take shape. Coming out was a joyous
time. Suddenly ice blood dissolved, walls became windows and doors. But making a new lifestyle is a slow
and steady process. It took years to wear away at the
circles of isolation, fear and repression. I wanted the
knowledge I felt had been hidden from me. The gay and
women’s movements provided support and information.
With a growing perspective, doing my art work became
really important and possible. Now there is so much I
feel I want to do. Part of that is I want to leave records.

Growing into womanhood I am finding my ancestors
and making herstory. Our contact creates fibers and
pathways for others.

In the deepest sense of the word, I see lesbian humor
as the essence of the playful spirit, but play in the most

challenging-to-the-cosmos sense. We play with our
imagination, with our sexual freedoms, with our clothes
— costuming not to represent power parodies like leather, but to laugh at the confines of color and texture,
lines—and in our playing we create new worlds because
of the deepest sense of the deadliness of this one. Les
Guerilleres is playing at its most powerful, creation of

language, names, structures, with joyous energy and
warrior strength. I know this sounds philosophical, and
yet even when I was an old femme I knew there was an
amazon world—not by reading or talking but by the

strength and adventure I felt in entering the bars,
walking the street late at night, stepping out of bounds
even if it was to find a closeness that was defined by
who did what. The important thing was we did, and we
laughed in the faces of the Mafia men. Our play with
language seems to come from the same impulse—to turn
around the givens, to reinforce each other's daring and
strength in playing above this world. I think our humor,
like many other parts of our culture, is celebration—the
cheering on of each other to make a new universe in the
presence of each other, to drop the sticks of this world
at each other's feet and pick up the pieces all mixed up
and in so doing assert our ability to create new worlds. I
think our writers have mostly known this: they played
with sentence structure and threw their words up into
the air, their air, to make them fall into a different way
of symbolizing a different life. I think we play because
this world is not ours, and we are self-cherishing enough
to know we must live somewhere. We are connected to

each other enough to believe we have the power to
create new worlds at this very moment with the words
we play with.

Sandra DeSando
New York City

Joan Nestle
New York City
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Lesbian is who I am; feminist is how I think. Femin-

ism gave me vision, self-love, and love for other
women, not the other way around. I know women who
love women and are not lesbians. I know lesbians who
are haters of self and other women (no surprise: men
hate us and fuck us). Nevertheless, for me coming out as

a lesbian was continuous with my development as a
feminist. I can't talk about myself as “lesbian artist”
apart from “feminist artist”; nor do I want to.
The year I came out was the year in which I began
writing again, after a nine year silence. I now understand that breakthrough partly as an explasion through
fear—fear that inside me was a self, a vision, that would
either horrify men or bore them. My friend Paula King

ing them start to swagger, wondering how to love them
as they turn into little piggies. My past is heterosexual,
different from that of lesbians who have always been
aware of their love for women, who were never touched
or wounded deeply by men. I want to explore, and want
other lesbians to explore, these differences among us.
Gay chauvinism: I have practiced it, been victimized by
it. Now I see it as only destructive, as one more hierarchy (how long have you been out? I came out in the
crib...….).
Since I began writing as a lesbian, much of my past
remains unwritten: what has happened to women, how
my life was formed, how it served men, how it did not
serve me, how it was made to seem inevitable. What

says, “Being a lesbian meant I could create what I
wanted.” Yes. It meant I stopped caring about male

transpired in my marriage bed, for example, was pre-

boredom, shock, or disgust. It meant—and means— that

love or pleasure or sexuality as the grocery list. It had

women are at the center of my eye, that I think of

women’s ears when I write, that my work grows
through the tug and shove of female response to it.
But it was not just coming out which allowed me to
write. It was also the conscious creation/discovery of a
tradition of female art, a sense of connection with other
creators, past and present, a connection which provides
support, validation of one's technique and subject matter, and a source for imagery, ideas, and forms. This is a
circulatory system which makes me know we are one
body; the network is literally vital.
A friend tells me she read Lessing's Golden Notebook
in the early sixties and found it “boring,” i.e., threatening; the air of that time clogged her ears with self-hate.
When I read the same book in 1970, I was electrified.
From my journal, 1970, after reading the GN: “With
Anna pouring jug after jug of warm water over her
stale-smelling menstruating cunt, you'd think she'd tell
us what kind of birth control she uses. Does she never
worry about being pregnant?” Never mind the bodyhating words I chose in 1970. Lessing's matter-of-fact

dictable, anything but natural. It had as little to do with
more to do with the grocery list.

Also important in my past: familial relationships
among women, my grandmothers, mother, aunts. I
need to see these more clearly, with less anger, less fear
of being trapped as they were trapped, with more love. I

have not yet written about the deep bond between
myself and my sister, a positive model for the relationships I build with women.
I assume the telling of my specifically lesbian experiences is useful since I find myself so hungry for details of

other lesbians’ relationships. We all need practice in
seeing what is happening and in telling the truth. In how
to love each other better than we were taught. How it is
hard to face a formless, unfolding future. We used to
chant these words like a litany, double axes gleaming in
our eyes. Now I am more aware of difficulties alongside
the palpable joy. I want to be honest about these difficulties.
Yet I find myself hopeful. If sexuality is one of the
earliest deepest emotional constructs to be institutionalized in our tiny child-bodies, and if at age twenty-six I

treatment of menstruation instantly upped my expecta-

could discover a range of sexual feelings—a whole capa-

tions so that I was annoyed by her omission of another

city previously invisible—I can only conclude that all

facet of my bodily experience. Prior to the GN, prior to
the feminist movement, it had never occurred to me to
miss myself in all those books I plowed through. We are
seeing in this last decade a gathering of demands on
artists to tell the truth about female experience. We
write in a context of an audience which requires responsible work from its artists, an audience responsive in
turn to our subject matter and technique.
I want to tell the truth as best I can, to recycle the
energy I have gotten from women’s creative work, to
get that energy back in the form of more and more
women articulating their experience. We all have stories
and they should be told—mine among them. Thus we
come to understand our experience through naming it.

change is possible, and that we don't yet know a
fraction of our capabilities. So I feel great optimism

about personal transformation within severe limits. I
feel less optimistic just at present about breaking
through the limits, i.e., transforming the world. I feel
despair/comfort when I think how my opportunity for

growth is stifled by patriarchy/capitalism—despair
because I will never get to be my fullest possible self;
comfort because I can at least understand the reasons
for my blocks, fears,tightness. I see danger in demanding that we live the revolution before the revolution.

The relationship between consciousness, action, and
material reality is crucial. I have been working on some
notes—still formless—about competitive feelings among

Thus we nourish each other, feed our visionary selves—

women; not competition for men, but feelings of envy

the selves who know change is possible. My medium is

and threat among lovers and friends. I see these feelings

words. It is what I know. I feel its limits. I would rather

partly as a realistic response to a world whose goods

make movies. I would rather take over TV. I would

need not be scarce, but are (jobs, publishers, even love

most rather overthrow the government. But words are

and respect): partly as an archaic response to an old and

what I can use.

perilous lesson about competition. I have felt much guilt

Much of my writing falls into the category “lesbian
art” because I am a lesbian; the content is my experience, much of it common to all women. Fear of rape,
job discrimination, survival anxiety, female solidarity,
the whole societal weight of sexism, some struggles with
men, participation in raising two boy children, watch-

about my feelings of competitiveness, a guilt which
keeps me from feeling them, thus from working through

them. I want to write about the masking feelings—

feelings we feel instead of feeling something else: guilt;
embarrassment; boredom ; laziness; even desire. I want
to rename my feelings more accurately, to disrupt the

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categories within which I learned to know myself. To
recognize the weight of the past so I can more readily
put down what is burdensome, hug what is useful. To
acknowledge my luck in living through a time when the
feminist movement is making my life joyful and my
work possible; to acknowledge my dependence on our
movement's continued movement.
Finally, I want to learn not to say what comes easiest,
since for me “easy” often means “old.” This last comes
from my experience of being challenged by my lover,

another poet, about the ending of a poem: “Do you
really feel as helpless as that?” she asked, and I had to
confess that I didn't, and I rewrote the poem. Here is the
rewritten poem. It is the most logical conclusion.

Melanie Kaye
Portland, Oregon

LIVING WITH CHAOS

“But,” you say, “I feel helpless, can't
breathe. I feel competent

t.

only to describe my sensations.”

This morning the NY Times said
the airforce is building new bombers.

5.

On points like this

then describe your sensations

the Times is to be trusted.

where else can we begin?

2.

in the thick broth of chaos

Tomatoes rot in the garden,

all possibilities swim

your children play tag on the roof.
I picture small bodies tripping, plummeting,

if the wind blows through us

squashing tomatoes to a fine red ooze,

if we lack words for its sweet howling
our teeth still know its name

bones poking through flesh.
I tell them to stop, they laugh.
Helplessness swells in me like a bomb:

your hand tracing my bones

they will stop when they're ready.
This is not my house but I want to clean it.

discovers patterns which already
split into new forms

I want to sponge down the table, pick up dustcrumbs,

these bones will make soup

put the tomatoes up in jars.
I want to wrap the children in blankets,
feed them soup.
I want to scrub the air transparent,

6:

Let me remember
we were born new in blood

take away the bombs, wash the children,
put us to bed.

Helplessness rises in me like bread,
bread to feed no one.

3.

This morning I went looking for patterns,
could find no order, no repetition.
Then realized, this was the pattern :
everything from scratch.

Let me observe
how we grow larger than any predictions
When you describe the world as you see it
let me accept your gift, match it
Let me believe
nothing will be lost except separate skins
Let me absorb:

If things would hold still long enough to be named,

there will be no salvation

we could have more lucid conversations,
before a fire, over good wine.
Instead we make do with the pale whistle of hunger, fear,
the quick rush of desire.

only the small firm pulse of a friend
drumming
Let me celebrate

4.

You say you don't hate yourself,
don't feel guilty for the bombers, the hunger,
the smog thickening the air.

how we split and shed layer after layer of dried cracked skin
and hang the pieces as history
too small for us

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I am writing as a lesbian feminist artist in the Minnesota Arts Community. This is difficult because there are

few substantial conversations about the personal and
political implications of lesbian art here, and those few
conversations that do exist result from an atmosphere of
paranoia.
There are two specific instances of the art world in the
Twin Cities politically using the label “lesbian” to exert
community control over women’s groups. The first was
the termination after one year of the Women’s Arts Core
Program at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. The
program instilled great fear and was discussed and desscribed by those not participating as a lesbian program
that used harmful brainwashing techniques. As a result
the students in the program were questioned about lesbianism and in certain instances verbally pressured to
give information concerning the number of lesbians in
the program, who they were, and who they were sleeping with.
The women in the program were asked to submit re-

ty meeting to vote for a moratorium until further studies
could be completed. That was five months ago.
The political use of the lesbian label to attack feminists and their art worked once and it may work again.
Similar tactics of divide and conquer are being aimed at
the W.A.R.M. Gallery, a women’s co-operative art gallery in Minneapolis. Because it is a women’s gallery with

an all-woman membership and exhibition policy, the

community has labeled it as a lesbian organization, although in reality the gallery includes and shows both
straight and gay women. Sexual preference has not been

a criterion. However, outside homophobia is manipulating internal homophobia, by using “lesbian” as a
negative and dangerous image. Gallery members have

been told that people are afraid to come into the gallery

because they would be confronted by radical lesbians
and that W.A.R.M. has a dyke image.
In reaction to this some of the women in the gallery
feel compelled to exhibit male artists and have submitted exhibition proposals which read like this:

ports on their area of academic study, fill out program

“Invitational for Men—Each gallery member would choose

evaluations, and participate in hour long tape-recorded

one male artist who they feel has been supportive of women to

individual interviews. All of these demands were met

be included in the show. I feel this would be good P.R. for the

and the participating women themselves felt the pro-

gallery in the arts community and a good way to get publicity
as well as being an encouragement for men to be supportive of

gram was highly successful. However, the paranoia,
hostility and inherent homophobia induced a full facul-

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the women’s movement, etc. People like [name withheld]
deserve a thank you from us all.”
“Let's invite a man to have a show.”

Women feel comfortable in dealing with the lesbian

issue without the protective environment of an allwoman organization but remain concerned about the
external public image. In their attempt to dispel the lesbian image, they want to integrate men in some way.

The assumption is that male reads “heterosexual” and

female reads “lesbian.” This situation allows the established community structure to have a foothold on the
internal workings of the feminist structure with women
spending the majority of their time and energy taking
care of the general community (men) rather than themselves and their work. Of course this is one purpose of
patriarchal politics.
If the above mentioned questions were changed from
dispelling the lesbian image to dispelling the discriminatory practices that are associated with the label “lesbian,” then the community would need to be directly
confronted and held accountable for its own discriminatory practices whether based on sexual preference or
bias toward all-woman structures.

The politics surrounding homophobia is reminiscent
of McCarthyism or the power which is generated from

the manipulation of fear. Consciously /unconsciously
choosing to be manipulated by internalized fear makes

paintings of women, they seemed perfectly obvious and
at the same time had a look about them of something
not being quite right to many who saw them for the first

time. So unused are we (women & men) to seeing
women portrayed with strength by a woman. My
paintings were accused of being “ugly,” meaning the
women are not pleasing to men.
It is when you as an artist portray women with love

and pride—and not just complain about women’s
situation and repressed lives—that the abuse is thrown
at you. Male critics, who actually call themselves leftwing and radical, have said about my work that “they
feel alienated from my view on women and my views on
sisterhood and motherhood.” I am accused of being a
mystic. Some of my paintings are based on what I have
understood of matriarchal societies—where the religion
was centered around the Great Mother and women were
the main producers, the first farmers, and owned the
land. One of my paintings shows symbolically the universal creative power as a woman giving birth in space

(“God Giving Birth”). But that is only one of my
paintings; others are of women working, struggling,
relating to each other. According to the Swedish critics I
should keep only to the kitchen sink or talk about my
pain at being born a woman in a man's world. Appar-

ently you shouldn't presume as a woman that you
should or could make any flights into thoughts about

every individual a vulnerable target. Taking a passive

creative energy, religious beliefs, the cosmos, or
women’s identity in relation to herself and other

or non-confronting posture allows the existing homo-

women.

phobic structure to remain intact. Political maneuvers
of this kind have separated gay and straight women,
working class and middle class women, and white and

Third World women. It has driven wedges into the
power base of woman-developed structures, separated
us from our goals, and dispersed our creative energy.
Janice Helleloid
Minneapolis

I found that the only real support that I got in Stockholm came not from the official women’s movement,
“Group 8,” but from the lesbian women of the Victoriagroup.” The reason for this is that the straight women’s
movement is too worried about gaining approval from
the male left and is too afraid to be associated with
lesbian feminism and so is not capable of developing a
true women’s culture—which is what I am into.

A real women’s culture can only be developed by
women together, women who have withdrawn their
sexual, creative, and emotional power from men.
Women who ultimately seek male approval, because
they are sexually dependent on men, will never
ultimately be able to draw any real consequences of
their own actions, feelings, and thoughts. They will
always be somehow looking sideways. So the real out-

rageous and unafraid statements have come from
lesbian women. [I am very aware when I say this that at
this point in time a great deal of women’s “sexual dependence” on men is simply based on economics (women’s
poverty and fear of losing their children), and that the
majority of women have no choice in the matter of
whether or not to live with a man.]
When I slowly managed to produce true (to myself)

Monica Sjoo. God Giving Birth. 1968. 4 x 6'.
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The biological forms in “Autoerotic Bowl” are simply

For some time I have recognized that my sculpture

five fingers poised at the vaginal opening. The bowl

reflects aspects of my personal experience. Nevertheless

knot which still retains the natural rough bark is made

I had not been able to effectively distinguish the person-

of oak. From the exterior body of the bowls surface the

al lesbian content of the work from the broader female

fingers curve inwardly around the lip. The movement

imagery. Recently, however, I realized I had been inter-

from the erotic act itself to the natural landscape is obvi-

preting the work in terms of female anatomy and geni-

ous: the bottomless bowl opens into the earth.

talia, but not in terms of how I experience those forms.

Embodied in the work is a sense of the personal, his-

The unity, strength and openness, the materials and the

toric and mythic. My readings on mythologies and

arrangement of forms that I see in my work closely con-

ancient cultures clearly have expanded my understand-

nect with the expansion of self into nature which I feel

ing of my imagery. I am intrigued by the resemblance of
“ Autoerotic Bowl” to the basic structure of the rhyton,

during orgasmic contact with a woman. The biological
parts of my work are common to all women; the sexual

which was a ceremonial vessel with holes in both ends,

experience, as a whole, is lesbian. I would like to share

used in Minoan culture. It is significant that the liba-

two of my sculpted images which express the spiritual/

tion liquid to effect change had to pass through the

sexual nature of that experience.

“Omphale” is a large, open bowl that is a visual
expression of the orgasmic experience. The vessel has
always been a symbol of change, from simple cooking

conversion to alchemical transformation. The activity
of “Omphale” creates feelings of change from moving

vessel/female symbol and then onto object or earth.
With some sculpted pieces I make direct connections to

the past by naming them after women in history.
“Omphale” was the name of a Lydian Amazon queen.
Moreover, in Greek the word “omphalos” means the
center, middle or more beautifully that part of the rose

into, through, and out into the landscape. To indicate

where the seed forms are created. As in early civiliza-

the transformation the image is carved from “fungal”

tions and current primitive cultures, I feel that sculpted

elm wood striated with earth-like patterns of decay. The

images should be used in ceremony.

dilated protuberances curving around the bowl are felt
sequentially in the act of swelling. The swollen forms

Debbie Jones

actually radiate out into the landscape while the wide

Ithaca, New York

spout of the bowl tips toward the earth.

C :

Rf e S fé NAE a iA

—

Debbie Jones. Autoerotic Bowl. 1976. Oak. 8” x 12” x 12".

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“Lesbian writers can't be taken seriously. They're
limited. Narrow, kinky, twisted. Incapable of universality. Lesbian writing is not, certainly, for the mass
market, for decent people's homes. Let them have their
little presses, their little distributorship and galleries.
They make up a special interest group, like your bird

watchers, your genealogists.” So the male-identified

critics say.

My great-grandfather refused to allow my great-

many as possible. And so I am grateful for the award,
the visibility, which widens the circles of women I can
get to know.
Visibility also gives me permission to speak in public,
Or gives me certain kinds of authority, such as judging
competitions. I'm still trying to come to terms with this,
since I fear that it is through this door that co-optation
most easily enters, but right now feel that if I can maintain my connection and responsibility to my women’s

grandmother to buy paper, for fear she would “waste”
her time writing. Confined to do stitchery, she embroid-

community I can use these occasions to say or demon-

ered lines of her poetry on the inner hems of her

unmentioned.

daughter's dresses. She was a lesbian writer, though she
would not have called herself either lesbian or writer.
We lesbian writers are formidable, threatening, to the
breastless controllers of power and money. They, too,

strate things that the patriarchy would rather keep

On the most immediate level, in my work, I am trying
to write poems that are free of the institutionalized conflicts and brutality that have characterized our literary
tradition for so long, to use simple grammar and syntax,
and to praise, praise.

are formidable. This struggle informs and enriches our
art, and will not lie silent, will not be locked away. Les-

bian writers have married men and kept house and

Olga Broumas

borne children and cooked and cleaned their lives away,

Eugene, Oregon

scribbling in journals, writing letters to each other,
shaping poems they kept hidden under mattresses or in

sewing baskets. Lesbian writers have painted plates,
arranged flowers, decorated birthday cakes and committed suicide. I know my kind, how it has been for us,
and how long.
As a lesbian writer, I report how it has been, what our
options were, and what we chose. I tell our stories, the
grimness and the love. I tell breast, hair, blood, the

undulant curve and the clitoral vibration. I tell the
touch and the womantalk which flows between us. I am
speaking quietly, as calmly as I once spoke in recipes, of
the power of the mother-will and of revolution.
I have learned, in my confinement, skills which serve
me well. I write as steadily as I once ironed men’s shirts,
write as vigilantly as I watched over my toddlers and

ing lived in San Francisco for the last fifteen years
(though I grew up in the Midwest). We live differently
out here from people on the East Coast or in the middle
of the country. We are in a different relation to Our
lives, our bodies, our work and “careers.” (2) I am not
attached to any academic institution, nor have I ever
been since I was a student.
The term artist is hard for me to use, given its connotations of privilege, elitism and irresponsibility. The
mystique surrounding that term is damaging to us as
women, I think, and as makers of things. Maybe I'll just
Now: being a lesbian writer. I think of myself as an

and with love and without cease. My images are female,
my symbols are female, my energy is female. Lesbian.

outlaw. I operate outside the heterosexist establishment,
and my effort is to subvert it so that some more humane
system can be established. Women are primary to me.

Kathryn Kendall
New Orleans

All the dangers of being a woman under patriarchy

intensify as my visibility in the dominant culture
increases, especially since it increases by more than one
count: as writer, feminist, lesbian, foreigner. Some of
the dangers: trivialization, stereotyping (since much of
my work is sensual and lyric I dread the possibility of
being dubbed “erotic” and being limited to that label),

isolation through the star-systems and image-making,
verbal and physical harassment, assault, threats. And
co-optation. Of all these the fear of co-optation, of
losing touch with myself, my sisters, what is necessary
and real for us, this fear has never left me since I received
the Yale [Younger Poets] Award.

Then again, visibility makes possible much greater
contact with women. What enabled me to begin writing
with authenticity was my decision, in 1973, to speak
only to a female and feminist audience. It gave me a
sense of community, a sense of connection and responsi-

bility, a necessity beyond the personal pleasure of
writing. It gave me stamina and sustained me. I no
longer had to explain so I began to sing. This is a gift

things about myself: (1) I am a West Coast person, hav-

call myself a writer, for the purposes of this discussion.

listened for their coughs in the night. I write as only
women can, as only women have: with interruptions,

women have given me, a gift I want to share with as

Before talking about what it means to me to be a lesbian artist, I want to emphasize two other distinguishing

Having worked for a year in New York as a guest
editor at Mademoiselle and having for years followed
with passionate interest the goings-on in the so-called
literary world, I think I know what it's about. (I speak
of the world of the New York Review of Books and its
little brothers.) And the conclusion I have come to is
that this world subsists on and purveys a very high level
of bullshit which is, at worst, destructive to women, and
at best, a waste of time for us.
I feel myself to be part of a world of print created by
the independent women’s newspapers, journals and publishers such as the Women’s Press Collective, Daughters,
Inc., Diana Press, etc. All of us together are creating
something new, in that we are bringing into literature a
consciousness that has never been expressed before.
The task for me is to get to what I know and then
express it in the clearest way possible (I do not mean to
say that one function precedes the other; they are at
best simultaneous.). When I say that I want my writing
to be accessible to everyone, I do not mean that I wish
to write conventional novels in the style of the nineteenth century, which is still the formula for pulp fiction. But I am concerned with content, as I think all
genuine feminist writers are. We want to examine the
experience of women and articulate the hard questions
posed by the struggle of the last few years. And for me,
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prose is not performance, but ideally a clear glass
through which the reader enters the story. The medium

In my personal life the power of the combination lesbian/feminist/artist is tremendous. By personal life I
mean the life I lead in my studio, where I take measure-

should disappear.

ments of myself and begin to invent hypotheses and

Part of the revolutionary content of our work, I be-

possibilities based on these measurements. One way in

lieve, is the re-experiencing of our bodies. Having been
brought up in a repressed and ignorant condition for the
purposes of capitalism and heterosexism, Our resistance

which the power of lesbian/feminist/artist has manifested itself is in the terror that I uncover through

painting. Sometimes I need a couple of hours to

to knowledge of our bodies is extreme. We are trauma-

“recover” after a painting. I can feel very tangibly as

tized, we freeze, we become blind and deaf in the presence of flesh. A book that confronts us with flesh is

though with a painting my head has split open and

Monique Wittig's The Lesbian Body. And because we

something has been birthed from that chasm. The terror

resist so strongly, Wittig has to proceed in a violent

is (again, tangibly) the feeling that my head needs to

manner. She has to take us by the back of the head and

close up before I can interact with the world directly,

shove our face into it to make us look at the body,

lest something unwanted and terrible from the world get

touch, smell, taste it from the inside, make us stare at it

in through that split. I always have this feeling after

rotten and putrid and every possible way it can be—so

painting something that comes from my gut, something

that we will come to know and accept and love our own

that, no matter how indecipherable to anyone, has
come from an automatic gesture from within me. I can

flesh.

recognize it as such.

Part of what I love about dykes is our toughness.
And that toughness can be connected up with a deep

Two things I have learned from lesbian-feminism are

awareness of women too; lesbians are mothers and les-

that: a) irrational terrors are possibly not irrational at

bians are daughters, so we have the whole range of

all but part of a terrorizing way of life that goes on for

women's experience and the other dimension too, which

all women, and b) the terror often increases for women
who take steps away from compliance with the system.

is the unique viewpoint of the dyke. This extra dimen-

Terror of rape, terror of being molested, of being tor-

sion puts us a step outside of so-called normal life and
lets us see how gruesomely abnormal it is, lets us see the

tured, of being taken over, of intrusion. I link all these

kinds of illusions that people live by, that steal people's

together for myself and for other feminist lesbians. They
are real. We're not irrational. Even the protective ges-

lives from them. It puts us up against the moment,

tures that I make in my studio to avoid the very pos-

against the reality of creating our own lives and relationships because there are few models. But this examin-

sibility of intrusion are linked to my fear of coming

ing and inventing reaches out beyond our individual

apart, being taken apart.

lives and relationships into a way of viewing what goes

Amy Sillman

on around us, and can issue in a world-view that is dis-

New York City

tinct in history and uniquely liberating. It is our continued working together over time, taking risks, remaining true to ourselves and stretching ourselves out beyond our limits, that will lead us to the development of
this world-view.
What I want to do in my own work is to affirm women's strength, and I don't mean by that to pretend to a
kind of strength that isn't real. (For instance, I find hero-

Because of my saturation in sociology, I believe that
all theories should be put to the test of research. In my

opinion, the question of a common denominator
existing between women artists, other than gender, is
still on the drafting table, is still a theory unproven.
Without defining it, it is dangerously refutable. Without
defining women’s art, it is impossible to secondly reach

ines like Wonder Woman or Super Dyke offensive.) In

conclusions about lesbian art. As long as there remains

the novel I've been writing, the character who started
out at the most disadvantage, supposedly, was one of

essentially no data, as long as art remains what the indi-

the women who was very aware of her own anguish,

vidual concedes it to be, general terms such as lesbian
art will always be uncomfortable terms lesbians believe

who experienced herself in pain and out of joint with
other people and the world. Over time, sheis the character who developed the most strength. The other women
in the book, who initially were more appealing, did not
grow as much. It surprised me during the writing of the
book, to see this woman, the most ineffectual and hurt-

to be true without knowing how to define what they
mean. In other words, “I know I'm a lesbian artist but I
don't know what that means.” Sure, I could come up
with something, but I believe a political statement merits
more research than what I, or several other lesbians,
could individually come up with.

ing one, develop into the most complete and effectual

As far as the Sweaty Palms show [in Chicago], where

human being there. I didn't intend for this to happen;

four of us advertised our work as being produced by

she just grew naturally within the events and feelings
and interactions of the novel. And looking back, I think

four lesbian artists, I can only speak retrospectively and

her depth came from her being so connected to, so

for myself. The show proved that one can not stereotype

aware of, her pain. So when I present images of wom-

lesbians and the art they produce; one could not find

en's strength, I want that to come out of a true under-

any similarities even between the four of us. It also made

standing of the difficulties of our lives and the agonies

myself, and probably others, start thinking about what

one has to endure in the midst of our struggles and victories. To tell the truth is not easy. I hope I have the

lesbian art could be. I feel that in some respects Sweaty

Palms posed a question. That question is still unanswered.

wisdom and courage and skill to do it.
Sandy Boucher
San Francisco

Phylane Norman
Chicago

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23

Photo by eeva-inkeri

Sandra DeSando lives in New York City. She has exhibited at
various galleries, including Albright-Knox and Hundred
Acres. Her work is currently at the Seventeenth St. Gallery.
Melanie Kaye is a poet and activist. She teaches women’s
studies at Portland State University in Oregon and is a coauthor of Naming: Poems by Eight Women.

Janice Helleloid is a member of the Women's Art Registry of
Minnesota Gallery, a Woman's Collective Art Space, and an
instructor at the College of Art and Design in Minneapolis.
Currently she is working on an exhibition for Galleria D'Arte
Del Cavallino in Venice, Italy for fall of 1977.
Monica Sjoo is a Swedish feminist artist and writer (self
taught) who has lived in England for the last 15 years. Her
book, The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of
All will be published by Womanspirit, in the United States in
the coming year.

Phylane Norman.

Debbie Jones is a sculptor, woodworker and lecturer living in
Ithaca, New York.
Kathryn Kendall survives and writes in New Orleans, mother-

Jane Stedman, a self-taught weaver who makes elegantly
simple and functional weavings, works with her partner,

ing Seth and prevailing, despite the odds.

M'Lou Brubaker, a silversmith (formerly “Sistersilver”) in

Olga Broumas' poetry appears on page 57.

their craft business, Mother Oaks Crafts.
Maryann King lives in New York City, paints, swims and puts
together jigsaw puzzles.
Ellen Ledley lives in Pasadena in the Red Moon Collective and
she is a member of a women’s carpentry/ handicrafts collective.
She is also part of a group of women artists who have been

Sandy Boucher is the author of a book of short stories,
Assaults & Rituals, and a novel, Charlotte Street, to be
published by Daughter's, Inc. this year.
Amy Sillman would like to make a living running an offset
press.

meeting and talking aböut work.
Joan Nestle is a lecturer in English, SEEK Program, Queens

Phylane Norman considers herself a lesbian artist more often

College, CUNY and a co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory
Archives in New York.

than not when she is around other artists who aren't. Photography and academia keep her occupied.
49

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Photographs courtesy of Robert A. Wilson.
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Untitled

Some Unsaid Things

I have not been there many times.
On two separate occasions I entered the surroundings
Though many times I thought I was at that place.
There were the children, amorous, and I
who could have been their mother,
Lovesick with them.

I was not going to say
how you lay with me
nor where your hands went
& left their light impressions
nor whose face was white

Though restless and seeking many places,

as a splash of moonlight

Though I too have a home,
nor who spilled the wine

I find comfort in denying it.

nor whose blood stained the sheet

There are many homes.
They choose you.

nor which one of us wept
to set the dark bed rocking

Perhaps I would give much for assurance.
I have never been offered a bargain.
An old game played by two persons throwing three dice,
This too is passage.

nor what you took me for
nor what I took you for

In my house
nor how your fingertips
in me were roots

the passage from the door leads to the kitchen
then off to the bath.
I take long baths

light roots torn leaves put down—

putting milk on my face
leaving the door open to the smells of the kitchen.
But it is all in passing

nor what you tore from me
nor what confusion came

in a hasty manner

of our twin names

cursorily
that I continue.

nor will I say whose body
Carole Glasser

opened, sucked, whispered

like the ocean, unbalancing
what had seemed a safe position

Joan Larkin

Reprinted by permission of the author from Housework, (Out
& Out Books), copyright © 1975 by Joan Larkin.
Joan Larkin’s first book of poems is entitled Housework. She is
Carole Glasser is a songwriter and a poet. She lives in an
apartment with a large terrace and a large dog.

co-editor of Amazon Poetry: An Anthology of Lesbian
Poetry. Both books were published by Out and Out Books, a
women’s independent press she helped to start in 1975,

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. . . the common world is what we enter when we are
born and what we leave behind when we die. It transcends our life-span into past and future alike; it was

Writing of the destruction of the civilization of Languedoc by the forces of the Church under Simon de Montfort, Simone Weil reminds us: “Nothing is more cruel to

there before we came and will outlast our brief sojourn

the past than the commonplace which asserts that spirit-

into it. It is what we have in common not only with those

ual values cannot be destroyed by force; on the strength

who live with us, but also with those who were here be-

of this belief, civilizations that have been destroyed by

fore and with those who will come after us. But such a

force of arms are denied the name of civilization; and

common world can survive the coming and going of the

there is no risk of our being refuted by the dead.” * For

generations only to the extent that it appears in public. It
is the publicity of the public realm which can absorb and
make shine through the centuries whatever men [sic] may
want to save from the natural ruin of time.’

Women both have and have not a common world.
The mere sharing of oppression does not constitute a
common world. Our thought and action, insofar as it
has taken the form of difference, assertion, or rebellion,

spiritual values and a creative tradition to continue
unbroken we need concrete artifacts, the work of hands,
written words to read, images to look at, a dialogue

with brave and imaginative women who came before
us. In the false names of love, motherhood, natural
law—false because they have not been defined by us to

whom they are applied—women in patriarchy have
been withheld from building a common world, except in
enclaves, or through coded messages.

has repeatedly been obliterated, or subsumed under “human history, which means the “publicity of the public
realm” created and controlled by men. Our history is

The protection and preservation of the world against
natural processes are among the toils which need the

the history of a majority of the species, yet the struggles

monotonous performance of daily repeated chores..….….In

of women for a “human” status have been relegated to

old tales and mythological stories it has often assumed

footnotes, to the sidelines. Above all, women’s relation-

the grandeur of heroic fights against overwhelming odds,
as in the account of Hercules, whose cleansing of the

ships with women have been denied or neglected as a
force in history.”
The essays in this book are parts of a much larger
work, which we are still struggling to possess: the long
process of making visible the experience of women. The

tentativeness, the anxiety, sometimes approaching

paralysis, the confusions, described in many of these

Augean stables is among the twelve heroic “labors.” A
similar connotation of heroic deeds requiring great
strength and courage and performed in a fighting spirit is
manifest in the mediaeval use of the word: labor, travail,
arbeit. However, the daily fight in which the human
body is engaged to keep the world clean and prevent its

essays by intelligent, educated, “privileged” women, are

decay bears little resemblance to heroic deeds; the endurance it needs to repair every day anew the waste of yes-

themselves evidence of the damage that can be done to

terday is not courage, and what makes the effort painful

creative energy by the lack of a sense of continuity, his-

is not danger but its relentless repetition.^

torical validation, community. Most women, it seems,
have gone through their travails in a kind of spiritual
isolation, alone both in the present and in ignorance of

their place in any female tradition. The support of
friends, of a women’s group, may make survival possible; but it is not enough.
It is quite clear that the universities and the intellectual
establishment intend to keep women’s experiences as far
as possible invisible; and women’s studies a barely subsidized, condescendingļly tolerated ghetto. The majority
of women who go through undergraduate and graduate
school suffer an intellectual coercion of which they are
not even consciously aware. In a world where language
and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.
This article appears as the foreword to Working It Out,
edited by Pamela Daniels and Sally Ruddick, published

Hannah Arendt does not call this “woman's work.”
Yet it is this activity of world-protection, world-preservation, world-repair, the million tiny stitches, the friction of the scrubbing brush, the scouring-cloth, the iron
across the shirt, the rubbing of cloth against itself to
exorcise the stain, the renewal of the scorched pot, the
rusted knife-blade, the invisible weaving of a frayed and
threadbare family life, the cleaning-up of soil and waste
left behind by men and children—that we have been
charged to do “for love”—not merely unpaid, but unac-

knowledged by the political philosophers. Women are
not described as “working” when we create the essential
conditions for the work of men; we are supposed to be
acting out of love, instinct, or devotion to some higher
cause than self.
Arendt tells us that the Greeks despised all labor of

by Pantheon.
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Communal kitchen of the Oneida Community. from Frank
Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 9, 1870.

the body necessitated by biological needs. It was to
spare themselves such labor that men kept slaves—not

of women and deny our female heritage and identity in

as a means to cheaper production. “Contempt for labor-

our work, we lose touch with our real powers, and with

ing, originally arising out of a passionate striving for

the essential
community.

condition for all fully realized work:

freedom from necessity and a no less passionate impatience with every effort that left no trace, no monument,
no great work worthy of remembrance, spread with the
increasing demands of polis life upon the time of the citizens (i.e., males) and its insistence on their abstention
from all but political activities.”
And, in the aside of a footnote: “Women and slaves
belonged and lived together. ..no woman, not even the
wife of the household head, lived among her equals—
other free women—so that rank depended much less on

Feminism begins, but cannot end, with the discovery
by an individual of her self-consciousness as a woman.
It is not, finally, even the recognition of her reasons for
anger, or the decision to change her life, go back to
school, leave a marriage (though in any individual life
such decisions can be momentous and require great courage). Feminism means finally that we renounce our obedience to the fathers, and recognize that the world they
have described is not the whole world. Masculine ideoi-

birth than on ‘occupation’ or function...” According

ogies are the creation of masculine subjectivity; they are

to the index, this footnote is the last reference to women,
On page 73 of a volume of 325 Pages on The Human
Condition, written by a woman.

neither objective, nor value-free, nor inclusively “hu-

Every effort that left no trace.. .. The efforts of
women in labor, giving birth to stillborn children, children who must die of Plague or by infanticide ; the

man.” Feminism implies that we recognize fully the
inadequacy for us, the distortion, of male-created ideologies; and that we proceed to think, and act, out of that
recognition.

In the common world of men, in the professions

efforts of women to keep filth and decay at bay, children

which the writers of these essays have come to grips

decently clothed, to produce the clean shirt in which the

with, it takes more than our individual talent and intel-

man walks out daily into the common world of men, the
efforts to raise children against the attritions of racist
and sexist schooling, drugs, sexual exploitation, the bru-

talization and killing of barely grown boys in war.
There is still little but contempt and indifference for this

ligence to think and act further. In denying the validity
of women’s experience, in Pretending to stand for “the
human,” masculine subjectivity tries to force us to name
our truths in an alien language; to dilute them; we are
constantly told that the “real” problems, the ones worth

kind of work, these efforts, (The phrase “wages for

working on, are those men have defined, that the prob-

housework” has the power to shock today that the

lems we need to examine are trivial, unscholarly, non-

phrase “free love” Possessed a century ago.)

existent. We are urged to separate the “personal” (our
entire existence as women) from the “scholarly” or “pro-

2.

fessional.” Several of the women who contribute to this
book have described the outright insults and intellectual

There is a natural temptation to escape if we can, to
close the door behind us on this despised realm which

sabotage they encountered as women in graduate school.
But more insidious may be the sabotage which appears

threatens to engulf all women, whether as mothers, or

as paternal encouragement, approval granted for inter-

in marriage, or as the invisible, ill-paid sustainers of the

nalizing a masculine subjectivity. As Tillie Olsen puts it,

professions and social institutions. There is a natural

“Not to be able to come to one's OWn truth or not to use

fear that if we do not enter the common world of men,

it in one's writing, even in telling the truth to have to

as asexual beings or as “exceptional” women, do not

‘tell it slant,’ robs one of drive, of conviction, limits

enter it on its terms and obey its rules, we will be sucked

potential stature.” Everywhere, women working in the
common world of men are denied that integrity of work

back into the realm of servitude, whatever our temporary class status or privileges. This temptation and this

and life which we can only find in an emotional and

fear compromise our Powers, divert our energies, form

women.

a potent source of “blocks” and of acute anxiety about
work.
For if, in trying to join the common world of men, the

professions moulded by a primarily masculine consciousness, we split ourselves off from the common life

intellectual connectedness with ourselves and other
More and more, however, women are creating com-

munity, sharing work, and discovering that in the sharing of work our relationships with each other become
larger and more serious. In organizing a women’s self-

help clinic or law collective, a writing workshop, in

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editing a magazine, creating a center for women’s work

vision H.D. went on to create her great, late, long poems

like the Women’s Building in Los Angeles, in running a

celebrating a matriarchal world and the quest of female

press that publishes “lost” books by women, or contem-

heroes); no less does the fact of working together deepen

porary work that may be threatening or incomprehensi-

and sustain a personal relationship. “If Chloe likes Oliv-

ble to male editors, in participating in a women’s prison

ia and they share a laboratory.. .this of itself will make

project or a crisis center, we come to understand at first-

their friendship more varied and lasting because it will

hand not only our unmet needs, but the resources we

be less personal.”” By “like” I believe Virginia Woolf

can draw on for meeting them even in the face of female

(still, in that book, writing more cautiously than later in

poverty, the hostility of institutions, the lack of docu-

Three Guineas) also meant “love”; for “a laboratory”

mentation of our shared past. Susan Griffin has said

we can read “the creation of a common world.”

that, for a feminist, writing may be solitary but thinking

Many women have known the figure of the male

is collective. Any woman who has moved from the

“mentor” who guides and protects his female student or

playing-fields of male discourse into the realm where

colleague, tenderly opening doors for her into the com-

women are developing our own descriptions of the

mon world of men. He seems willing to share his power,

world, knows the extraordinary sense of shedding, as it

were, the encumbrance of someone else's baggage, of

to conspire with her in stealing what Celia Gilbert names
in this book “the sacred fire” of work. Yet what can he

ceasing to translate. It is not that thinking becomes easy,

really bestow but the illusion of power, a power stolen,

but that the difficulties are intrinsic to the work itself

in any case, from the mass of women, over centuries, by

rather than to the environment. In the common world

men? He can teach her to name her experience in lan-

of men, the struggle to make female experience visible—

guage that may allow her to live, work, perhaps succeed

will they take seriously a thesis on women? Will they let

in the common world of men. But he has no key to the

me teach a course on women? Can I speak bluntly of

powers she might share with other women.

female experience without shattering the male egos
around me, or being labeled hysterical, castrating?—

tional and erotic life with women, it does not matter

such struggles assume the status of an intellectual prob-

that your intellectual work is a collaboration with

lem, and the real intellectual problems may not be

silence and lying about female experience. At a panel of

probed at all.

lesbian writers at the Modern Language Association in

Working together as women, consciously creating

There is also the illusion that if you make your emo-

San Francisco in December 1975, Susan Griffin spoke of

our networks even where patriarchal institutions are the

the damages we do to ourselves and our work in censor-

ones in which we have to survive, we can confront the

ing our own truths:

problems of women’s relationships, the mothers we
came from, the sisters with whom we were forced to
divide the world, the daughters we love and fear. We
can challenge and inspirit each other, throw light on one
another's blind spots, stand by and give courage at the
birth-throes of one another's insights. I think of the poet

I feel that this whole idea of the Muse, of inspiration, is a
kind of cop-out. There is something very fascinating going on with a writer's psyche when you are undergoing a
silence, an inability to write. Each silence and each eruption into speech constitute a kind of struggle in the life of

H.D.'s account of the vision she had on the island of

a writer... The largest struggle around silence in my life
has had to do with the fact that I am a woman and a

Corfu, in the Tribute to Freud:

lesbian. When I recognized my feelings as a woman,
when I recognized my anger as a woman, suddenly my

And there I sat and there is my friend Bryher who has

writing was transformed—suddenly I had a material, a

brought me to Greece. I can turn now to her, though I do

subject-matter... And then a few years later I found my-

not budge an inch or break the sustained crystal-gazing

self unhappy with my writing, unhappy with the way I

at the wall before me. I say to Bryher, “There have been

expressed myself, unable to speak; I wrote in a poem,

pictures here—I thought they were shadows at first, but

Words do not come to my mouth any more. And I happened also.. . .to be censoring the fact that I was a lesbian.

they are light, not shadow. They are quite simple objects
—but of course it's very strange. I can break away from
them now, if I want—it's just a matter of concentrating—
what do you think? Shall I stop? Shall I go on?” Bryher
says without hesitation, “Go on.”

I thought that I was doing this because of the issue of
child custody, and that was and still is a serious issue.
But I wasn't acknowledging how important it was to me,
both as a writer and as a human being, to be able to...
write about my feelings as a lesbian.

. . .I had known such extraordinarily gifted and charming people. They had made much of me or they had

In fact, I think that writers are always dealing with taboos

slighted me and yet neither praise nor neglect mattered in

of one sort or another; if they are not taboos general in

the face of the gravest issues—life, death..….….And yet, so

society, you may just have a fear in your private life of

oddly, I knew that this experience, this writing-on-the-

perceiving some truth because of its implications, and

wall before me, could not be shared with anyone except

that will stop you from writing..….….But when we come to

the girl who stood so bravely there beside me. This girl

the taboo of lesbianism, this is one which is most loaded

had said without hesitation, “Go on.” It was she really

for everyone, even those who are not lesbians. Because
the fact of love between women. ..is one which affects

who had the detachment and integrity of the Pythoness
of Delphi. But it was I, battered and disassociated. ..who

every event in this society, psychic and political and

was seeing the pictures, and who was reading the writing

sociological. And for a writer, the most savage center is

or granted the inner vision. Or perhaps, in some sense,

oneself. 8

we were “seeing” it together, for without her, admittedly,
I could not have gone on.

The whole question of what it means, or might mean, to
work as a lesbian might have occupied an entire essay in

the episode is revealing as metaphor. The personal rela-

this book. Of past women whose thought and work
have remained visible in history, an enormous num-

tionship helps create the conditions for work (out of her

ber have been lesbians, yet because of the silence and

Even for those who would mistrust visionary experience,

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denial that has enveloped lesbianism, we learn little
from women’s biographies about the relation of their
work to their relationships with women or to the social

taboos they lived among. One writer in this book
mourns that “there was only one Alice B. Toklas.” But
in fact women’s support to women has been there all
along, lifetime or long-term comradeships. For many
women, struggling for economic survival in the common world of men, these relationships have had to be
dissimulated, at what cost to the work (let alone the
relationships) we cannot begin to know. Every lesbian
has been forced to walk past the distorting mirrors of

homophobia before she could get down to the real
problems of her work. Every lesbian artist knows that
when she attempts to embody lesbian sexuality in her
work she runs the risk of having it perceived pornographically, if it is not simply denied visibility. When

the real springs of our power to alter reality, on a diet of
masculine ideology. This is not the same thing as saying
that we can use nothing of these ideologies, or their
methods; or that we need not understand them. But the
common world of men cannot give us what we need,
and parts of it are poisoning us. Miriam Schapiro, in

this book, describes the process through which she
begins to work: filling sheets of paper with smeared
paint, images created “freely, mindlessly,” going back
to that place in childhood where she simply painted and
was happy. To her husband, this appeared as “de-professionalizing” herself. Yet the very concept of “professionalism,” tainted as it is with the separation between
personal life and work, with a win-or-lose mentalilty
and the gauging of success by public honors and market
prices, needs a thorough revaluation by women. Forty
years back Virginia Woolf was asking:

a lesbian feels she may have to choose between writing
or painting her truths and keeping her child, she is

What is this “civilization” in which we find ourselves?

flung back on the most oppressive ground of maternal

What are these ceremonies and why should we make

guilt in conflict with creative work. The question of eco-

money out of them? Where in short is it leading, the procession of the sons of educated men?°

nomic survival, of keeping one's job, is terribly real, but
the more terrible questions lie deeper where a woman is
forced, or permits herself, to lead a censored life.

Her answer was that it is leading to war, to elitism, to
exploitation and the greed for power; in our own time
we can also add that it has clearly been leading to the

3

In thinking about the issues of women and work
raised in this book, I turned to Hannah Arendt’s The

ravagement of the non-human living world. Instead of
the concept of “professionalism,” we need, perhaps, a
vision of work akin to that described by Simone Weil in
her “Theoretical Picture of a Free Society”:

Human Condition to see how a major political philosopher of our time, a woman, greatly respected in the
intellectual establishment, had spoken to the theme. I
found her essay illuminating, not so much for what it
says, but for what it is. The issue of women as the labor-

A clear view of what is possible and what impossible,
what is easy and what difficult, of the labors that separate the project from its accomplishment—this alone does
away with insatiable desires and vain fears; from this

ers in reproduction, of women as workers in production,

and not from anything else proceed moderation and

of the relationship of women’s unpaid labor in the home

courage, virtues without which life is nothing but a dis-

to the separation between “private” and “public”
spheres, of the woman's body as commodity—these
questions were not raised for the first time in the 1960's

graceful frenzy. Besides, the source of any kind of virtue
lies in the shock produced by the human intelligence
being brought up against a matter devoid of lenience and
of falsity .10

and 1970's; they had already been documented in the
1950's when The Human Condition was being written.

If we conceive of feminism as more than a frivolous

Arendt barely alludes, usually in a footnote, to Marx

label, if we conceive of it as an ethics, a methodology, a

and Engels’ engagement with these questions; and she

more complex way of thinking about, thus more

writes as if the work of Olive Schreiner, Charlotte Per-

responsibly acting upon, the conditions of human life,

inds Gilman, Emma Goldman, Jane Addams, to name
only a few writers, had never existed. The withholding

we need a self-knowledge which can only develop
through a steady, passionate attention to al! female

of women from participation in the vita activa, the

experience. I cannot imagine a feminist evolution lead-

“common world,” and the connection of this with repro-

ing to radical change in the private/political realm of

ductivity, is something from which she does not so
much turn her eyes as stare straight through unseeing.
This “great work” is thus a kind of failure for which

gender, that is not rooted in the conviction that all
women’s lives are important, that the lives of men cannot be understood by burying the lives of women; and

masculine ideology has no name, precisely because in

that to make visible the full meaning of women’s experi-

terms of that ideology it is successful, at the expense of

ence, to re-interpret knowledge in terms of that experi-

truths the ideology considers irrelevant. To read such a

ence, is now the most important task of thinking.

book, by a woman of large spirit and great erudition,

If this is so, we cannot work alone. We had better face

can be painful, because it embodies the tragedy of the

the fact that our hope of thinking at all, against the force

female mind nourished on male ideologies. In fact, the

of a maimed and maiming world-view, depends on

loss is ours, because Arendt’s desire to grasp deep moral
issues is the kind of concern we need to build a common

seeking and giving our allegiance to a community of
women co-workers. And, beyond the exchange and cri-

world which will amount to more than “life-styles.” The

ticism of work, we have to ask ourselves how we can

power of male ideology to possess such a female mind,

make the conditions for work more possible, not just for

to disconnect it as it were from the female body which

ourselves but for each other. This is not a question of

encloses it and which it encloses, is nowhere more strik-

generosity. It is not generosity that makes women in

ing than in Arendt'’s lofty and crippled book.

community support and nourish each other. It is rather

Women’s minds cannot grow to full stature, or touch

what Whitman called the “hunger for equals’—the
55

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desire for a context in which our own strivings will be
amplified, quickened, lucidified, through those of our
peers.

1. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. University of
Chicago Press, 1958, p. 55.
2. The historian Joan Kelly-Gadol suggests that a feminist

We also, of course, need community with our past.

view of history is not merely “compensatory history,” a

Women’s art and thought and action will continue to be

parallel to the accepted views of history as male. It means

seen as deviant, its true meaning distorted or buried, as
long as women’s work can be dismissed as “exceptional,”
an interesting footnote to the major texts. Or, it will be
encouraged for its timidities and punished for its daring.
This is obvious to women who have tried to work along

“to look at ages or movements of great social change in
terms of their liberation or repression of woman's potential, their import for the advancement of her humanity as
well as his. The moment this is done—the moment one assumes that women are a part of humanity in the fullest
sense—the period or set of events with which we deal takes

seriously feminist lines in the established professions.

on a wholly different character or meaning from the nor-

But even before the work exists, long before praise or
attack, the very form it will assume, the courage on

mally accepted one. Indeed, what emerges is a fairly regular pattern of relative loss of status for women in those

which it can draw, the sense of potential direction it

periods of so-called progressive change.” (“The Social Re-

may take, require—given the politics of our lives and of
creation itself—more than the gifts of the individual

woman, or her immediate contemporaries. We need
access to the female past.
The problem, finally, is not that of who does housework and child-care, whether or not one can find a lifecompanion who will share in the sustenance and repair
of daily life—crucial as these may be in the short run. It

lation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Women's History,” in SIGNS, Vol. 1, #4, Summer 1976.)
3. Simone Weil, Selected Essays 1934-1943. Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 43.
4. Arendt, p. 55.
5. Arendt, pp. 81-83.
6. H.D., Tribute to Freud. Carcanet Press, Oxford, 1971,
Pp. 50-54.

is a question of the community we are reaching for in

7. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own. Hogarth Press,
London, 1929, p. 126.

our work, and on which we can draw; who we envision

8. Sinister Wisdom, Vol. I, #2, Fall 1976.

as our hearers, our co-creators, our challengers; who
will urge us to take our work further, more seriously,

than we had dared; on whose work we can build.

Women have done these things for each other, sought
each other in community, even if only in enclaves, often

9. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938). Harbinger Book,
New York, 1966, p. 63.
10. Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty. Translated by
Arthur Wills and John Petrie. University of Massachusetts
Press, Amherst, Mass., 1973, p. 87.

through correspondence, for centuries. Denied space in
the universities, the scientific laboratories, the professions, we have devised our networks. We must not be

tempted to trade the possibility of enlarging and
strengthening those networks, and of extending them to
more and more women, for the illusion of power and
success as “exceptional” or “privileged” women in the
professions.

Adrienne Rich's most recent books are Poems Selected and
New: 1950-1974 and Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, both published by W.W. Norton, and
Twenty-One Love Poems, published by Effies Press, Emeryville California.

Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831) and Eleanor Butler
(1739-1829), known as the Ladies of Llangollen, were
born in Ireland but left their homes at an early age,
to spend the rest of their lives together in the small
Welsh village of Llangollen. They were a curiosity of
their day; several articles about their “romantic
friendship” were written and their farmhouse became
something of an intellectual center in Great Britain.
Louisa Gordon wrote a novel, The Chase of the Wild
Goose, based on their lives, which was originally
published by Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. In
1971 Elizabeth Mavor published a biography entitled
The Ladies of Llangollen.

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Sometimes, as a child

Artemis

when the Greek sea

Let's not have tea. White wine

was exceptionally calm

eases the mind along

the sun not so much a pinnacle

the slopes

as a perspiration of light, your brow and the sky
meeting on the horizon, sometimes

of the faithful body, helps
any memory once engraved
on the twin

you'd dive
from the float, the pier, the stone

chromosome ribbons, emerge, tentative

promontory, through water so startled

from the archaeology of an excised past.

it held the shape of your plunge, and there
I am a woman
in the arrested heat of the afternoon

who understands

without thought, effortless

the necessity of an impulse whose goal or origin
still lie beyond me. I keep the goat

as a mantra turning
you'd turn

for more

in the paused wake of your dive, enter
the suck of the parted waters, you'd emerge

than the pastoral reasons. Iwork
in silver the tongue-like forms

clean caesarean, flinging

that curve round a throat

live rivulets from your hair, your own

breath arrested. Something immaculate, a chance

an arm-pit, the upper

crucial junction: time, light, water

like a curviform alphabet
that defies

thigh, whose significance stirs in me
had occurred, you could feel your bones
glisten

translucent as spinal fins. .

decoding, appears
In rain-

green Oregon now, approaching thirty, sometimes
the same

to consist of vowels, beginning with O, the Omega, horseshoe, the cave of sound.
What tiny fragments

rare concert of light and spine
resonates in my bones, as glistening

survive, mangled into our language.
I am a woman committed to

starfish, lover, your fingers
beach up.

a politics
of transliteration, the methodology
Olga Broumas
of a mind

stunned at the suddenly
possible shifts of meaning—for which
like amnesiacs

in a ward on fire, we must
find words
or burn.

Olga Broumas

57

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ULRIKE OTTINGER — TABEA BLUMENSCIHEIN

Film ABC - relating to THE INFATUATION OF THE BLUE SAILORS
with texts from Apollinaire

AMORE
ARTE
AZUR

APOLLINAIRE, Guillaume Albert Wladimir Alexandre Apollinaire de
Kostrowitzky, born the 26th. of Aufust 1880 in Rome

BETOERUNG DER BLAUEN MATROSEN (german title)

Before the flower of friendship faded — friendship faded
(Gertrude Stein)

Cash (engl.: Kasch) - barzahlung

Die du so schon bist (you who are so beautiful)

Documents trouve de Morenhout et Tabea

Das schwatzende Insekt (the prattling insect)

Feder St
Flugge

Evita Peron (I am even less forgiving than my friend)

Fernrohr (binoculars)

Flugel wing)

Fliegen
fly)
oder : (or

Frauen gemeinsam sind stark Women together are strong)

G.si.

above: photograph from performance: TRANSFOXKMER-DEFORMER 1974 in
Paraumedia, Berlin
next pages: photographs from the scenario of THE PORTRAYAL OF A
DRINKING WOMAN.
58

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56 UTC

LAOKOON AND SONS
16mm-b/w-50 mins

content; the story of a
woman, Esmeralda del Rio,
who assumes various masculine and feminine roles
..e...that of the widow
Olimpia Vincitor, Linda
MacNamara the skater, as
Jimmy Junod the gigolo...

above: Jimmy Junod

"This concept of irony was
also made use of in our
first film 'Laokoon and
Sons' when Esmeralda del
Rio changes into a grotesque
persiflage of the mechanised
manifestations of western
culture,"

ARE COMING

1.

íusic
Voice
Voice

Fairy tales are coming
Fairy tales are here

Voice
Voice
Voice

I am a picture
I am a fairy tale
And this is the sound

to stay

o A o

of music

Title
Voice

film

Voice

Laokoon and 8Sọns is a
story for all seasons.
Une or two or three or
a hundred voices tell
this story for the
pleasure of your eyes
and ears.
These are women's voices.

Voice

This is Laokoon and Sons

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DIE BETORUNG DER BLAUEN MATROSEN

THE INFATUATION OF THE BLUE SAILORS
16mm. colour. 47 mins. 19795

Appearing in the film:
The protagonists of the film:

l1. A siren

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

A hawaian girl
Two sailors
An old bird
A young bird
Two sailors, one of whom survives

Figures from an almost forgotten

world:

1.
2.
3.
4.

The greek god Tunte (Tunte-Queen)
An old american filmstar
A russian motuer of silent film
A nymph of Germau romanticism

About the collage system in our film;
Unlike other contemporary films this
film, for the most part, makes use of
a collage system, aimed at breaking
the rules and undermining the expec-

tations in an audience's identification by means of interruptions, irritations, and ironical alienations,. In
the collage system various different
srcas of concern and 'quotations' are
interlaced, quotes from commercialized
everyday life, musical quotes ranging

from noises »nd sacred gongs, via
hawaian music, Schuricke melodies and
Musette waltzes, to Burmese chants
and cult rythms of the Cetchac...

'language' quotes-literary texts by
Apollinaire, whıcn have themselves

already made use of the 'quotation

approach'...snippets from the world

of american showbusiness (the old
Hollywood star), l-mentations of aà
russian mother of silent film, the
affected outrage of a greek tunte
god, the sentimental folksong of the
nymph of german romanticism,

About the irony in the film:

In the film irony is understood as social control over the mechanisation
of life: 'When we have broken with the old world, when we are in a state

of flux between two worlds....then satire, the grotesque, caricature,

the clown and the doll emerge; what is at the bottom of this form of
expression is the wish to let us imagine another life, by showing us how

this life is apparently and actually paralysed ín a puppet-like, mechanical state.' (Raoul Hausmann)
-extract from =. conversation between Ulrike Ottinger, Tabea Blumenschein

and Hanne Bergius.
62

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photo: the chinese pirate queen
LAI CHO SAN aboard her
junk in 19830

Scenario: MADAME X - THE ABSOLUTE EMPRESS

May '77 |

A pirate film with women - shooting to begin

Because of its isolated island character a
ship, and even more a pirate ship, was

always a meeting place for all dissatisfac-

tion, the right place for a group of dissatisfied women who wish to rebel against

a limiting civilisation and to try to break

out together, out of the roles laid down
for them, But the women are also prisoners

on this ship. Prisoners of the sea (physically), still prisoners of the civilisation

that they have left, which has left the

habits of passivity and reliance stored up
in their character structure,
Despite these unfavorable circumstances
the rebellion occurs,
text from the script:
They take an oath on the flag with the bleeding heart and crossed
cutlasses, on Madame X - their charismatic empress, and on the
letters L and A which stand for LOVE AND ADVENTURE.
A11 the hidden frustrations come together to produce a powerful force
and with favourable winds they sail away.

Ulrike Ottinger was born in Konstanze, southern Germany, in 1942. In 1969 she opened a gallery in Konstanz and in 1972 moved with
Tabea Blumenschein to Berlin, where they now reside. They just finished shooting their third film on the lake of Konstanz near the
Alps. Partly financed by ZDF-TV in Germany, Madame X is about women pirates.
63

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From that moment on, she disowned the child.
I was the child.

Educated in suitcases, lonely without maps, I pressed an ear to my diary in the nights, listened
for the vague red stirrings of its heart.

I could feel without looking how one town became the next, slight shift up or down on the scale
of chagrin. So this was civilization: running water and laws.
I was a saleswoman. Landladies liked me, though I talked about vacuum cleaners, left
brochures in the cookie jars, gave supple demonstrations of equipment before dinner. I swept
and I sold in the wrinkles of the heartland. I called it a good life.
There in the little towns darkness sighs away in the arms of each cricket. The mornings bring no
new disaster. Night comes again. The rooming house creaks with longing for its own flustered
century.

I'd pile my coins along the nightstand for counting. I'd make fragile plans for the life to come.
Really I thought nothing of the days that I'd passed through,
nothing of the nights that had passed over me.
I bound up my samples. The next house. The next house.
“Young ladies like you 'n them handy dandies, them sweepers, oughta head fer the tall times 'n
the bold times of the City.” That's what the farmers sometimes told me in the mornings when
they pushed back their cap brims, made decisions about the sun. Haw de haw haw them tall
times them bold times.

But I could see it. The City. A line in each road there. A guitar in each doorway. I learned that
the blues is a bunch of fat people. I enrolled at a club for the timid. Yes that’s how I came to the
City. I was young.
I rented a cardboard room in the quiet zone.
Oh the tentative web of fashion spread its lace around my throat.

Every night I pulled out from under the bed the hat box I'd painted in animals. My finery! Black
feathered hat. Stylish gloves small from washing. I'd hear the landlady shut the oven on her
frozen dinner, watch the light of the teevee dance over the walls.
Outside the harsh things were fading along the Avenue. I called out “Carumba! Muchachos!” in
the streets. Me without other words for uncertainty and joy.

Cynthia Carr

Cynthia Carr wrote articles for the Chicago daily newspapers for four years and was a
member of the Lavender Woman collective. Her work appears in Amazon Quarterly’s
anthology, The Lesbian Reader.

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:34:56 UTC

usually refer to as “the Paris lesbians.” Famous for both

See, I am of the age when the virgin abandons her hand
To the man that her weakness looks for and fears

her love affairs and her literary salon, Barney's circle

And I have not chosen a companion of the route

included Gertrude Stein, Romaine Brooks, Djuna
Barnes and Colette, as well as Jean Cocteau, Andre

Because you appeared at the turning of the way.

Natalie Barney stood at the center of that group we

Gide, Ezra Pound, and others.
Barney was a writer herself but little of her work has

. . .I feel tremble on my mute lips

The gentleness and fright of your first kiss.
Under your step, I hear the breaking of lyres..….

appeared in English, and she is more talked about than
read. She was alive until 1972 but remains enigmatic, a

With what kisses charm the languor of your soul...

“legend,” the blonde Amazon who rode horseback in
the Bois de Boulogne every morning. “She was
charming,” wrote Sylvia Beach in Shakespeare and

With what rhythms of love, with what fervent poem
Honor worthily her whose beauty
Wears Desire on her forehead like a diadem?

Company. “Many of her sex found her fatally so...”
The following excerpt from one of her last books

Embarrassed by this excess of adoration, to which I

chronicles an important relationship in Barney'’s life,

would have preferred joys better shared, I loved how-

that with poet Renée Vivien.
In the article, Barney first describes her own girlhood

ever the verses that she wrote to me. I rendered count
that this attitude of adoration, for which I was the pre-

in Cincinnati and Paris, then a love affair with Liane de

text, was necessary to her, and that without really

Pougy, a courtesan. As this affair is ending, she is intro-

knowing me, she found, thanks to me, a new theme of

duced to Renée Vivien by a mutual friend, Violette Shi-

inspiration to succeed death and solitude: love—but

letto. Both women are about twenty years old at this

love under an aspect which, since Sappho, had scarcely

time, and Barney, absorbed with thoughts of Liane,

found a poet.

pays little attention to Renée until she hears some of her
poetry...

Renée Vivien had just offered me a whole notebook
written in the hand of a good scholar whose writing had

One evening Renée invited me for the first time into
her room at the family boarding house, rue Crevaux.
“To render it worthy of my coming” she had filled it

not yet taken flight. Under the cover on parchment
where figured a lily and a lyre of doubtful taste, she had

inscribed: “To Natalie, for her alone.” After reading

with lilies, the flower that she had dedicated to me:

and rereading her verses, inspired by me and surpassing

“You will wither one day, ah! My lily!”

my own, I wanted them to be published. Renée, who

Meanwhile, it was the lilies which were withering.

however “aspired to glory”—for she had a more lofty

There were some of them in a too narrow jar of water

idea of it than I—consented to see them appear, but on

somber corners of the room: it was a splendor, a suffo-

condition that she sign her book only “R. Vivien.”
When this first collection of verse appeared, from

cation, transforming this ordinary room into an ardent

Alphonse Lemerre, and under this initial could pass for

and virginal chapel inclining us toward genuflection—

that of a masculine first name, a young lecturer who

she before me, I before her.

flattered himself on discovering and launching future

and even on her bed. Their whiteness illuminated the

I left her at dawn. The snow, last innocence of winter,
had disappeared, but a light frost covered the ground
where my footsteps imprinted themselves on this pallor
between her street and mine.
Disturbing beginnings where two young girls sought
each other by way of a love badly shared.
The yet somnolent senses of Renée scarcely responded

geniuses, took as subject these Etudes et Preludes and

declared to his audience “how one feels the verses

vibrant with love written by a very young man idolatrous of a first mistress.” There was, in fact, cause to
misunderstand:
You touch without embracing like the chimera...
Your form is a gleam that leaves the hands empty .….….

to my desires; her budding love, exalted by imagina-

tion, appropriated my role of lover-poet. After each
rendezvous, “for the night was to us as to others the

day,” I received from her flowers and poems, from
which I choose these several fragments as so many
avowals retracing the beginnings of our strange liaison:

As he continued his lecture on this gift, Renêe and |,
seized with foolish laughter, had to precipitously leave
the hall. No one in the audience could guess the cause of
this brusque departure.
65

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small hotel on the rue Alphonse-de-Neuville, next to
that of the Rostands. My parents reluctantly let me do

it, but only after imposing on me, as chaperone, a
housekeeper who had already been mine in a pension
where I stayed when I was in transit at Paris. It is she,
besides, who presented herself under the name of Renée

to discourage the curious. The sympathetic Professor
B.C. was also hired to teach Greek to Renée in view of a
translation into French verse that she wished to do of
the fragments of Sappho. After her lesson, he corrected
for me a new book that I was preparing: Five Little

Greek Dialogues. I made use also of his learned and
difficult penmanship for a transcription of my Letters to
a Known, in which I resumed my adventure with Liane.
This work finished, I removed the ring that she had
ordered for me at Lalique, and which carried, engraved
on the inside: “It pleases me so much that you endure to
understand and love me.”

Renée wrote two versions of our novel lived: A
Woman Appeared to Me. Influenced by the bad taste of

our “belle epoque,” she gave me the impression of
ceding to the worst weaknesses of the “art nouveau.”
This poet hardly possesses the gift of a novelist and
cannot, consequently, lend life either to the one or to
the other of her heroines.
As they began to ask my poetess for interviews and

The first version, Vally, was composed when we were

meetings, she feared being invaded and had herself

entangled, and the second when she restored to me the

represented by a governess of an aspect as anti-poetic as

name “Lorely.”

possible. This one had to make herself pass for Renée

Vivien, which discouraged future pursuits and enthusiasms, for the rumor spread that the author of a work

so troubling was deprived of all charm, eloquence or
physical attraction.

A short time after, she took me to her home in
London, where I was able to find in the celebrated book-

Vally and Lorely have the same undulating body and
similar eyes “of ice under hair like moonlight.”
The author doubtless wished to create an impression
of magic, but the magic refused to operate and it was

absurdity that replaced it. To give weight to this
afflicting affirmation, I pick this detail of a decor that

she must have believed bewitching: “A dried-out ser-

store of Bodley Head a copy of the fragments of

pent entwined itself around a vase wherein some black

Sappho, translated by Wharton (no connection with my

irises withered.” While “dressed in a white robe that

compatriot the novelist Edith Wharton, who would
have trembled with horror at the idea of a possible confusion). This precious collection served Renée Vivien for
comparison with her French translation; it became her
bedside book and the source from which she drew the
pagan inspiration for several of her books to come. One
is not pagan who wishes to be: I felt already in her a

Christian soul which was ignored. While I leafed
through other books, John Lane, the editor-publisher,
pointed out Opale, the first book of verse of a young

poetess of Norfolk, whose second collection he was

going to publish soon.
Several of these poems pleased me to the point that I
wrote to their author, adding to my word of admiration

Etude et Preludes and Quelques Portraits—Sonnets de
Femmes. Opale responded with fire:
. . .For I would dance to make you smile, and sing
Of those who with some sweet mad sin have played,
And how Love walks with delicate feet afraid
Twixt maid and maid.

“Why,” I said to Renée, “shouldn't we assemble
around us a group of poetesses like those who surrounded Sappho at Mytilene and who mutually inspired
each other?”
This project pleased her so much that we began to
realize it by suggesting to Opale to come to be near us in
Paris, where we were returning to install ourselves in a

veiled me while revealing me, I unstrung some opals,
plucked petals from some orchids...”
I should reproach Renée for the first of these fatal and
artificial women made to resemble me, for in her second
novel, from the mouth of this heroine, she makes me

say, “In truth, each being becomes parallel to the
appearance that our perversity forms of her: fear, by
force of not comprehending me, to render me incomprehensible.” In one of these books, she declares me “inca-

pable of loving.” I who have never been capable of
anything but that! Opposing my love of love against her
love of death, Renée esteems that I have had, by access
only, to submit to this evil of the nineteenth century,
“spleen,” while she herself has made it the leitmotif of
her life and her work.
That she had wished to go astray to such a point in
suffering, proves to me how much her poetic genius had
need of it.

Throughout the false mysticism by which she seems
haunted, in a flash of lucidity she recognizes in me a

reposing pagan soul. She recounts, in A Woman
Appeared to Me, that I asked her on the day preceding
Christmas, “What is this festival of Christmas? Does it
commemorate the birth or the death of Christ?” Exaggeration for exaggeration, I prefer that to other distortions.

On rereading these two novels, I have the painful
impression of having posed for a bad portraitist.

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Barney relates next how she and Vivien traveled to
New York and to the Barney home in Bar Harbor after
the death of their friend Violette. Renée was deeply
depressed. She continued her study of classical Greek

with the hope of translating Sappho, while Barney
attended dinners and balls at the will of her parents.
After a visit to Bryn Mawr College, the two separated in tears— Vivien to return to Europe and Barney to
go to her parents' home in Washington, D.C., for she
had promised to spend the winter with them.
I wrote in vain to Renée who, according to Mary $.,
had just installed herself in the large apartment on the
ground floor and not in the little apartment planned and
prepared at great expense by our governess. Mary S.
saw her only in passing, so greatly busy was Renêe with
furnishing it in an original manner.

Was it this moving which prevented Renée from
answering my letters? Or was it her book Evocations
which had just appeared and which she had sent to me?
Uneasy, I tried to understand through this book what
could have provoked her silence: sometimes, reassured
by her poems “for Atthis"—Atthis being one of the little

Liane de Pougy and Natalie Barney

names that she had given me—but surprised at being
evoked in the past tense:
For I remember divine expectations,
The shadow, and the feverish evenings of yesterday ..….
Amidst sighs and ardent tears,
I loved you, Atthis.

under all that fat had she not only the authoritarian
visage of a Valkyrie but a heart of gold? Renée had
never aspired to all the useless luxury with which the
new chosen one was surrounding her, her personal for-

Several descriptive stanzas followed preceding this

tune having always more than sufficed for her needs.

finale:

Who then could profit from this prodigality, if not our
astute governess?
Here is what breathes and mounts with the flame,
And the flight of songs and the breath of lilies,
The intimate sob of the soul of my soul:
I loved you, Atthis.

I prayed my friend Emma Calve—who suffered
equally from an abandonment and whom I had sought
to comfort at the time of her triumphal tour in Carmen
in the United States—to lend me her irresistible voice;

What is it that prevented a like feeling for living? I
chafed with impatience and apprehension, attached to

my duty of worldly frivolities without personal
resources to escape. Finally, in the springtime, I returned
to Paris with my family. Before even going up to my

and when night came, we disguised ourselves as street
singers. She sang under the French windows of Renée
Vivien: “I have lost my Eurydice, nothing can match
my sorrow,” while I pretended to pick up the pieces of
money thrown from the other floors. Finally, Renée

room in the Hotel D'Albe, I precipitated myself to

partly opened her glass door to better listen to this sur-

Avenue du Bois, where the concierge intormed me that

prising voice which was attacking the celebrated aria:
“Love is the child of Bohemia which has never known

“Mademoiselle went out just a moment ago.”
I waited in the courtyard of Number 23. My heart
beating, I perceived her finally arriving in an automobile and ran before it, when she gave the order to her

chauffeur to go out again by the court at the end
without stopping. Was it possible that she had not seen
me? Or that she did not wish to see me? With a leap, I

went to Violette’s sister's house. Mary received me
gently, but could not or would not inform me on this
mystery. I spent some hours near her, in the hope that

Renée would come up unexpectedly, and from this
apartment situated just above that of Renée, I spied her
apparition in the little garden. Fearing that the perfidi-

ous governess had intercepted the letter in which I
announced my coming, I wished to have my heart clear
about it and I had it, in fact, that same evening. Renée

descended into her little garden accompanied by a
sturdy person. The manner in which this person surrounded her with her arm left no ambiguity about their

intimacy. She had then conquered René€e, but how?
Certainly not by her physical appearance. Perhaps,

law.” The moment having come, I threw my poem
attached to a bouquet over the gate of the garden, so
that she could see and pick it up. But as some passersby began to surround us, we had to eclipse ourselves in

the shadow before my chanteuse, recognized in the

shadow thanks to her voice, was pursued by applause.
I soon received a reply to my sonnet from the governess, and not from Renée as I had hoped. Having collected verses and bouquets “destined to a person whom
she had the good fortune to have in charge,” the governess “prayed me to cease these dispatches, as distressing
as they are useless.”
If it is true that sentiments are not commanded on
order, it is even more true that they are not countermanded! My rage having no equal but my anguish. I
sent an 5.0.5. to Eva,* who arrived at once to be near
me. Horrified to find me in such a state of despair, she
went to plead my cause with Renée, who refused to see
*A childhood friend of Natalie's, probably her first lover.
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Our governess, after expensively furnishing the little

apartment chosen and abandoned, had presided over
the luxurious fitting-out of this large ground floor where

all passed through her intervention, which did not
prevent her from touching some wages as watch dog of
the captive. A voluntary captive perhaps and one who,
after the death of Violette and the lies adroitly accumu-

lated against me, had immense need of quiet and
security.

lt was then that I received a dispatch from an
Austrian princess, with whom Eva and I were connected.
She alerted me that she had just arrived alone at Bay-

reuth. We departed then for the Wagnerian Festival,
where we were able to procure two seats, thanks to
connections of the princess. From the first presentation
of the Tetralogy, I spotted Renée and contemplated her
from our balcony. Eva went down right away to tell her
that I was waiting for her up above. Renée, giving her
place to Eva, came to sit beside me. Both being invaded
by this music, our eyes, then our hands met in the
shadow, and we found ourselves so again each evening.

On telling me farewell she promised me, tears in her
eyes, to arrange to find me again before the end of this

same month of August. Our rendezvous was set at
Vienna, from where we would continue the trip together

on the Orient Express toward Mytilene, by way of
p

Constantinople.
This time she kept her word and I found her again
with an unbounded exaltation but I had to hold back,
for she remained on the defensive. However, she identi-

me again. Her existence (“since it is, it appears, neces-

fied me with her cult for Lesbos, in writing:

sary to live”) must suit her so according to all appearances, for she knew me bound to her flight and obsessed

Sweetness of my songs, let us go toward Mytilene.

by her verses, while she, inspired by my memory, had

Here is where my soul has taken its flight.

no further need to be troubled by my presence.
Let us go toward the welcome of the adored virgins.
Our eyes will know the tears of returnings;
We shall see at last fade away the countries
Of the lifeless loves.

I learned then the machinations of our governess.
Abusing the credulous jealousy of Renée, she had persuaded her—with proofs to give it weight—that one of
my suitors, the Count de la Palisse, had gone to the

How important to her was this decor! But then I
would have been content to be with her no matter

United States for the unique purpose of marrying me.

where, away from the world, on condition that I found

How had Renée been able to believe such an absurdity?
Perhaps because she violently repulsed the least advance

her there completely.

of her suitors she understood nothing of my complaisances, and more, that the company of intelligent men
interested and pleased me often more than that of a

pretty woman? In general, I remained the fraternal

Thus I was less disappointed than she in perceiving

that isle that Countess Sabini had described to us as
having “the shape of a lyre spread on the sea.” At the
approach to Mytilene we heard a phonograph from the

port nasalizing, “Come poupoule, come poupoule,

friend of men. Why, besides, this “angry opposition”

come.” Renêe, who had been waiting since dawn on the

between Sodom and Gomorrah, instead of a sympathy
without equivocation?

bridge, paled with horror. When we trod that dust con-

Balanced and sociable, I could not foresee the unrea-

sonable changes of Renée, and I remained profoundly

afflicted by them.

The crude ruse of our governess had moreover succeeded in throwing the poor and unhappy Renée into
the arms of another! By what intrigues or what chance
had those arms proved to be those of one of the richest
women of the Israelite world? This strong and willful
person was not only known for her prejudiced tastes,

but for endowing her successive mistresses with a
sumptuous dwelling and a life annuity. This prodigality
did not explain to me why Renée, who already had a
considerable fortune, had fallen into this gilded trap.

secrated by the sandals of Sappho and her poetesses we

regained awareness of our pilgrimage, despite the

modern eruptions. ;

I kept myself from remarking to her that at Lesbos,
far from encountering the Greek type of the beautiful
companions of Sappho, we saw not a single woman of
that lineage, but only some handsome stevedores, fisher-

men and shepherds. The remainder of the population
had their traits as bastardized as their language, in
which Renée found no longer the accent of classic

Greek.

But the little rustic hotel which received us kept an
ancient simplicity, with its water pots of baked clay and
its good cooking in olive oil, served by an old domestic

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who had her head encircled by a band and was followed
by a bald dog without age.
The nights were more beautiful than all those we had
known, and from the first, what a cry of victory I had to
stifle!

Receive into your orchards a feminine couple,
Isle melodious and friendly to caresses...
Amidst the Asiatic odor of heavy jasmine,
You have not at all forgotten Sappho nor her Mistresses. .….
Isle melodious and friendly to caresses,
Receive in ydur orchards a feminine couple...
The next day the entire island offered itself to us like
an open bed. Spread out in the sun on some wide banks
of soft algae, breathing the salt air, we continued to

dream on this murmuring shore of the Aegean Sea.
Renée, in her poem on Mytilene, describes it:

When disposing their bodies on beds of dry algae
The lovers fling tired and broken words,
You mingled your odors of roses and peaches
With the long whisperings that follow kisses. .….
In our turn tossing words tired and broken,
We dispose our bodies on your beds of dry algae...
Without the community of Orientals installed in their
summer villas, we would have been able to believe ourselves in the fifth century B.C. Renee acquired some

tu

medals of that epoch, struck in the image of Sappho.
In the enchantment of this sojourn, without messen-

Renée Vivien

ger and without other souvenir, we rented two little

villas joined by the same orchard, for Renée had
resolved to never leave Mytilene. She would wait for me

“Because only women are complex enough to attract

“faithfully and without budging” if, later, I had business

her and fleeting enough to hold her. They alone know

elsewhere.

how to give her all the ecstasies and all the torments...

“I have yet less business elsewhere than you,” I
replied imprudently, for this reminder made her contract her fine eyebrows. I then came up with an idea I
knew worthy of pleasing her: “Why shouldn't we form
here that school of poetry so dreamed of where those
who vibrate with poetry, youth and love would come
to us, such as those poets of yesterday arriving from all
parts to surround Sappho?”

Renée was in fact seduced by that perspective.

Installed in the larger of the two villas, she worked
again on her translation of Sappho, which was nearly
finished.
“But Atthis, where is she?” I said.
“Atthis is present here,” she replied, taking out of her
bag Five Little Greek Dialogues and also the manuscript
of Je me Souviens that I had sent to her at Bayreuth.

This manuscript had neighbored with her cold cream
and carried the trace of it on the parchment of the cover.
“Before it gets damaged more, it is necessary that we

It is in ourselves that we lose ourselves and in others
that we find ourselves again. I believe her more faithful
in her inconstancy than the others in their constant
fidelity.”
Leaning on my shoulder to read the text with me,
Renée murmured in my ear:
“That Sappho there, she is you.”
“That which describes one is not what one is, but that
which one would wish to be.”
“That which we shall become, and so that ‘someone
in the future will remember us.’ ”
“Thanks to your translation of Sappho and also to
that of her poetesses, I shall write a play for which I
have already determined the plot and which will destroy
the myth of Phaon, for Sappho will die in it as she
ought: because the most beloved of her friends will have
betrayed her.”
“Do not speak of betrayal nor of mourning ‘in the
house of the poet where mourning does not enter.’ ”

publish it.”
“I wrote it for you alone.”
“Also, you see, it has not left me.”
Opening my little book of Dialogues, I saw that she

had underlined there certain passages concerning
Sappho and, intrigued, I reread:
“Do you believe that she was so irresistible as they
have said?”

. . .We knew that at the hotel our mail waited for us.
Avoid it? But then where spend the night? From our
entry into the hotel, a parrot greeted us with a strident

and mocking voice, and the concierge, taking our
names, handed us our mail. Throw it in the sea without
even taking cognizance of it? But then, uneasy at our

“She was irresistible as all those who have followed

silence, would they not come to disturb us? Would it

their nature. She is as all those who have dared to live.

not be better to open it and perhaps respond to it? A

She is as irresistible as Destiny itself.”
“Why did she truly love only women?”

letter from Renée's friend announced her desire to visit
this celebrated island and make to rendezvous shortly at
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Constantinople. Renée had only time to send her a tele-

and we assisted at some very strange soirees where I

gram to prevent her from taking the Orient Express,

found Colette, Moreno, the Ernest Charles, the Lesdrain

advising her that she was already on the return route.
Was it not more loyal to have her learn in person of
Renée's intention of breaking with her than to give her
the shock of such a decision in a telegram which, at any
rate, would not stop her? She was of those who will not

let loose or be deceived without struggle. She would
arrive, therefore, and then what scenes would we have

to undergo? I suggested hiding ourselves “no matter

and our old Professor, assiduous and rejuvenated—
without our governess, who some time ago had been
thanked for her diverse offices. At these reunions I was

accompanied by an actress with golden eyes, brown
hair and a difficult character, whose presence dissipated
all suspicion for Renée's friend—who did not appear at
any of these fetes, but had herself informed on all that
happened there.

where away from the world.”
“She would alert the consulate, the secret police of the

One evening when I found myself at Renée's she

entire world. Her power, like her fortune, is unlimited

announced to me that her friend, who had no more

and even if you went away and I let her come, instead of

uneasiness about us, had a wish to meet me and would

tiring of such a life, she would clamp onto it. If she suspected anything she would install herself in your place.
And that, I would not endure.”
It was necessary then to leave in order to return to
living in peace and to developing without fear or constraint our beautiful project. But meanwhile, from the

next day, we had to resign ourselves to once again
taking the boat which had brought us.
Like so many other lovers, we still had those “bad
farewells from which one returns” and those recoveries
exultant and without duration.
Unattached, then irresistibly attracted one toward the
other only to lose each other anew, our persistent love
underwent all the phases of a mortal attachment that
perhaps death alone would be able to conclude.

I always loved Renée but with a vanquished love,
enslaved by the circumstances that she had permitted to
get the better of us:
Your clear gaze troubles and confuses me. . .

come to dine with us. I manifested the intention to flee,
but Renée begged me to stay. Her friend would interpret
my refusal badly. She arrived promptly, arrayed in an
evening gown that she had ordered from Laferriere, a
dress which I had to admire. Since this meeting would

facilitate Renée's life, I had no choice but to resign
myself to it.
While waiting to find myself face to face with my
rival—she whom the Princess H. disrespectfully named

“the blunder”—I asked Renée why she evidently
attached so much importance to questions of costume
where it concerned her friend, while she accorded them
so little when they concerned herself?
“like better to leave that bore to others and to ornament only my dwelling,” she had told me, adding, “I
hate the fittings and have not enough personality to
triumph over them. I did however wish to be party to it
by ordering a dress at one of the great couturieres, and
went, before the appointed time for the fitting, to wait

in a corner of the big salon till someone came to

Yes, I know it, I was wrong in many circumstances,

announce my turn. Having taken along a good book to

And very piteously, I blush before you,

keep me company, I read it without paying attention to

But everywhere sorrow has hemmed me in and pursued me.
Do not blame me anymore then! rather console me
For having so badly lived my lamentable life.

what was going on around me. But when the evening
obliged me to lift my head toward the light that they
had just lit, I closed my book and got ready to go. My
saleswoman, panic-stricken, tried to stop me. I replied

Thanks to that “lamentable life,” and to the happiness

to her, too happy to have an excellent pretext, and

that she lacked, she has become what she has always

despite her excuses, ‘that a similar inadvertence arrived

wished to be: a great poet.

only to the most patient...to the best clients...

In reading, “La Venus des Aveugles” and “Aux Heures
des mains jointes” I found how much these verses had
strengthened. They no longer dragged “perfumed pal-

Resolute, I got out the door, assuring her, with a smile,
that I would never return...”
When that opulent person entered, her hand extended,

lors” and other mawkishness. They were no longer
languid but heavy with lived images, reflecting the

islands cut into a cloth of silver, surrounded with dia-

cruelty of an existence undergone at first not without

monds, seemed to evoke the islands of the Aegean Sea—

revolt, then with resignation and grandeur.

I remarked how that blue robe covered with little

an allusion at which we all smiled differently. After

My verses have not attained calm excellence,

the dinner, the Chinese butler brought Renée tea,

I have understood it, and no one will read them ever...

which in place of drinking she threw with saucer, cup

There remain to me the moon and near silence,

and spoon into the fireplace burning before us. I thought

And the lilies, and especially the woman that I loved...

in spite of myself of her prayer: “Who then will bring
me the hemlock in his hands?”

My hands keep the odor of beautiful hair
Let them bury me with my souvenirs, as
They buried with queens, their jewels. .….
I shall carry there my joy and my worry...
Isis, I have prepared the funeral barque
Which they have filled with flowers spices and nard,
And whose sail floats in folds of shrouds
The ritual rowers are ready... Itis growing late...

Increasingly appreciated in numerous milieus, Renée
consented to unite her admirers and friends around her,

Did she throw that cup because it contained or did

not contain the hemlock? Or because she judged this
remedy derisory of her pain?
An instant interrupted by the violent nervousness of
her gesture, we took up again a conversation on horses,
whereon her friend and I had found a ground for understanding. She explained to me that a neighbor had proposed to buy from her a grey dappled horse of a breed
that her stable was the only one to possess and which
would match so well with one which the buyer already
owned. Ought she to accept? She was hesitating, for to

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sell one of her horses pained her as much as the offer
flattered her. On this, the hour to withdraw having
sounded, she offered to drive me back. With a glance,

Renée prayed me to accept. We left then together
through the Bois as far as my pavilion, where she

could not tolerate the least shock or the least reproach.
At the time of a visit to her house, probably just
before her voyage toward the Orient, Marcelle Tinayre
saw her so:
She entered like a phantom. Already very ill, she wished to

wished to enter with me. I excused myself, making pre-

see me again.... Her body more fragile than formerly,

text of an unsupportable headache (a malady that I have

revealed nothing of its contours under the very simple dress of

never in my life felt). She could only leave with a look

black muslin. How she has changed, alas!

of reproach.
Some time after that evening—in the course of which
she had tried in vain to teach me to smoke—the lady
sent me a little cigarette case in enamel filled with tiny

cigarettes, under the cover of which she had had
engraved: “Always to the extreme, is it not, Mademoi-

selle?” Since I had done nothing to encourage the
sending of this unusable gift—unless it was to ironically
admire her dress—I supposed her on the look-out for

Always I shall re-see her, shadow in the shadow, recounting
not her life, but her soul. She was speaking of the other
world... And all of a sudden, she said, “When I am so sad,
so alone, so ill, I think that I would like to die Catholic. It is
the sole religion where there is poetry and beauty.” She added,
smiling, “But no priest would permit me to keep my little
Buddhist idols...”
How all this contrasts with the artificial Renée whom
Colette presents in Ces Plaisirs!

adventure. I learned very soon after that the neighbor

Though feeling that her despair surpassed all human

who had offered to buy her horse had made the bet

aid, I wished to leave my house at Neuilly in order to

before several persons of which she who reported the
wager to me said, “Not only to possess this horse, but

wait for her return in a new place, where no bad
memories had collected. I had then searched and finally

the owner along with.” I right away advised Renêe of

found a dwelling between courtyard and garden, on rue

this who, after having made her own investigation, had

Jacob, where I became the vestal of a little Temple of

to recognize that the neighbor in question had won her

Friendship. In order to escape the moving, I rejoined
that actress whom I had let depart with relief. From my

by this affair, I tried to reason with her:
“Look, Renêe, have you the right to get indignant on
this point?”
“It is as if I had consented to marry a horse-dealer and

arrival at Saint Petersburg, I learned that I was replaced:
first by an attache of the French embassy, then by a
Russian colonel. When I took the train again for the
long return, an old diplomatic friend who had put me

that after sacrificing myself to someone so vile, this

cúrrent with my misfortune brought me Voltaire's

horse-dealer dared to deceive me. I will not endure this

Candide.

injury.”
Uneasy at the excessive way in which she resented this

Scarcely installed in my new dwelling, I learned that
Renée was ill “of a malady traversed by agonizing crises

adventure that I considered harmless, after several years

and that she no longer wishes to see anyone.” However,

of a rare fidelity on the part of her companion, I
questioned our Professor, still devoted to Renée. He

that same evening I went to ask news of her, a bouquet

informed me that she had decided to break “with this
banal and hypocritical life.” She put this project into

of violets in my hand. Half-opening the door, a butler
that I had never seen replied: “Mademoiselle just died.”
This announcement was made in the tone of “Mademoi-

execution. First wrapping up her favorite knick-knack,

selle just went out.” I had not the presence of mind to

a jade Buddha, she liquidated her bank account and

insist that someone put these violets near her. Then,

took away all her money. In the train which took her to

staggering, I regained the Avenue du Bois and fainted

Marseilles, while looking for her ticket for the condut-

on one of its first benches.

tor, she let fall a packet of bank notes in front of the

When I regained consciousness, I returned home and

other travellers. Fearing to be followed and robbed, she

shut myself in my bedroom. Neither able nor wishing to

let herself be “picked up” by the secretary of her

see her dead, it was necessary at once to make contact

friend—a friend who shortly following sent me a card,

again with all of her that remained to me. Like a grave

where I read this single word: “Judas.”
After this debacle and this humiliation, I do not know

robber, I took hold of the precious little box that she
had given me. Its key lost, I had to open it by force. It

to what excess Renée gave herself up, without so much

contained so many tangible souvenirs that I felt her

as renouncing her plan of voyage. She escaped anew,

presence wander around me. They could then no longer

having this time better combined her departure with

prevent me from rejoining her. That this haunting not
abandon me! For if I were no longer haunted, what

some relatives who accompanied her on a world tour.
After her first stop, I received in fact a word from her,
informing me that she had taken to the open sea to
reflect, far from all that she had loved, on the continua-

would remain for me? Forgetfulness. But what lover,
what poet, would wish it?
I replunged into all her relics: the manuscript of the

tion that she would give to her “miserable existence.”

poems written for me, accepting life—a vacillating

Wounded on all sides, she had already withdrawn her

life—through my tears....

books from sale. Some carping critics had decided her.
The aspersions, the gross attacks, through her imagination, motivated three of her most beautiful poems:

The day after the next, I followed her internment like
a somnabulist for it was not in this tomb that I could
search for her, but well elsewhere and within myself.

“On the Public Place,” “The Pilory,” and “Vanquished.”
In the face of such results, I could only blame exag-

Margaret Porter is a poet and translator who wrote for

gerated sensibility and susceptibility. But I deplored

years under the name “Gabrielle L'Autre.” She was a founding

that, by my insensitivity in precipitating the separation

member of Tres Femmes. The Muse of the Violets, a selection

from her friend, I had added the drop of fatal bitterness.

of Renee Vivien's poetry, has been translated by her and

I feared for her health, already so damaged and which

Catharine Kroger and published by Naiad Press.
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Louise Fishman. It's Good to Have Limits. 1977. Oil and wax on paper. 31” x 23”.
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Barbara Asch. Rest Heap. 1975. Cray-pas, colored pencil, permanent marker and charcoal
pencil. 81⁄2 x 14".

Harmony Hammond. Conch. 1977. Fabric, wood and acrylic paint. 13” x 12”.
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Making paintings.is one of the most illuminating and

if I only have a little time to work, I try to compress

spiritual ways: to focus your life. The following com-

some ritual loosening up into that time. Without the

ments, advice, and information about my work process

ritual I sabatoge myself. It’s important that these activi-

are addressed to lesbians who have made a decision to
be painters.

LOOKING
If you look at history you'll find that almost every
school of painting and every individual artist has redis-

ties take place in the studio.
After I've gone through this process, I try to take the
painting by surprise. I begin as if accidentally (although
all the while I have been sneaking glances at the work).
Anything in my vision can be as distracting as noise or
an emotional interruption.

covered artists of the past or discovered new or different

Some people say you must have no thoughts about

aspects of a particular painting or school of painting out

other people or other things while you are working. I

of the specific needs of their own work. Need determines

often have a rush of imaginary conversations with
people, ideas that fill the room. But I don't stop

invention. The same has to be true of our needs for past
art. As my relationship to my subject matter is very per-

working. They allow me to unhinge my unconscious. I

sonal, so is. my relationship to. other- painting. If an

don't look for those conversations, but I let them

aspect of paint application in a Cezanne interests me,

happen. As I get excited about an image forming, I am

the fact that I may not have responded to the spatial

often also engaged in what seems to be a totally separate

constructs or use of coloris of little. consequence. At
another time, if those things become:important to me, I
will go back and look for them.
I can dislike a painting but find a small part which
engages me, a. quality of light or some aspect of the
drawing. These are things which usually find their way
into my work, often because I was approaching them in

thought.
Once I've started working, the important thing is to
keep myself in the studio, despite the fact that I invent
lots of reasons why I must leave at that precise moment.
When I've set up a day for painting, there is no pressing
activity anywhere, unless I construct it on the spot.

Sometimes, leaving the studio has to happen. It's

some way already. A found connection in another

never too clear until later whether I'm coping or copping

painting can help crystalize my thought:

out. As I'm about to leave the studio, I'm often more

It is important not to judge our own responses to

able to work than before. The brain gives up hugging

paintings as inappropriate. Any place we deny the

itself into nonmovement and I am free to work again for

validity of our thoughts or activities is a place that will

a while. This is often the time when I do my best work.

weaken our relationship to our art.

But there are times when that little joy that happens in

Try not to cut whole bodies of work out of your

working disappears for weeks. And I am suffering,

vision unless you've looked at them and studied them

making what seems like endlessly boring, ugly, unin-

thoroughly: don't stop looking at El Greco because he’s

spired forms. I can't draw worth shit. Everything has

not Jewish, or Chardin because he’s not an abstract

become awkward. I feel like I've made a terrible mistake

painter or Matisse because he's not a lesbian. By all

being a painter. And this goes on for weeks and weeks.

means look at Agnes Martin and Georgia O'Keefe and

The only thing that gets me through is a lot of complain-

Eva Hesse. But don't forget Cezanne, Manet and Giotto.

ing to a friend or my lover. I need them to encourage me

If good painting is what you want to do, then good

into believing that I really am a painter and my troubles

painting is what you must look at. Take what you want
and leave the dreck.
DOING
My experience has been: that I need to go through

ritual events before my mind is clear and focused
enough to` work. It involves:an hour-or two, or sometimes a day or two; of sweeping the floor; talking on the
phone (not to anyone who could be too distracting or
disruptive), keeping a journal, writing a letter, sending

are temporary.

The other thing that helps is knowing from past
experience that this is the time of the hardest struggle
and is usually the time when I learn the most about
painting. And my memory is suddenly very short, like
this is the first time this has ever happened to me.
This is the most important time to stay with the work.
Then there's a short time when something changes, a
painting or an idea evolves and there is a little relief in
the air. The work is not necessarily better than what

off bills, doing some. sort of exercise or meditation,

came before it, but it represents the end of that particu-

sitting quietly and reading or drawing. At certain times

lar struggle.

music has been very distracting:
You have to learn what is helpful and what begins to
jangle your brain.
My experience is that leisure is important to work—so

At the end of a work day, I usually leave the studio
abruptly. I can't seem to even clean my brushes. I sometimes forget to turn off the lights. If I've left a painting
that I am particularly excited about, I know to expect

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that by the next day I am often terribly disappointed by
what had seemed pure genius. I often return to find a

finished painting not at all finished, or a group of
paintings I liked the day before suddenly repulsive to
me, superficial, eclectic, simplistic.
I've learned that a quick look can be very damaging.
You often see very little of a painting in a quick look,
although sometimes you can find fresh clarity about a
work. More often than not, I am simply cutting off
myself and several day's work, denying the seriousness
of that work and those thoughts.
I can be a much worse audience than anyone I can
imagine. I often switch roles on myself without being

aware of it. I suddenly have become a person who
stepped into my studio from the street, who despises the
work because she knows nothing about it and couldn't
care less—a subtle bit of self-mutilation.
It’s hard to paint, and it can be impossible if you don't

recognize your own trickery. Handling your unconscious with firm but caring hands, fully conscious about
your work process, is absolutely necessary.

INTEGRITY
I want us to develop a sense of our strength through
the integrity of work, to trust the search for honest

imagery through a dialogue with the materials and
through a work process devoid of shortcuts. We've got
to be ready to destroy anything that comes up in our
painting which is less than what finally has a degree of

clarity which we as artists using our most critical
thinking can recognize.
I want to caution against the dangers of purposefully
and consciously setting out to make lesbian or feminist
imagery or any other imagery which does not emerge
honestly from the rigors of work. The chief danger as I
see it lies in losing direct touch with the art, risking an
involvement with a potentially superficial concern. This
is not to say that the question of feminist or lesbian
imagery is not a legitimate concern but rather to caution
against its forced use.
We can't allow anything unworthy to distract us from
working as intensely as possible. Distraction can be in
the form of pressures about imagery, methods of working or process, anything that is characterized as the
“right way” or the “only way.” Or it can be in the form
of people who are disruptive to our work, our sanity,
our clarity, our ability to believe in ourselves.
Get the creeps out of your head and out of your
studio.
We must be willing to trust our own impulses about
what the source of our work is—and where to go with
it. It takes long periods of time, perhaps years, to understand which habits are constructive, to discover what an
honest source of inspiration is and to trust that source of
inspiration.
Be clear about people's motives in visiting your studio, or wanting to discuss your work. Only let in people
that you trust, unless there is something you want from
them (a dealer, etc.). Know what you want from them
and weigh that against the disruption of your time, your
privacy, your space. These things are to be cherished
and protected. It's important to be conscious of anything
that may build up inside you that could make you feel
bad about yourself. Ultimately that takes a masochistic
turn and the work suffers.
Care for yourself. Through that caring you can make
a commitment to your work.

Leora Stewart. Wall Form. 1973. Natural jute, wool in greys.
11x3 x12".
75

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Sarah Whitworth. Anatomy of Bonellia Viridis. 1974. Ink and watercolor on paper. 29" x23”.

76

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i
BORN

a nie

aa
NNSS

aa
r RN NONS

NEN NNN

NNN b Na

Gloria Klein. Untitled. 1977. Acrylic on canvas. 60” x 62”.

Dona Nelson. Untitled. 1977. Oil on canvas. 24

" x 40".

77

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Architectural Icon
T'he Shrine The Votive The Gesture
Ann Wilson
“The Icon, then, is not only an aesthetical entity. It is the result of the faith and of the prayer. It is
the life. The saving truth is not communicated by the word alone, but by the fact of awakening
vital forces of life through the presentation of beauty. The icon carries with it the love of this
beauty, and the beauty of this love.” (Byzantine Bible)
The idea is simple. Gesture gives grace, space gives grace, image gives grace, sound gives grace.
Icons give grace. Vital energy, electric impulse, passes through grace to the beholder. Behold, to
be held. This vital energy is present in echoes, ancient shrines, whose purpose is now missing,
whisper. Walls built to enact transformations which poets feel when they are impelled—what

music casts over the mind. Spirits that exalt and glorify, spirits usually rare and capricious
should be permanently fixed, working miracles perpetually for every one. Spatial humanism—
humanity at magnitude—value in light and shadow—true perspective. That art whose attempt is
delineation of the divine mirror. That subtlety which is more fine because it abjures extravagance
or fantasy. Our need for votive architecture never died. Time changes the abstract order motivated by our need for intellectual security with which to summon inspiration. Inspiration sustains the purpose of living. The demands of each epoch’s external pressures on the biological
frames encasing our spirits press from us an architecture of expedience like wine from grapes.
“Every epoch is a sphinx which plunges into the abyss as soon as its problem is solved.” Roman

walled gardens yielded a further retreat within Romanesque cloisters. Roses bloom in secret
spaces. Votive—fragment—a fragment of gesture—stones of a wall running through an empty

plain to the rock mountain. Ridge—snow—votive—gesture. The gesture of respect. A marble
seat for the priestess set in the center of the front circle of the ampitheater. Stone fall—blue sky—
empty space. A bench encircled the outer walls of a building and clay votive objects lay on it.

Hieroglyphs of information—puzzle pieces—spaces out of the architecture of gestures. Stones
laid for liturgy—before the column came the gesture of the column. On the trail of imprints, of
gestures left long ago in air. A sound, the corner of the stairway, the lock on a gate, flowers in the
ruins. The way the foot fits in a stone path which loses outline in vanished direction. Cows

within temple precincts, wandered from India. A roof given way to sky illuminates mosaic
squares, formal elements—natural elements—the elements. When you look at the sphere of our
sun is it conceived differently if you stand in the exact center of a square? If you separate candles
into a red glass, a blue glass, and a yellow glass, does your perception give the retina a different

neural message for each color? Are we always composing processional spaces to approach our
intuition? When you walk between columns toward the center do you begin to feel the effect of
your progress toward the conclusion? Is geometry perhaps the repository of ancient sacrificial

gesture? The Chinese, who have had a long time to think, have over a hundred names for
differing shades of blue. Where do colors come from? Who am I? Where do I come from? Where
am I going? Liturgies are a logical order for progressions toward their fullest possible human
form—mundra. This is an invocation. A statement of presence within defined votive space. A
rejoicing. A statement of belief. A blessing and a recessional. The perfect logic of respect. Bio-

technology. The body as media, simplifying and clarifying ways to receive natural energies.
Images which travel from era to era and are electric. Human needs are warmed by that same
ancient fire. The walls we create are the containers and guardians of our continued relation to the
light source. Electric affinities. “Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: deals out that
being indoors each one dwells.”

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Ann ilson.
Wil
i 1974. Fabric, elmer’s glue, acrylic and house paint. 5 1/2 x 5 1/2
Ohio i
Relici Quilt.

79

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Present-day abstract painting is almost totally ruled by

painting can do, away from painting itself.

painting conventions: grids, stripes, panels, fields of allover activity, images suspended in the middle of the

Abstract painting, far from being at its end, has just

canvas, etc. Why paint abstractly at all if our paintings

begun, but at its beginning, it was already proclaimed as

are bound by more rigid organizing conventions than

a kind of all time culmination—a reflection of the goal-

the portrait, landscape and still life ever were? A
mountain is a complicated form. As Cezanne illus-

century obsession with progression, as if all the sup-

trated, it can inspire paintings endlessly, but after one

posed links between things were more noteworthy than

has seen a few squares, a painting composed of squares,

the things.

oriented, history-oriented, death-oriented, twentieth

no matter how interesting the surface, color and space,
suffers from a kind of familiarity. The whole of the

I understand “reductive” (please excuse the word) paint-

painting ceases to compel active looking, and some of

ing to be painting that attempts a very specific, resonant

the adventure that painting can achieve is inevitably

single space. The reductive impulse that has been im-

lost.

portant in abstract painting for the last twenty years has

It seems to me that so-called woman's imagery (sym-

black paintings, Marden’s and Agnes Martin's etc. This

metrical images, grids, etc.) has more to do with oppres-

is the painting that I have loved best and thought most

made for some very fine painting: Newman, Stella's

sion than anything else—keeping us in our places. It has
to do with not creating.

about because it is here that I have found a sense of

place. I have admired and sought the reality that a
painting can possess. I don't like the term “abstract” as it

Likewise, the complacent New York art world does not

implies something second-rate to all the vivid realities of

“good” and “bad” which are usually relative to what

this world. The esthetic of grids and monochromatic
planes is a highly artificial one. People who are not

we've known about before, and even these designations

knowledgeable about modern painting will often make

inspire creation either as it is primarily oriented toward

tend to be based on shallow “looks” (painterly, hard-

fun of, for instance, a single monochromatic panel,

edge, slightly figurative, non-figurative) rather than on

saying, “Is this what all the fuss is about? It's like the

any substantial thinking about painting.

story of the emperor with no clothes.” Artists hate this
old saw, and yet it is said so often that I have begun to

It is very difficult, even painful, to examine all aspects

think about it. Human life and human beings are very

of your painting and try to be fully conscious of the

complicated. It would seem natural that art might be

origins of everything that is there, to try to create the

more interesting and more relevant to more people if

whole thing and make a truly personal art, but only

then does one fully realize how adventuresome the

it in some way reflected this complexity. Although
Cezanne is often talked about in relation to modern

attempt to make paintings is.

painting, particularly in relation to Marden, the thing
that strikes me most when I look at Cezanne is his in-

The inherent genius of paint and canvas is this: out of

credible complexity. In terms of space alone, he often

the simultaneity of thoughts, having no absolute form,

allowed many different kinds of space within the same

constantly impinged upon by the emotions, a hard

painting, many subtle shifts. Cezanne’s paintings are

physical thing arises, different from all those thoughts.

both deliberate and tentative, fixed and fluid, reflecting
a whole mind rather than a single thought, a mind that

I think abstract painting as a whole has gotten too

could entertain grand themes, contradictions, and in-

simple, too far from the way the mind works. There

complete musings.

seems to be such an overwhelming need to organize,
achieve a kind of finality. Agnes Martin said, “This

Recently, I have been looking a lot at Pollock and

painting I like because you can get in there and rest.”

DeKooning. I like the way Pollock was able to be very

The thing that seems most important to me is to escape

detailed and very big at the same time—everything

the organizing conventions that allow us to rest and robs

happens at the same moment, in the present, on the

our paintings of the life that is in us.

surface. DeKooning’s life-long attitudes toward artmaking seem to me to be exceptionally healthy. He

Painters have attempted to expand abstract painting by

wrote, “Art should not have to be a certain way.” He

introducing design (so-called pattern painting), math-

also said that the notion of having to will one thing

ematical illustration (e.g. Robert Mangold), and general

“made him sick.”

wall decoration (Stella's recent reliefs). Painting has
lasted so long because of the flexible, expressive nature

In my own work, everything is entwined with some-

of its possibilities—color, surface, mark, flat-emanating

thing else—the near altered by my memory of the far, a

space. The shift in attention from these concerns to

dark day, a Manet gray.

compositional concerns (e.g. Stella's reliefs—a shape
here, a shape there, a decorated surface here, a decor-

New art comes about through an individual imagination

ated surface there) leads away from the particular things

simultaneously working upon past painting and the

80

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specifics of a work in progress. So long as a person has

Since painting is limited to an irreproducible thing, it

seen other paintings, what she does will in some way be

has never been and will never be an art form to be

affected by what she has seen. If the effect is a rejection

enjoyed by huge numbers of people. In terms of their

of male painting, than it has made its mark upon our

commercial allocations, paintings are luxury items, but

paintings as surely as any other way. Mainly, I want to
be conscious of how I have been affected. I do not mind

living nature as art. It just refers to the money swirl that

learning from past painting so long as I am fully

goes on about them.

such a designation doesn't say anything about their

conscious of the nature of that knowledge.
Painting, like nature, and unlike politics and religion, is
Great painters, Manet and Cezanne consistently, others

not moralistic. In painting as in music, poetry and

sporadically, are distinguished by a particular kind of

dance, an individual has the opportunity of getting out

inventive ability—the actual paint has yielded to their

from under the economic, sociological, psychological
and political descriptions that are constantly foisted

imaginations, thoughts, feelings. They have created
new kinds of space. Painting space is not cartoon

upon her from childhood by parents, education, peers,

flatness or depth perspective, rather it is the thoroughly

and society in general. In art, the real complexity and

ambiguous space of a dream, the emotionally and
physically inextricable, a flatness equivalent to un-

specificity of an experienced life can shine through. Far

familiar spaces. In this realization, all great painting is

periencing art should be the prerogative of every person
on this earth.

abstract and expressive in the best and most subtle sense

from being a luxury item, either making art or ex-

of the words.
When I was still in school—about ten years ago—some-

A painting's reality cannot be experienced through

one said to me, in tones of awe and admiration, “Do

descriptions or photographs, and an artist who enjoys

you know that Stella knows what his painting is going

high visibility often suffers a kind of backwards invisibility. The art is shown, bought, talked about, written
about and seems to become a known factor, with either
a good reputation or a bad one, which doesn't need to

to be like for the next ten years?” I didn't know if this
was true, but I do know that even at that time I got a
very uneasy feeling. Authority, control, clarity may be
useful attributes for a businessman, but it seems to me
that they are, more often than not, destructive and

be looked at anymore (an illusion).

limiting to an artist. Anyone that knows me knows that

I am as authoritative and verbal as any man, but
recently I feel weary of myself like I long ago felt weary
of most men. My painting is dark to me. I don't know
“where it's going.” I hope it takes me someplace where I
have never been before.

se

Kate Millet. Domestic Scene. 1976. Mixed media. Rug is 4 x 6'.

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82

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Louise Fishman is a painter and lives in New York.

Ann Wilson, sometimes known as Rose Etta Stone, was last
seen drowning in bureaucratic papers. She is currently

Barbara Asch is a painter and an art therapist. She lives in

directing an environmental art theater work, “Butler's Lives of
the Saints,” a renaissance work involving opera, drama,

New York City and Bridgehampton.

painting, theater and thirty artists.

Harmony Hammond is a painter who lives in New York.

Kate Millet is a sculptor and author. Her latest book is Sita.

Leora Stewart is a fiber artist who lives and works in New
York City.

Nancy Fried is a feminist lesbian artist who portrays the intimate everyday lesbian lifestyle in her artwork. She is a member of the Feminist Studio Workshop and the Natalie Barney
Lesbian Art Project Collective. She is currently preparing for

Sara Whitworth is a painter and writer who lives in Chelsea.

her second one-woman show at the Los Angeles Woman's
Building in the fall.

Gloria Klein is a native New Yorker who expresses the chaos,
structure and excitement of her life in her paintings. She is cur-

Dara Robinson is interested, vitally interested, in the culture

rently coordinating “10 Downtown: 10 Years.”

women are creating, but her greatest thrill is contributing to

Dona Nelson is a painter who lives in New York City.

the creation of a lesbian culture. “I am a militant lesbian feminist activist.”
83

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The autumn feels slowed-down,

Marriage is lonelier than solitude.

summer still holds on here, even the light

Do you know: I was dreaming I had died

seems to last longer than it should

giving birth to the child.

or maybe I'm using it to the thin edge.

I couldn't paint or speak or even move.

The moon rolls in the air. I didn't want this child.

My child—I think—survived me. But what was funny

You're the only one I've told.

in the dream was, Rainer had written my requiem—

I want a child maybe, someday, but not now.

a long, beautiful poem, and calling me his friend.

Otto has a calm, complacent way

I was your friend

of following me with his eyes, as if to say

but in the dream you didn’t say a word.

Soon you'll have your hands full!

In the dream his poem was like a letter.

And yes, I will; this child will be mine,

to someone who has no right

not his, the failures, if I fail

to be there but must be treated gently, like a guest

will be all mine. We're not good, Clara,

who comes on the wrong day. Clara, why don't I dream of you?

at learning to prevent these things,

That photo of the two of us—I have it still,

and once we have a child, it is ours.

you and I looking hard into each other

But lately, I feel beyond Otto or anyone.

and my painting behind us. How we used to work

I know now the kind of work I have to do.

side by side! And how I've worked since then

It takes such energy! I have the feeling I'm

trying to create according to our plan

moving somewhere, patiently, impatiently,

that we'd bring, against all odds, our full power

in my loneliness. I'm looking everywhere in nature

to every subject. Hold back nothing

for new forms, old forms in new places,

because we were women. Clara, our strength still lies

I know and do not know

how life and death take one another's hands,

in the things we used to talk about:
what I am searching for.

the struggle for truth, our old pledge against guilt.

Remember those months in the studio together,

And now I feel dawn and the coming day.

you up to your strong forearms in wet clay,

I love waking in my studio, seeing my pictures

I trying to make something of the strange impressions

come alive in the light. Sometimes I feel

assailing me—the Japanese

it is myself that kicks inside me,

flowers and birds on silk, the drunks

myself I must give suck to, love...

sheltering in the Louvre, the river-light,

I wish we could have done this for each other

those faces. ..Did we know exactly

all our lives, but we can't...

why we were there? Paris unnerved you,

They say a pregnant woman

you found it too much, yet you went on

dreams of her own death. But life and death

with your work. ..and later we met there again,

take one another's hands. Clara, I feel so full

both married then, and I thought you and Rilke

of work, the life I see ahead, and love

both seemed unnerved. I felt a kind of joylessness

for you, who of all people

between you. Of course he and I

however badly I say this

have had our difficulties. Maybe I was jealous

will hear all I say and cannot say.

of him, to begin with, taking you from me,

Adrienne Rich

maybe I married Otto to fill up
my loneliness for you.
Rainer, of course, knows more than Otto knows,
he believes iņ women. But he feeds on us,
like all of them. His whole life, his art
is protected by women. Which of us could say that?

Several phrases in this poem are drawn from actual diaries and
letters of Paula Modersohn-Becker, as translated from the
German by Liselotte Erlanger. (No published edition in English
of these extraordinary writings yet exists.) Rilke did, in fact,
write a Requiem for Modersohn-Becker. Perhaps this poem is

Which of us, Clara, hasn't had to take that leap

my answer to his.

out beyond our being women

This poem will be included in a forthcoming book to be enti-

to save our work? or is it to save ourselves?

tled The Dream of a Common Language.

84

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Carol Bloom. Untitled. ِ

Carol Bloom is a thirty-four year old native New Yorker who makes her living teaching high school. She's been doing photography
for ten years.

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USE OF TIME

The structure in my films existed before I began talking about it. The structure is intuitive in conception.

Analysis, abstraction, and my talking about it comes
later. That is why my films are not formalist; that is,
they do not strictly adhere to an a priori rule of form,
but instead, spring from my intuitive gut experiences
and so are phenomenological. The form is directly determined by the content. A lot of words. My films begin
in what I call “feeling images,” an inseparable unity of
emotion and image of thought/idea/image and internal
bodily states of excitement.
I am going to talk about time and imaging in some of
my films: how they were created (what gave rise to the

image language that became screen language) and how
they differ from each other in time structure and image
content. I will talk about the following films: 1 WAS/I
AM (1973) which combines real time and fantasy time;
“X” (1974) which is a ritual naming film based on subverted time; Menses (1974) a satire of the Walt Disney

type movie ritual of menstruation; and Dyketactics,
which can be seen as erotic time.
Film is a projection of still pictures of images or nonimages (color or non-color) usually at the standard projection time of twenty-four of these still pictures per second. So from the beginning, film is both illusion (the iliusion of movement from the rapid succession of image or
non-image) and “reality” (the progression of the celluloid strip through the projection system). Within this
context the experience of time in 1 WAS/I AM is my
attempt.to combine “real” time and fantasy time. I believe these usually separated experiences are part of the
same life experience. If we fantasize, as we all do, if we
remember past and project future during the continual

present, as we all do, we are experiencing real time
which is composed of all this simultaneous imaging.
Tempo, or the ratio of these projected stills, is another
variable the filmmaker constructs with the continuous
present of the projection. In this first 16mm film I attempted to build film scores of increasing and decreasing
intensities by image chain links of additions or dele-

tions. The central image of the chain is two image
frames, the neighboring image is four, the central image
repeated is three, the neighbor, eight, and so on in a
time-increasing construction within the film.
I WAS/I AM was inspired and influenced by the great
work of the mother of American poetic film, Meshes in
the Afternoon, by Maya Deren. Deren writes of simultaneous time as a unique and poetic experiencing in her
small but comprehensive booklet, An Anagram of Art
and Ideas. Deren’s elucidation of the poetic film which

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makes use of simultaneous time is excellent and the basis
of much of my own work. I will give you her words on
the poetic film. It is a transcription of that state of being
where the intention or “intensification is carried out not
by action but by the illumination of that moment.” The

illumination of the moment (the continuous present)

means the film’s construct is vertical rather than horizontal. It is a poetic construct of developing moments

each one held together by an emotion or meaning they
have in common rather than logical action. I talk about
these images as feeling-images, one calls or recalls another, until a great pyramid is built of a particular feeling or an elucidation of the multi-dimensions of that
feeling, that emotion state. I think Deren and I are talking about the same thing. She says, it is “the logic of
central emotion or idea that attracts to itself disparate
images which contain the central core they have in com-

mon. Film is essentially a montage and therefore by

nature a poetic medium.”

We have a long and continuing tradition of great

women poets. It surprises me then that women’s cinema
in many cases continues and copies the linear, narrative
left brain dramatization of the novel, of the Hollywood

and international entertainment film. However, there

are women filmmakers who work in the short, lyric
genre of illuminated moments: Gunvor Nelson, Barbara
Linkevitch, and Joyce Wieland, to mention a few.
This leads us into another area, the scientific study of
the different hemispheric centers of the brain. The left is

rational, linear, analytical, and related to speech and
words. The right is the center of artistic, musical and
spatial perception and I might add, the hemisphere that

allows us to experience simultaneous and continuous

time. Feminist phenomenology or gut level experiencing
stems from right brain use: the nonverbal knowledge of
intuition, feeling and imaging. I suggest that the right
hemisphere is dominant in forming the image clusters in
my films and in my dreams. In Psychosynthesis (1975) I
use the holistic right brain for dream imagery and time

structure. Some of the images are from deep sleep
dreams, others from waking dreams or dream-like states
of consciousness.

Presently I am attempting to understand the time
structure of dreams and I think I can only talk here
about my dreams. The time in my dreams seems to be
time that can jump back and forth into past and future,
time that is not chronologically sequential but emotionally, or symbolically sequential, much like the illumi-

nated moments held together by emotional integrity.
One scene may seem totally unrelated to another but in

fact is emotionally related and so time-related if we can
enlarge the word ‘time’ to encompass a feeling image
that connects with other feeling images and is a particular way of experiencing the world.
A recent dream I had is about this lecture as well as
about teaching me a new characteristic of dreams: that I
am able to control part of my dream by changing it
much like the control an editor has at her editing bench.
The Gertrude Stein dream :
The long run to learn a foreign language from Gertrude Stein.
I was aware of every detail and it seemed to be taking
forever.
So that I willfully changed the dream at one point in
the seemingly endless run `
To the classroom where I was late, had missed the last
six lessons and knew
I wouldn't be able to pass the test.
Once at class we put all the words with similarities
together
Each group was a different crayon color.

We learned the words by understanding distances
creates by differences.
Analyzing this dream is a lot like analyzing the time
structure of film. I was in a dream state of clocktime
that went on and on in the running to the classroom.
The time was extended like when I jog and notice the
details of the surrounding bushes, rocks, sand patterns,
leaves, trash, whatever one passes on the track or on the
street during a run. Detail upon detail. How long is running time? As long as the details. Eventually detail notation became tedium and I switched purposefully to the
classroom, to the emotional state from exasperation and
frustration with clocktime to a new scene entirely but
linked to the other by the emotional time of anxiety and
frustration. I was late. I had missed a lot (probably because I was so busy running and noting the outer, external world) and would fail the test of understanding. But
once there in the new environment I became interested
in the class lesson and my anxiety disappeared with my
receptive attitude. I learned about ordering and structuring of words. I think the emotional time is a recognition
of the integration of my left brain analytic thinking
process with the feeling or right brain state of the dream.
I am engrossed, happy, content in absorbing structural
information about linear words. (In emotional time one
might say time had stopped because of concentration.)
This dream then moved from a frustration with detailed
chronological time to a blissful integration of intellectual inspiration that seemed chronologically timeless.
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Gertrude Stein continually and continuously writes
about time, although she was not fond of film as she
knew it:
I myself never go to the cinema or hardly ever practically
never and the cinema has never read my work or hardly
ever. The fact remains that there is the same impulse to
solve the problem of time in relation to emotion and the
relation of the scene to the emotion of the audience in the
one case as in the other.
In Stein's class we learned to differentiate by association which is much like Maya Deren writing that it is the
“logic of central emotion that attracts disparate images.”
In Stein's class we learned the words by the distances
between them.

When one thinks of Stein's paragraphs where the
same words are used in different order from sentence to
sentence the words have a dissimilar spatial relationship
to one another, a different distance, a different time
sequence. So that all the words colored orange in one

paragraph—all the same word—will have a unique
meaning depending on the spatial/time distance they
have from one another, simply, their place in the sen-

tence changes their meaning. Distance, a system of
measurement, in this case is a way of looking at language as a construction of time notation.

Stein again: “I said in Lucy Church Amiably that
women and children change; I said if men have not
changed, women and children have.” I love to think of
her writing in the continuous present directly in the out-

doors being surrounded by the thing one is writing
about at the time one is writing (editing the emotion

surrounded by celluloid images of emotional association, being in the emotional time one is when one is edit-

ing). She wrote Lucy Church Amiably wholly to the
sound of streams and waterfalls. I find that exciting, in-

spiring, revolutionary. Living, fluid, changing energy
streams provoke and carry the words of caretaker woman, our mother Stein. She wrote every day. Her present
was in writing. She waited for the moment when she
would be full of readiness to write and what she wrote
came out of fullness as an overflowing. A waterfall.
“X” is a ritualistic self-naming film. Ritualistic because
naming is a repetitive process. We say over and over

again who we are. The more self-understanding the
more inclusive our definition is. As we keep changing

our naming changes. We are new, continually giving
birth to ourselves, so newly recognized awarenesses of
who we are give impetus for new naming forms be it
film, a personal documentary of the evolving self, or the
self-portraits of the painter that continue throughout her
painting life.
In “X” the naming of myself at a low point of depression was a form of rebirthing myself. Everything had
fallen away. I wrote in my journal several declarative
statements: This is my exhibitionism; This is my anger;
This is my pain; This is my transportation; These are

the children I'm happy not to have...and with each
sentence I wrote the image that came to be the emotional signifier of the dry word. The chain break for exhibitionism because of my interest in film and my revolt

against the male film establishment (Anthony Quinn
breaking the fake chain in La Strada); the tear crying
pain for the great Dryer's Jeanne D'Arc where pain filled
the screaming screen near future time but my time was
my sister's time and it was her wash on the line, her dish
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towels and baby diapers, my pain-her pain-our pain.
“X” is a metronome of subverted time: time that is

gestures, repeated responses. Surely there are the wonderful and innovative creations, experiments with each

rhythmically alternated, recapitulated, variated, retro-

new lover and findings between old lovers if we are

gressed. A baroque ritualistic naming chant that pounds

lucky, but there is the overform of sameness and the

again and again with image and sound making a self-

universality of time when the universe stops and we are

determined statement out of despair. I will, I will, I will

centered in the still circle; as Eliot said, that's where the

be. In spite of, in spite of, in spite of. By the perception

dance is. Dyketactics is erotic time; it is not made with

of repetitions the viewer makes film intelligible. Repeti-

the Freudian traditional belief that the sublimation of

tions are identifiable signs of style, clues as to the way

erotic energy into creative psychological pursuits is the

an artist sees, and even if the repetitions are convoluted

only hope of a civilized society. This belief is apparently

and ambiguous with superimpositions and layers of

proven wrong by the secularly repressive, capitalistic,

filmic texture they are by their very nature based in time

obsessive, chauvinistically oppressive world we know.

and represent the unique manner the artist plays and

Dyketactics is the free and joyful expression of erotic

replays her/his visual present/past experience/memory

energy directly. Art is directly sexual; sex is directly art.

imagery.

The commercial length erotic time was edited kines-

Ritual time is universal time, repeated time, sequen-

thetically; by that I mean the images which are feeling

tial time. Time of repeated gestures of the same signifi-

images at the gut level were edited to touch: literally

cance. Time that seems to stand still as when one em-

images of touching, eating, cleaning, washing, digging,

braces a lover. There are rituals of initiation, transcen-

climbing, stroking, licking, bathing, butting, hugging,

dence, rites of passage. There are emotional rituals of

yum. Textural editing. Feel it. Feels good. A lesbian

openness and trust, vows, the rituals of relationships.

commercial.

Menses is a ritual too, a home-made one, but it is also

Finally, women’s time for me, for Stein, for Maya

a satire on the Walt Disney film which became for many

Deren, or Mary Daly writing in a recent issue of Quest,

of us the junior high school puberty rite of our culture,

a Feminist Quarterly, is in the continual present:

the time when we were shuttled off as prepubescent
adolescent girls to the closed-off walks of a hushed and

Feminist consciousness is experienced by a significant

secret closet auditorium. In the films shown then it was

number of women as ontological becoming, that is,

lace and daisies and muted whispers that surrounded the
flow. What a farce. To carry a rag between one's legs, to
stuff cotton cylinders into a private perfect body open-

being. This process requires existential courage to be and
to see, which is both revolutionary and revelatory,
revealing our participation in ultimate reality as Verb, as
intransitive verb.

ing, to say it was a secret and precious and distinguishing. The lie. The lie. The lie. The lie of the screen, the lie

Time for women is making, becoming, being. My

of Modess Incorporated propaganda. I'd make my own

films when projected exist in the present as continuous

film combating from the other side. It was no fun. It was

time, simultaneous time as living time as when I saw the

discomfort. It was womanly and so was talking about it

celluloid strip in the editing bench in the flickering light

and screaming and playing and boasting. It was no

of the moviescope. They are still present for me because

secret. It could be filmed in consumer heartland, Pay-

they evoke the change we feminist women experience in

less Drugstore; it could be exhibitionist and free and

our continual becoming in the difficult and oppressive

wild—nude women dripping blood in Tilden Park high

society that environs us.

over the intellectual playground of the state, Cal Berke-

ley. It could be collective, each woman planning her
own interpretation of rage, chagrin, humor, pathos,
bathos—whatever menses meant to her within the overall satiric and painted nature of film. And I could shape

Barbara Hammer. Film strips from The Great Goddess.

and form and find the unifier, the pubic triangle and the
egg, red. And each of the women was a part of me and it

This article was originally presented as a lecture at the

was not necessary that my particular body and face be

San Francisco Art Institute, July 30, 1975.

scrėen present. They acted out for me, for them, the
personal expression of one bodily female function. The

color Brecht, the humor Barbara. :
One aspect of the ritual of relationship is the ritual of
sexual activity or erotic time. Sexual activity is repeated

Barbara Hammer has been working in the poetic personal
genre film since 1968. She has completed fifteen films in
16mm, and distributes them herself through Goddess Films,
P.O. Box 2446, Berkeley, California 94703.

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Sally George
This morning I saw a beautiful woman walking behind me. I was going to work
through a neighborhood of factories and garages, tired, slumping cold and heavy
inside my mouse-colored coat; my mouse-colored hair creeping greasily down my
face. And a bulky man leaning drunk against a car spoke unintelligibly to the air
behind me, prophesying a vision; and he spoke the truth, for I turned and there she
was. She passed and we walked single-file, our paths amazingly the same through
the grimy ruined streets. I watched her walk, watched the exact angle of street
appear and disappear each time one leg swung past the other.
The place I have worked for a month now is huge, brightly lit; a whole floor in a
factory building. My boss lives there, in this one gigantic room. The kitchen is in
one corner and the toilet is behind a low wall—like this morning on the street you
hear events without seeing them. The place is sparsely furnished, each object carefully selected: stark German appliances, glass tables, a meat rack to hang coats on.
The forks don't look like forks and the knives are triangular, but they cut clean.
Two others work here, and the boss leaves; I know most about the work; am I in
charge? I make coffee several times; when I ask them, they join me. The slower
typist reads the paper, makes mistakes, leaves early; the better one sits up straight,
seldom speaks, needs nothing. No sandwiches, no jokes. She is a poet.
Later, with my daughter, I go to the library and we look in the encyclopedia to
learn that there are 500 species of frogs and the Pony Express began in 1860. There is
a look-it-up club at school and she joined to wear their button; a man comes once a

week to hear their answers. I am sure he will turn out to be an encyclopedia
salesman. I am horrible to my daughter, grow impatient when she cannot find the
right place in the encyclopedia; I have alphabetized too much today.
At home, the puppy will not eat his dinner. I have a box of cookies, my daughter

has canned and frozen gook. We plan her Halloween costume. Someone calls, a
woman I know slightly. Are you better? she says. You sounded so upset last time we
talked. I'm not sure, but I think she said the same thing last time she called. Yes, I'm
better, I said. I'm used to it now.
My work is making an index out of thousands of single cards, each with one name
or fact written on it. It is like a jigsaw, like knitting, like having a baby. Every bit
falls in place, and each place must be precisely right or it will be defective. We have
been trying to bring it forth for two months now. It progresses, but it never gets finished. I think this all happened because I stopped reading The Castle in the middle;
if I finished it we could finish the index, but I am under a spell and can do nothing.
My life is promised to begin when this is over; I am to eat right and be kind to my
daughter—perhaps I'll find a lover, go to the country, or take up volleyball.
After dinner I go back to work; my boss is hung over. Was it his turn to collapse,

though, or mine? We will miss our new deadline, he says; he means the one I
thought was real. We can't keep up this pace, he said. Him saying it means we can
slow down. My saying it means I'm being difficult. He smiles when I disappoint
him; perhaps he thinks I'm going to turn into an encyclopedia salesman.
He walks me to the subway, we look out for rats. The drunks are gone now, it's
too cold. Our index is about Hitler, these streets are not real. I live continuously in
the bunker, see only the dog Blondi and the picture of Frederick the Great. There are

speeches on Social Darwinism. Defeatism is severely punished in the army. When
my new life starts, I am going to live it with great precision.

Sally George is a writer who lives in Brooklyn. She has published short stories in Ms., Redbook, North American Review and Christopher Street. She is presently interested in market

research. Copyright © 1977 by Sally George

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image your face

1

I think its coming close to death

surrounded by strangers

that does it

Beloved you turn
both others

away
Sweat mixes with blue flowered sheets

& your own

The constant fear

that magnifies the values
begins the definitions

To push out

finally cautiously tentatively
and find

This morning
mild at last
after weeks of chill

an empty place

Streets heavy with water
People stepping
cautiously

4

hardly knowing where

Death brings us close to it
Death itself

to place their feet
so accustomed to barriers

forgetting
of salt & ice

And we the living
wanting to remember

My mind resembles those winter streets

not wishing to be forgotten
separated

grey

from what we hold most near

with sludge
The snow cover melted
The sidewalks washed of unfamiliar

I hold you for a moment lose you
watch you disappear

glare

I hold you
for a lifetime lose you
2

After all she said

the next year the next morning

What difference does it make

the next minute the next breath

That’s the reason I never write
hardly speak of what is me
5

You tell me

I begin to answer glibly stop
Held myself in identical fear

What can I say to that

My own touch tentative

young woman 18 years
almost an excuse

of age

like making love to someone
for the first time

That I at 38 must once more lay aside

or the third (which is always harder)

all sense of definition order

once you begin to know experience
another

Must once more carefully measure
the accumulation of my years

the tension of your hair brown

Or should I say

streaked with grey

her question can be answered
the lines of

your face like wires rushing through

in specific needs others
and her own
But she’s asking

my hands the pressures of your past
your forehead your knees

more than that We both know
what she means

3

Warm outside the steam
continues forced by habit

The only real difference being death
The one who stops the heart

I open the window throw the
oracle trace the heat
The heart thinks constantly it says

One constant then the heart Another

the drawing back

Susan Sherman's two books of poetry, With Anger/With
Love and Women Poems Love Poems, are available through

Four o'clock
two hours till dawn Nightmare

Out and Out Books. She is currently working on a prose book
about creativity and social change.
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Bia Lowe Reality Portrait

s A S

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Diane Devine Fantasy Portrait

| BEER: WINE |
*

f

a

NARED ZAN

E.K. Waller is an artist living in Los Angeles. “My present
work is about feminist community and deals primarily with
the fantasies of feminist women. I am a member of a group of
feminist artists, which is my support group, and with whom I
recently exhibited at the Woman's Building in L.A.”
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Is lesbianism liberating for the artist? My own experience suggests that it is. When at an early age I recognized
the need to voice the poetry seething in me I observed
my mother and all the women I knew of, living and
dead, and saw that their lives were both destructive of
women’s independence and dignity and inimical to the
pursuit of an art. Along with this realization I was not
attracted to men (though as yet not fully aware of their
collective roles as oppressors). I knew nothing of a lesbian way of life but my own needs and observations
were guiding me in that direction.
When at the age of eighteen I learned of the Greek
poet, Sappho, and her way of life I discovered what is

now (inadequately) called “a role model.” Seeking out
all I could of her way of life and her times I found inti-

even male poets were expected to starve in garrets. Already critical of the whole course of bourgeois society
and its inequities, I did not fit in on that level either—
nor do I wish to. Being lesbian could not make me more
of an outsider. As the saying goes, “You may as well be
hung for a sheep as a lamb.” Whatever the hazards, the
attendant liberation from conformity was stimulating,
compelling one to think for oneself.
If I was little inclined to consider the aloneness ahead,

the heartache and hardship, that soon became plain.
There was no supporting feminist movement. I hoped to
find comrades on the way, what I called “my people”;
but it was taking a long time. I have had other women
today say, “You had your gift, your art.” Yes. That was
what I lived for, in the face of every setback. But having

mation of alternatives for women of talent and spirit not

talent is not unique. I believe that creativity is inherent

hinted at for those born where I was growing up. Not

in all humans as is the impulse in plants and trees to pro-

that my life could in any way resemble hers. She had

every social and economic advantage. I had none.
Penniless and with no formal education, no schooling
after fourteen nor preparation for any sort of career, I
had to accept long hours of wage-slave menial office

duce blossoms and fruit according to their kind and that
it is a necessary concomitant of growth.
Generally, the domestic way is not compatible with
the way of the artist. Nor, as a rule, with other spiritual
and intellectual dedications. Can it be coincidental that

labor while trying to salvage space and time for creative

most priesthoods, East and West, have called for celiba-

work.

cy? Sappho wrote: “I am forever virgin.” And let us

Nevertheless, the sense of inner freedom, of broad-

ened emotional horizons, was revelation. I could be,
was in my heart, though a wage-slave, an independent
woman responsible to and for myself. I am aware that
young women today, sixty years later, may not see it
that way, some hoping for more freedom in marriage,
others compromising with or feeling compelled to lean
on welfare. But I think that any job is preferable to
either spirit-cramping indignity. I wrote a poem bidding
farewell to the socially prescribed roles and in it was the
line, “The wide world is to know.” Security (how false is
usually that promise) was scorned; the sense of adventure predominant. However brash it may seem, I feel
that this sense of adventure is necessary to the artist.
Adventure always has been assumed to be the prerogative of men. On the other hand the life of housewifemother is totally mapped. You can see to the end of it in

middle age, menopause, loneliness. The role of non-

never forget that “virgin” in the original definition
meant, not absence of erotic experience, but independence. For women, independence from men and marriage,
hence domesticity. (A virgin forest is an unexploited :
one.) Even the Virgin Mary in the Catholic church is not
depicted as domestic. She has a priestly role. As does
every artist.
Does it become plain why lesbianism is liberating for
the woman, for the artist in her? Or for those women
born with or who cultivate what I call a lesbian personality? As I see it, that personality manifests itself in independence of spirit, in willingness to take responsibility
for oneself, to think for oneself, not to take “authorities”

and their dictum on trust. It usually includes erotic
attraction to women, although we know there have
been many women of lesbian personality who never had
sexual relations with one another. Even where an erotic
relationship exists the sensually sexual may be far from

heterosexual artist (in my case, poet) in the early twen-

predominant. What is strongly a part of the lesbian per-

ties was unexplored territory. You launched yourself

sonality is loyalty to and love of other women. And

into the unknown. Who can say that is not exhilarating?

every lesbian personality I have knowledge of is in some

It did not occur to me that there could be any greater

way creative. To my mind this is because she is freed or

difficulties attached to my preference for women as
lovers than I already faced. The economic and educational lack of advantages aside, I was already at a disadvantage as a woman daring what was (still is) regarded
as a male world. Being an aspiring poet compounded it:

has freed herself from the external and internal domin-

ance of the male and so ignored or rejected (usually
male prescribed) social assumptions that the constellation of domestic functions are peculiarly hers. The important point is that the lesbian has sought wholeness

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Women 1915. N.Y. State Historical Society.
N.Y. Public Library Picture Collection.

within herself, not requiring, in the old romantic sense,
to be “completed” by an opposite.
I do not wish to imply that a woman who is drawn to
men, or who feels she loves a man, may not work to

free-lance writer and journalist I could not be deprived
of a job by the publicity; but I did lose magazines that
had been regularly accepting my work.
I am not blind to the dilemma my sort of radicalism

achieve these freedoms. But the men who will tolerate

poses. I have thought about it lifelong and have no

real autonomy in a woman partner, in whatever capac-

answers, only increasing numbers of questions. Perhaps

ity, are so rare that I for one am skeptical of the possibility. It is a hard realization that a woman's need to love
and be loved, to cherish and be cherished, may become
her most painful hurdle—a bar to self-realization.
This pertains politically as well as personally. Despite

the artist, the lesbian artist in particular, always will
have to survive within the interstices of the chicaneries
and despotism of any power structure. But being more
hopeful than that, as I am, can we as women, as les-

bians, as artists, clearly delineate in our own minds

the insights of some of our currently espoused ideologies

what sort of a society we would like to live in? Any

and the (mainly expedient or token) gains for women as

number of questions and tentative formulations should

a result of their application, I know of no ideology that

be advanced before we become arbitrary in our politics

convinces me of the likelihood of women being rendered

Or suggest a course for women and the women’s move-

justice through a change of state master. The energies,

ment. In the meantime, can we at least agree not to give

skills and intelligence of women have been recognized
and utilized within the several socialist countries more
equitably on the whole than in the capitalist vocational

arenas. But if unemployment looms, will women be
rationalized back into “the home”? And what of our lesbian personalities, even today, in the socialist states?
I should like to be convinced to the contrary, but can
anyone tell me of an existing male-birthed political system that would grant to a woman of lesbian tempera-

our energies or allegiance, to any ideology, movement,
or existing society that is not demonstrating unequivocally its rejection of residues of discrimination against
women?
I should like to end by proposing for meditation a

brief comment by Mary Wollstonecraft made in an
appendix to a collection of her letters written in the
summer of 1796 during her travels in Sweden, Norway

and Denmark. She had personally witnessed in Paris

ment the uncontested right to freely live and love as

some of the excesses and horrors of the French Revolu-

required by her needs and nature? To create her art,
write her poetry or voice her views in accordance with

tion, which nevertheless she espoused. The time in
which she lived and wrote was no less disruptive of

her vision of a society compatible with women’s growth

settled ways and views than ours today; and she had

and flowering as women? I find it hard to give allegiance

fearlessly exposed herself to their full tide. Burning radi-

to the hope that this will happen in any society that

cal where the eradication of human, especially women’s,

requires acquiescence as a cog in a state machine, one

miseries and oppression were concerned, she wrote
these considered words two years before her death:

whose practical daily politics is exerted to attain the predominance of that state over other states—the traditional, seemingly ineradicable male competitive stance. The

“An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusi-

means always determine the ends. No state power ever

astic characters eager to produce alteration in laws and

has acquiesced in its own withering away nor does any

governments prematurely. To render them useful and

today show signs of being likely to.

permanent, they must be the growth of each particular

Throughout my life I have defended the right to revolt
against injustice. I have specifically defended the right
of the Soviet peoples, the Cuban people, the people of

soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding
of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation.”

China—all greatly to be admired despite reservations—
to have the kind of society suitable to their needs and
development. In the fifties I was called before the California Un-American Activities Committee, known as the

Tenney Committee, and put on “trial” in the town
where I lived for my views and political activities. I was
accused of being “communist,” which I was not. But one

cannot expect tunnel vision bigots to differentiate
between, say, Marxism and something resembling
philosophical anarchism. Since I earned my living as a

Elsa Gidlow is a poet who has made her living most of her life
as a journalist. Her latest book SAPPHIC SONGS, Seventeen
to Seventy, (Diana Press) includes recent work and lesbian
love poems from her book On a Grey Thread, first published
ír 1923.

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M

r

Z AR
as Wy RIRU T s:

`= gl Ai
grTE
NNAND
NA MIRAY
: 4AB |Ciy,
å LA ON ROMEO AND JILAT.

N> E MUT SUEN 5
C. N

Charlotte Cushman (1816-76) was an American actress renowned for her talent in playing both

years. ~

male and female roles and perhaps also for her lifelong attachments to women. She was intimate

with many women artists, including Eliza Cook, a poet; Fanny Kemble and Matilda Hays,
actresses; Geraldine Jewsbury, a feminist writer; Sara Jane Clark (pseudonym Grace Greenwood),

a journalist; her sister Susan (who appears as Juliet in the illustration); and Harriet Hosmer,
Emma Crow, and Emma Stebbins, American sculptors. She lived with Emma Stebbins for 19

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Design for the City of Women

Jacqueline Lapidus
to Catherine Blake

I.

a newborn conch
sparkles on wet sand
no bigger than a grain of rice
already
she knows how to secrete
her own house

II,

/

Walking along the shore at low tide, I came to a place where the cliffs were white with salt, as if the
tears of an entire continent had dried in an instant on the rock’s flushed face. Above the high water mark
was a row of irregularly shaped holes in which birds nested; above these, the earth was brick-red, and at
the summit tufts of wild rosemary, thyme and fern thrust their heads into a hazy sky. As I stood admiring
the wheeling flight of the gulls, I heard music coming from the next beach. I climbed over a shelf of mossy
rocks, following the sound, and stumbled into the entrance of a grotto worn away in the cliff. The sun had
not yet set. A shaft of late afternoon light slipped violet into the grotto and fell upon a circle of women
sitting around a slab of rock that jutted out from the cavern wall like a table.
The women were not surprised to see me. They moved over to make room for me at the table. In the
center of the table was a tide pool filled with mussels and clams. One of the women dipped her hand into
the pool and scooped up several fresh clams with fluted shells which she offered to me. I pulled one from
its shell with my teeth and swallowed it live; it slipped easily down my gullet, and in a few seconds I felt a
warm, insistent throbbing between my legs as my clitoris emerged from its bed of wet moss. The women
smiled at me and began to sing, in a language strangely familiar. I lay down naked on the rock ledge with
my buttocks in the tide-pool, my arms and legs outstretched. The women leaned over me. Their cool
fingers stroked my hands and feet, then my nipples and my clitoris. One woman slid her tongue deep into
my cunt, and I felt a great wave surge through my entire body.

II.

concerned we are concerned
we have always been alone together
we have always confided in one another
we have always found time to whisper
amongst ourselves concerning our concerns
long ago we learned to speak to each other
with borrowed cups of sugar
singing together as we washed our blood
from endless sheets and towels
nourishing each other with perpetual
soup concerned we have

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always been concerned
for centuries our cheeks have brushed
each other's cheeks at weddings,
funerals, fairs and church bazaars
we have tasted each other's tears
laying out corpses
we have stroked our sisters’ bellies
and held our daughters’ hands
and sung to their screams, and drawn
babies gasping from their wombs
concerned we are always concerned,
oh yes we are used to one another
bearing our burden together, struggling for a common cause: our own survival
and now we are doing it
openly and for ourselves

IV.

The women live in the grotto. They gather seaweed, moss and wild flowers which they eat raw, or
pound into paste to form little cakes baked in the sun. Mussels, clams, shellfish and tiny crabs caught in the
cracks of the rocks at low tide also nourish the women. Their bodies are strong, tanned and healthy. They
have learned to conceive their babies parthenogenetically. Any woman, by concentrating her energy and
projecting it into her lover's fertile womb, can get her with child. During pregnancy, the women caress
each other's bellies to prepare the child for community. They give birth squatting: friends support the
mother as she breathes, blows and grunts in rhythm with the others, who also sing to encourage her and
maintain the breathing pattern. When the baby has emerged from the womb, they bathe it in sun-warmed
sea water, lay it on the mother’s belly, and massage it gently until it begins to smile. When a mother lacks
milk for her child, another nursing mother offers the baby her breast. The women delight in the taste of
one another's nipples, and send shivers of pleasure through their entire bodies by drinking one another's
milk.

The women have lived together for so long that nearly all menstruate at the same time. During the
menstrual period they feel particularly strong and exuberant. The power of their blood surges through
them. Squatting on the beach, they study the patterns made by their blood on the sand, acquiring an
intimate knowledge of the inner self. At night they perform the following ritual: The women reach into
each other's cunts, extracting the blood with loving fingers, then paint each other's bodies with it. Images
of pleasure flow from each woman onto her partner's face, breasts, belly and buttocks. Then they dance
in spiral formation, singing of their lives, their loves. When à young girl menstruates for the first time, her
mother or wet-nurse initiates her into the blood-painting ritual. Older women who no longer menstruate,
excited by the younger women’s caresses, secrete enough cyprine to paint their bodies. Although the
symbols are colorless on their wrinkled skin, everyone can see them clearly.

V.

Dear Catherine, the message
you could not then transmit to us
has nonetheless arrived
as surely as if etched with acid
on the moon's dark side
spreading like bacteria
nourishing as bread
decoded in our guts
absorbed into the very tissues of our being
and suddenly appearing
as sweat, saliva, blood, cyprine
women’s language of love
the words of the poems dance across the page,
the birds in the air dance above the clouds,
the fish in the water dance among the waves
let us leave the drones to build cities
let us play with each other like ribbons of light
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VI.

The women are developing a new language, fully aware that although they have become a people
capable of reproducing themselves, they can not consider themselves a nation unless they share a mother
tongue. They expect this to take several centuries.
“We live,” says Catherine, “in the crevices, the hollows, the spaces, the secret places, we live on the
edge of the wave. The tide never goes out exactly as she came in—she always leaves us something we can
use.”

She reminds me that the little mermaid’s fatal error was not that she longed for feet, but that she paid
for them with her voice.

VII.

Point.
Pirouette.
Spiral.
Each dwelling shall begin with the self
firmly planted on her own spot
concentrating energy.
Clitoris.
Navel,
Plexus.
Psyche.
Stretching, unfolding, expanding,
turning, whirling
outward upon her axis.
Ears.

Nostrils.
Mouth.
Vagina.
Anus.

Each orifice dilates, opening
like windows, the air
dances through the body.
Cell.

Chromosome.
Molecule.
Atom.
Particle.

Elements in orbit, exchanging
surplus for need in perpetual motion,
pleasurebound
syntax, uniqueness
incorporate.

Jacqueline Lapidus is a radical lesbian feminist who lives in Paris. Her latest book of poems is Starting Over, published
by Out and Out Press.
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Iris Films is a feminist film distribution and produc-

like everyone else, so please be good to us.” They were

tion collective, currently comprised of three lesbians.

saying, “We're happy, and we're healthy, and we're

We have recently completed a 16mm documentary film

proud, and we're tired of being fucked over.”

on lesbian mothers and child custody, “In The Best In-

What we finally came up with—in rethinking, retalk-

process of making that film, which is presented as a

ing, reworking our ideas in the months before we
actually started shooting—was something in between

reflection of our politics and feelings as lesbian film-

the most radical film we could make, and one that the

terests Of The Children.” This article is a record of our

makers.
Iris Films was begun in the spring of 1975 out of the

patriarchial powers could watch and learn from. We
knew that we were in a position to take more risks than

desire to produce and distribute films that spoke to

any lesbian mother facing a judge in a custody trial, and

women in a way that the products of Hollywood do

yet, if the film was to serve any useful propagandistic

not. We saw ourselves as part of the movement of

purpose for educating judges and the homophobic gen-

women to regain, define, and create our own culture.

eral public, we had to be making statements that such

by other women to distribute, and were deciding to

an audience could relate to. What we ended up with
were a variety of women, situations, and statements

begin our own first production, a film defending the

that show how lesbian mothers are both the same as,

In the fall of 1975 we were actively looking for films

right of lesbian mothers to maintain custody of their

children. We began interviewing dozens of lesbian

and different from other mothers.

Once we had completed our initial interviews, we

mothers with cassette recorder, not only hearing their

chose eight women and their children to be in the film.

stories, but also sharing our own experiences as les-

We made these choices based on a number of considera-

bians. One of the three of us is also a mother, and the

tions. We wanted to show a cross-section of women

other two of us are very committed to children as an

based on class and race, on lifestyle, and on the

integral part of our movement and community.

numbers and ages of their children. We wanted the film

Our original plan was to make something that would

appeal directly to those people who have the most

to show that we were not speaking of only one particular type of lesbian, when we spoke of a lesbian’s right

judges, the probation officers, the attorneys, the social

to keep her children. So we chose from as broad a
spectrum as we could, keeping in mind the specific

workers. As we talked more and more with different

experiences that each woman could speak to in the film.

power over a lesbian in a child custody situation: the

lesbian mothers and heard their stories, that conception

began to change. We realized, with them, that what
they had to say was important for the general public,
for other lesbians and their children, and for the wom-

The three of us had been working together as a collective, and we wanted to continue working that way once

we began production on the film. Two of us -were
experienced filmmakers, and the third, although having

en's movement to hear. We began to broaden our image

no film experience, was very good at interviewing

of the film and of who the audience would be, and to

people. We were committed to the idea of sharing skills

consider what compromises we would and would not

in our work, and because of this, we decided that each

make in order to make our statements. We knew that a

of us would be in charge of an area where she felt the

film for judges and probation officers would have to be

most expertise (the three areas were camera, sound re-

very low key and very liberal and that we would have

cording, and directing/interviewing), but that all of us

to present very “acceptable” lesbians (in terms of their

would have an opportunity to work at each of these.

image, lifestyle, and statements)—the more middle
class, and accepting of American, white, capitalist

We found that having a well-thought-out common
vision of what we wanted the film to be, made it

values, the better. We decided most adamantly that we

possible for us to do this. We had other women working

didn't want to do that with the women that we had met

on the film with us (usually helping with lighting or

who had become our friends. We found (not sur-

camera assistance), but none of them were involved in

prisingly) that the women who had the strongest statements to make about being lesbian mothers were not

those who would be the most palatable to the “upholders of justice” in this country, since these women

the collective process. They would commit themselves
to working on the film on a day-to-day basis, as it fit
into their schedules.
As feminists, we found our priority was to deal with

understood their oppression as lesbians to include the

the feelings of the women and children we were filming,

“upholders.” They were not saying, “We just want to be

rather than doing whatever necessary. to get what we

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wanted on film. We would never push to get a shot
when we felt there was resistance, or if it seemed too dis-

lesbians to use, within their communities for fund and

consciousness-raising, for the general public (we are

ruptive. This, and the mothers’ understanding about the

trying to get the film on public television), and for use in

need for this film, made them very cooperative and

educating the powers involved in custody cases in the

adaptable to our needs. Although it was an unfamiliar

COUTts.

situation for most of them, and there was some nervous-

As lesbian filmmakers, we see ourselves as cultural

ness, the general feeling when we turned on the cameras

workers. We see film primarily as a political tool, and

was relaxed and open.

secondarily as an art form. We do recognize, however,

We decided sometime in September that, in addition

the importance of giving our work a strong, vibrant,

to filming the children with their mothers, we would

and positive esthetic, as the most effective way of

like to get the children talking with each other about

getting our message across to the audience. A shoddy

their common experience. We arranged this with the

esthetic does not change people; it bores them and turns

children of three of the mothers from northern Califor-

them off. In this respect, we see it as our responsibility

nia, plus two other children whose mothers were not in

to create films that are artistically as well as politically

the film. There was a lot of energy and excitement from

compelling.

the children, because the focus was on them and what

We plan to continue working as a collective, both for

about their mothers, and could share their feelings and

our distribution and for our production work. Our
challenge to ourselves is to make filmmaking much

experiences without fear of being put down. Filming the

more available to women who have never had access to

children by themselves added a new perspective to the

the power of the media, and yet who have important

they had to say, and because they could talk with peers

film, both in terms of what they had to say, and the

statements to make about their lives and about the

openness with which they said it.

society we live in. This includes third world women,

the necessary money (primarily from three small

working class and poor women, especially those who
are lesbians, as women who are traditionally denied
training or jobs where they could learn and utilize

foundations, from a concert in Los Angeles, and from

filmmaking skills. We do not believe that doing this

individual donations), we completed the final steps of

kind of cultural work will make the revolution, but we

We spent the months from November, 1976, to May,
1977, editing and fundraising, and when we finally got

recording the music, filming pick-up shots and still

do believe that it is an important aspect for inspiring

mixing, timing, and lab work. We have produced a

and organizing women towards the goal of making
radical changes in our social, political, and economic

film that we hope will be an effective political tool for

structures.

photos, making the titles, and doing the final cutting,

Iris Films’ 16mm, 52 minute, color documentary on Lesbian
mothers, “In The Best Interests Of The Children,” is available

Francis Reid is a thirty-three year old feminist filmmaker and

for sale or rental. For information write to Iris Films, Box

organizer. Some of her work has included organizing The
Feminist Eye—a conference for women in media, and

26463, Los Angeles, California, 90026, (213) 483-5793.

founding Iris Films.
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About fifteen women have been part of the group at
various times, and there are five women in the group at

the politics do we have, and on lesbians’ lives?
FR: I can't even get to that point. I keep thinking that

present. We are: Ellen Turner, Flavia Rando, Fran

so much of what I do all day, not just working, but the

Winant, Jessica Falstein, and Maxine Fine. We give each

over-all pattern of my life, is a fight to make room for

other support, criticism and feedback concerning our

my psyche in both the lesbian community and the out-

work and our lives.

side world. I'm fighting to be an artist, fighting for a few

We participated in the art shows at the Gay Academic

hours of free time, for money. Being an artist is extra,

Union Conferences in 1974 and 1975. We offset copies

you don't do it to live. Just as being a lesbian is extra, not

of our drawings at Come!Unity Press with the words

to me but to the world. We have to fight to make emo-

“Lesbian Art” written on them and pasted them up on
the streets, in subways, and near museums, art schools,

tional space for it.
FW: I used to think it was desirable that the com-

and women’s bars. In March, 1976, we gave a slide

munity’s politics and art should influence each other.

show at the Women’s Coffee House to bring our work

But, I think what happens with political art is that it

to the community, which might otherwise not see it,

reflects the community's politics; it doesn't influence

and to de-mystify the process of how we make our art.

them. The majority of creative women appear not to

In June, 1976, we had a group show at Mother Courage

want to do that kind of art. They may feel some pres-

Restaurant. A day after the show opened, the restaurant

sure from their own politics or the belief that the com-

called Flavia, and told her they found her semi-abstract

munity might respond better to this type of art, but they

painting of a woman's genitals “offensive and in poor

can't force their creativity to function that way.

taste,” and demanded that she take it down. A series of

MF: Did you ever do that kind of art?

meetings between the restaurant and our collective fol-

FW: In my poetry...

lowed. Our group was torn between taking down all
our work or making some compromise. We finally

MF: I mean in your painting.

FW: No, I never wanted to. The closest I came to

removed the “offending” painting and put up a state-

wanting to do something political was wanting to make

ment describing the painting and what had taken place

portraits of women, including some lesbians of the past.

and explaining Flavia’s artistic intentions in creating the

ET: I think it’s connected with societal patterns. The

work. We allowed this experience to have a destructive

Communist Party has their artists do Communist im-

effect on the group. After the usual summer break we

agery. So when we hear about lesbian art, we think we
have to document the rhetoric of the lesbian movement

did not meet again for 5 months. When we resumed

meeting, we tried to rediscuss “The Mother Courage

to be a full-fledged lesbian artist. There has to be a dif-

Incident” but could never resolve our conflicted feelings

ferent way to experience ourselves as lesbian artists in-

about what would have been the best way we could

stead of having to go by patterns and definitions set up

have supported Flavia. We are now trying to expand the

by the straight world. We have to set up new ones. Art

focus of the group to deal with more of our interests

can document what's internalized in our beings, rather

such as poetry, photography, Tai Chi and dance.
The following discussion is about what it means to us
to be a lesbian and an artist.

than literal and surface realities that political movements deal with.
FR: I used to always think that being a lesbian artist
was just the fact that I was a lesbian and an artist, and

MF: I was just wondering if everyone here is a lesbian.
(A chorus of “Yes.”)
ET: Are we lesbian artists or are we just people?

FR: Even today when I see a picture of Gertrude

everything I did was going to reflect my lesbianism.
FW: Like anything that’s important to you, your lesbianism will influence what you create.
MF: Part of the problem in struggling with this idea
of what lesbian art is, is the implication that there is an

Stein, Alice Toklas, or Romaine Brooks or see or read

already-defined and homogeneous lesbian culture and

their work, I get a thrill. Knowing about these women

that any lesbian within that culture would refiect it.

has sustained me through a lot of years. Really that’s the
value of this lesbian issue of Heresies—showing us that

FW: We're supposed to be like an ethnic group.
MF: But we're not even given credit for having that

lesbian artists exist. As for what it means to be a lesbian

kind of richness. We don't realize it ourselves and our

artist—I don’t even know what it means for me to be an

lesbian culture doesn't encourage it. I think there is a

artist.

MF: In the past we've talked about how galleries

fear of differences and individualism which really boils

down to lesbians not trusting each other. Having to

don't want to exhibit work by open lesbians, but how

classify ourselves or our work may make things more

does it feel to be a lesbian artist within the lesbian com-

clear but it's also a form of control. It's especially a

munity? How relevant is it? What kind of an impact on

problem if you're working as an abstract artist and don't

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deal with real things.

lesbian lover gives me great spiritual strength.” If we

JF: You mean recognizable things.

could say, “My lesbian community, or my lover, gives

MF: Yes. Then you get into an area of ideas and feel-

me creative strength,” then I think it would be more

ings there's no room for among our lesbian sisters.

meaningful to be a lesbian artist. It would also be much

There's no place for you as an artist or a person.

clearer what it meant to be one. The fact that we can't

FR: The best lesbian art would be if every lesbian in

say these things is a loss to us.

this country claimed everything she did as a lesbian cre-

FR: I could have said that during a certain time in my

ation. That's really what we're talking about.

life. That kind of outside support of one’s existence can

FW: Feminist artists are eager to do that with their

help a person to create art to a degree, for a certain

feminist art. Part of the history of the lesbian movement

amount of time. But after that you have to pick it up in

has been an insistence on defining ourselves, and that's

a different way and have it be more internal.

still valid, that still has to continue.

ET: But do you think the exterior support and enthusiasm still exists for the women who need them? I'm

FR: Even using the term “lesbian art” is accepting a
very narrow definition. Here we are: five lesbian artists

not experiencing this. A lot that used to happen doesn’t

in a lesbian art collective. We each do completely dif-

happen any more.

ferent work and only Ellen's, because it’s autobio-

FR: The culture we all grew up in is not set up for art.

grafical, is what would generally be recognized as les-

An artist in our culture has to be very aggressive and

bian art. All we can really say is that our art is a product

able to publicize herself. I don’t think we can blame the

of everything we are and our lesbianism is an important

lesbian community.

part of what we are.

ET: I don't think the lesbian community really tries

JF: I think the definition has grown out of our op-

to initiate anything.

pression. When we get together we don't have to keep
reinforcing our lesbianism.

FR: Art itself is a luxury in our culture and the lesbian
community has so much trouble surviving...

FR: It matters politically because if I don't say I'm a

ET: Certain things are sought out in the lesbian com-

lesbian then no one will know and then part of me will

munity. Books, women’s presses, records. It's more than

constantly be denied.

what's available for visual artists.

JF: I don't think there is a single common denom-

FR: Didn't writers do the presses and musicians cre-

inator to all work done by lesbians. We're oppressed be-

ate the record companies?
FW: There are a lot of women’s book stores with wall

cause of our invisibility. It's important that a magazine
be filled with work done by women and all these women

space and possibly we could have travelling exhibitions.

be lesbians. But try to look for the connecting key and

It wouldn't be one big gallery in New York, but at least

you won't find any.

somebody could send pieces around to smaller places.

FW: I think it would mean something important if we

MF: I helped Myra Nissim put up a show of photo-

could come out with a statement like, “I'm a lesbian art-

graphs in a woman's space where new work hadn't been

ist because my community gives me the strength to be
an artist.”

hung in over a year. Afterwards, other women put up
work. You have to create the idea and make it happen

(Shouts of “No.”)

and then other people will be inspired by it. And you

FW: I've had these feelings very strongly. Like the

have to keep feeding it or it will stop.

woman who was ordained as a minister who said, “My

FW: There's a tremendous barrier to defining your-

Photo by eeva-inkeri.

Photo by eeva-inkeri.

Ius Hatra He Fasl bond 0 N 3
Maxine Fine. This Makes Me Feel Good. n.d. Monoprint. 9” x
11”.

Ellen Turner. Self Portrait #2. 1977. Colored pencils. 11” x
137/8".

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Photo by eeva-inkeri.

Photo by eeva-inkeri.

Photo by eeva-inkeri.

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self as a creative person. Part of it is the problem of
where the work will go. When you create something, it
goes up on a wall and you wonder if it's now part of the

community—are people reacting? Unless you're there
with it, you're never sure. A month later it's off that
wall completely and out of sight.
ET: It's going to hit some people and not others.
FR: The visual artist in our culture, including the lesbian culture, is in a real bind. If it’s not saleable to the
masses, forget it—if you don't have the kind of work
you can put into book form, record form, film form,
something that can have multiples. Otherwise, it ends
up being shown in an expensive space that most people
aren't interested in going to. I wonder what would happen if someone opened a lesbian art gallery.

MF: Probably such a gallery would be blasted by

was to completely deny publicly their lesbianism.
MF: I don't know how much they understand.
FR: They understand how to market themselves in
our culture.
MF: A lot of lesbian artists who are in the closet
would probably say, “Well, I never thought of that as
an issue. My private life is private; what counts is my
work. The fact that I'm a lesbian is totally irrelevant to
my gallery and the people who buy my work.” I don’t
think there's a hell of a lot I could learn from that person. I could learn something from a person who hadn't
come out but who wasn't going to deny her lesbianism
and its relevance to her struggles.
FR: That's a very idealistic position. I would like to
know how she kept going, how she worked through the
internal struggle of being a lesbian in our culture.

critics in the straight presses who would want to destroy
the concept behind it.
MF: I once thought of doing drawings in bars and
making prints from them. I was looking for a source of
inspiration in the lesbian community. I never did those
drawings and it's basically because I'm not a realist and

JF: I find that I have a real need for role models—
strong, creative women to serve as inspiration.
MF: A woman who denies the relevance of her lesbianism to her work is no role model.
ET: My feeling is that she would never really understand the connection.

it's not the thing that interests me. The closest I got to
FR: I'm not saying that I'm going to like this woman,

realism was doing abstractions of my Own organs after
an operation. I keep having to go into myself in order to
find what I need and then after a while I feel exhausted. I

need more inspiration from outside. I wonder how
many of us get inspiration for what we do as artists from

lesbians, the lesbian community?
FR: I think we're in a privileged position just being

part of a lesbian community at all and being in a lesbian
artists’ group. We have reached out to the community
through our slide shows and exhibits and have gotten
some positive response. It takes a certain mentality to be
an explicitly political artist of any kind and it doesn’t
follow that because we're lesbians we're going to draw
our direct subject matter from the community.
FW: I had a secret thought that maybe one purpose
of the lesbian issue was to put pressure on those lesbians
who had “made it” in the art world to come out and

state publicly that they are lesbians. People used to
wonder why there weren't women artists of great stature; then they found out there were. Now some people
probably wonder why there aren't lesbian artists of stature comparable to certain straight feminist artists. There

are, but they don't identify themselves as lesbians.
We're in a position where we are asking for more support from our community or we're asking for enough
SUpPOrt to give us a reason to go on doing things at all.
But there are some lesbians who have already gotten all

but I think that writing her off is a mistake. She's struggled to succeed and she knows a lot.
MF: I get a certain thrill when I hear about women
who have made it. I want that recognition also. A lot of
my feelings have absolutely nothing to do with feminism. They just have to do with being alive and not
wanting to be isolated. I want to make some kind of
impact. If someone is receptive to my work it makes me
feel good. I don't care who the person is.
ET: Well I'm going to start pushing myself in the art
world. I'm really petrified to come out. That world that
I see out there is straight. If I want to stay out of the
closet then it will probably be difficult to develop a
career for myself in the art world.
FR: I more or less do that when I go to work. I don't
particularly come out. But when it comes to my art it
seems so much more important. Otherwise why bother
to do it? I don't want to use my art to hide myself. Why
do we assume the lesbian community is relatively uninvolved in art? We forget about all these lesbians who

have accomplished something because they're not out.
It's frightening. When we think about the lesbian community we don't think about women who have accomplished things in the world. We slip into the same thinking as other people; we assume they don’t exist. What
does it mean to be an artist and a lesbian? We're still at
the point of stating that we're lesbians.

their support from the mainstream society. If some of
those women came out it would make the lesbian community more aware of art and of artists, and it might be
a form of support for all lesbian artists. But what is Ms.
X. going to get out of coming out?
ET: A nice open door reading “exit” from the galleries.
MF: It might be a big ego trip to come out at this
point.
ET: If that woman is recognized and has substantial
power in the art market then she would be a great token
gesture for gay liberation.

Maxine Fine is a painter and a student of Tai Chi Chu'an. Her
most recent one woman show was at Aames Gallery in 1976.

Ellen Turner is an upfront dyke who uses art as a tool for
political and social communication within the lesbian community.

Fran Winant is a painter and poet, author of Looking at
Women and Dyke Jacket (Violet Press). Her work was in the
1976-77 Woman in the Arts show “Artists' Choice.”

FR: These women are so well hidden that it comes
through only as a secret thought that there may be lesbians today—not just a few from the past—who are in a

Jessica Falstein is a painter and collagist living in New York
City. Her last one-woman show was in March, 1977, at Djuna
Books.

position where they understand a lot of things we are
struggling to understand. And the way they got there

Flavia Rando is a landscape painter and a student of dance,
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With much love and appreciation for my women’s art

group: Marcie Baer, Marianne Daransky, Vanalyne
Green, Meg Harlam, Annette Hunt, Diana Johnson,
Connie Jost, Ellen Ledley, Melissa Mathis, Anne Phillips, Terry Platt, E.K. Waller, Denise Yarfitz
I do not want to say that lesbian art looks like such
and such. It is still too early and we would be excluding
a lot of work made by lesbians if we were to put definitions on it. What I would like to do is to take the stigma
off the label of lesbian art. I identify myself as a lesbian
artist as an acknowledgment, an affirmation. In the act
of naming, there is power. Since there has been so much
oppression around being a lesbian, I would like to see
lesbian artists, myself included, make the most outrageous lesbian art we can think of. I would like to see us
free enough to be incredibly lesbian in our art-making
process.
Last year, as part of a cultural event produced by the
Los Angeles League for the Advancement of Lesbianism
in the Arts (LA LA LA) held at the Woman's Building,
Anne Phillips and myself curated a show by lesbian arists titled “Reflections of Lesbian Culture.” My impetus
in curating this show came from a desire to meet lesbian
artists outside of the Woman's Building, to show their
work, and to create a context for the lesbian work my
friends and I were making. Initially, I felt frustration at
the lack of availability of lesbian feminist art. For example, some women did not want to be identified with a
lesbian show. Because lesbian art has been so invisible,
there were a lot of expectations and tensions about what

a lesbian show should look like. There was pressure
from some women to include all the work that was sub-

mitted; others wanted “high quality, professional”
work. Anne and I selected work that in some way reflected a lesbian and/or feminist consciousness. As we
did not have a set definition as to what we thought les-

Our experience with the art establishment forces us to
look at the lack of places in which to show lesbian art.
Locally, there is the Woman's Building. After that, it's
back to the closet again. Presently, if women want their

work available to the public, they are forced to use
male-identified galleries. That will usually lead to some
kind of conscious or unconscious censorship in order to
make the work more acceptable. Also, by showing with

the traditional galleries, women are supporting the
elitist art establishment.
Within the lesbian community in Los Angeles, I feel
there still exists a mystification of the visual arts and its
relevance in our lives, resulting in a separation between
art and politics. This is important to recognize when
looking for a lesbian audience. Lesbian writers are getting their work out through feminist presses and wom-

en's bookstores. Lesbian musicians are getting their
work out through feminist recording and production

companies. Where is there a similar network for lesbian
artists? During the past four years there have been hundreds of shows at the Woman's Building, only one of
which was exclusively lesbian, and few of which have
been reviewed in the local feminist presses. It is evident
that we have not considered visual art to be newsworthy or political. Part of this has to do with the fact that
we as artists have not yet found a way to be directly
accessible and responsible to the larger feminist community. Until recently women had to rely on male publications if they wanted their work to be written about,
which in turn meant they had to exhibit in male galleries. In order for lesbian artists to be visible, they had
to go through the male establishment; then they could
be discovered and honored by the feminist communities.
We are only beginning to trust our own values enough
to stand behind women’s art that hasn't received male
approval.
In my feminist artist group our growth has been an

bian art should look like, the work we selected varied

organic one. In coming together to share our work we

over a wide range of attitudes and media. This was my

give support and criticism to each other, and validation

first experience of a specifically lesbian audience and the
appreciative responses were incredible.
We found the installation of the show to be somewhat
controversial. It was strongly suggested that we take out
two photographs from a group, as they did not present

a “positive” lesbian image. Granted we would like to
represent the lesbian community in the best way pos-

as artists in a world that barely recognizes or values the
art-making process. It is of primary importance to me
that our relationships with each other have developed
through our work as opposed to developing in the bars
or on the dance floor. For me, it has been a source of
survival and growth. Most of us have participated in the

Feminist Studio Workshop and have learned similar

sible, and yet, what kind of censorship are we placing

tools for critique. Our experiences and education prior

on it? Can we expect to have validating lesbian images

to that in the straight art world, make it very easy to slip

overnight? It is my belief that we need to see where we

back into old patterns and value structures. Knowing

have come from in order to have a solid base on which

that our viewpoint will be ignored by the art world, we

to grow.

turn to each other to answer questions that are meaning-

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ful to ourselves. I have experienced isolation and otherness when I am with artists who are dealing with formal
issues in their work or who are not conscious of feminist

issues. In our group, by acknowledging ourselves and
other women to be our audience, we are creating the
context in which to show our work. I feel that direct
lesbian imagery would have taken much longer to develop or wouldn't have developed at all], if the work had
not been understood or encouraged. We stop the process
of accepting male art as universal, which makes our art
merely a part of their system. We are not creating alternatives. Webster defines alternative as that which may
be chosen in place of something else. We are already the
something else. Would we want the kind of audience
that perpetuates the oppressive values of the art galleries? One woman in our group, Terry Platt, is show-

ing her work in various feminist households, treating it
as a traveling show. Terry is almost directly accessible
to the people who will be seeing her work, and in the

process has redefined the relationship between the
audience and the artist. The economics of our art is also
being examined in relationship to our values. In order to

make our art accessible perhaps we need to sell our
work on a sliding scale or graphically mass produce it so
as to be affordable. We are just beginning to see the
issues involved with audience and economics.
We are now faced with the same circumstances which,
in the past, have kept lesbian artists invisible. We need
to see that the same thing does not happen to us. Our art
which is reflective of our experiences will chronicle our
struggles, growth, and strength in formulating our lesbian feminist world.

A

a >

s

Marguerite Tupper Elliot, lesbian feminist artist and curator,
currently lives in Los Angeles. Former co-director of the
Woman's Building Galleries, she is now employed at the Los
Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Media-wise, she works with
ceramics, photography and words. A large part of her work
has been collaborative.
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I have made distinctions

R.'s mother J. is five feet nine, weighs one hundred

Between the child and her mother,

and forty pounds and has a Brooklyn accent. She speaks

Yet the difference between

loudly and is Jewish. She has red curly hair, blue eyes

The wind
And the sound of the wind at night
Often makes me dream
Of falling sparrows.
Barbara Grossman

and freckles. Her hair used to be bright red but it is
faded now. R. looks very much like her mother J. but
she is not as tall and she has blonde hair. R. is sometimes
taken to be her mother over the phone although she
speaks very softly. R.'s mother J. was born in 1930 in
Brooklyn, New York. Then she moved to New Jersey by

C.'s mother M. is five feet two, weighs one hundred
and eight pounds and speaks the King's English. She is
Protestant. She always wanted C. to speak properly and

often corrected her mid-sentence. Even so C. doesn't
stutter. C.'s mother M. has blonde hair, green eyes and
high cheek bones. C. hates to be told she is like her
mother though in some ways she is. They both have
small hands. C.'s mother M. was born in September in

1916 in England. C.'s mother M. is British but took
American citizenship in 1957. She was raised by her
great aunt in Preston, Lancashire, and went to Catholic
boarding schools. She had long light blonde hair and the
nuns were angry with her when she cropped it short.

She liked to ride horses and play cricket. She was
required to dress for dinner in her home and to eat each
course with the correct utensils. C.'s mother M. sometimes complained about the trauma of C.'s birth. It was

evidently very tiresome and painful. She could not
breast feed because of heavy anesthesia. C. weighed a
lot when she was born. She had a big head, was fat, and
cried a lot.
K.'s mother K. is five feet five, weighs one hundred
and forty pounds and speaks with an upstate New York
accent. Her A's are flat and nasal. K.'s A's are not as flat
as her mother's. K.'s mother K. has grey hair and blue
eyes. K.'s mother K. recently dyed her hair brown and
K. thinks she looks funny. She is Catholic. K. always
insists that she looks like her mother K. even though she
looks like her father too. K. will reluctantly admit that
her legs are bowed like her father's. K.'s mother K. lives
in Buffalo, New York, where K. was born and where
K.'s mother was born too. K.'s mother K. was born in
1924. K.'s mother's mother was Irish but K.'s mother K.
was raised in Buffalo. K.'s mother's mother was a maid
for wealthy families. K.'s mother K. used to go sometimes with her mother and play in the homes of wealthy
families. K. was born to her mother K. when she was
thirty years old. She is the middle child of five children,
two sons and three daughters. K.'s birth was difficult
relative to the other children, but she was a medium
sized and healthy baby.

way of Queens where she raised her family. When R.'s
mother J. lived in Brooklyn she very much wanted to go
to the public school but her parents insisted that she go
to the more prestigious private school. She eventually
went away to Syracuse University. R. was born to her
mother J. in 1954, was the middle child and her mother’s
first daughter. R. weighed seven pounds when she was
born. R.'s mother J. was in labor with R. a long time but
her birth was not painful.
C.'s mother M. has been a secretary and a sales clerk,
although she had wanted to be a veterinarian. She is
now a housewife, although she does volunteer work for

the Westminster Theatre Company and takes painting
and French in an adult education program. While she

lived in Munich C.'s mother M. was not allowed to
work because wives of officers in the State Department
were not allowed to work. C.'s mother M. lives in London now and is not allowed to work because it is difficult for American citizens to get working papers. C.'s

mother M. supported C.'s father through graduate
school at the London School of Economics, but this was
before C. was born. When C. was six her mother went
to work part-time but she didn't tell anyone that she was
working for several months because she felt she had to
prove that she could work and be a good mother too.
C.'s mother M. always told C. that she could be anything she wanted to be and encouraged her in any area

that C. showed promise of talent. C.'s mother M.
wanted C. to be a doctor, dancer, scholar, writer, artist,
linguist, a good wife and happy. Most of all she wanted
C. to be happy.
K.'s mother K. used to go to work sometimes with her
mother, the domestic servant. This was how she got her
first jobs babysitting and cleaning. K.'s mother K. was a
secretary before she was married. After she was married

she typed sometimes at home for extra money. She
typed for Amway Co. at one-half cents per page so that

she could buy a bicycle for her daughter. Later K.'s
mother K. worked in a factory so that K.'s father could
collect unemployment. They each got fifty dollars per

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week, which combined was more than K.'s father could
earn as a carpenter. K.'s mother K. hated the factory.
The workers that worked there were mostly men and
she would come home covered with grease. The other

women who worked there were very masculine and

C.'s mother M. drove an ambulance during the bombing

of London. She used to collect her sugar ration for

months to have birthday parties for orphans and relocated children, victims of the war. One time the sugar was

really salt and the children were disappointed. One

unlike K.'s mother K. K.'s mother K. now works in the

night she drove the ambulance into a bomb crater and

Post Office. She worked at night for many years. K.'s

hurt her back. She had to soak it in hot baths after that

mother K. chose the night shift because she thought she
would have more time to spend with her children that
way, but the result of this was only that she was perpetually dazed. K. resented that her mother K. had to
work so much and couldn't spend more time with her
family. K.'s mother K. is really glad that K. could go to
college. It was very important to her that all her children
could go to college. She feels better for that.
R.'s mother J. left Syracuse University and transferred

to Adelphi University when she married so that she
could live with her husband in Queens. The single-most
motivation for her marriage was her belief that she
could not take care of herself, economically or psychologically. Just before she married she wrote to her

but hot water in London was difficult to come by. When
C. was eight she went to school and told the other children about the Nazi atrocities that her mother had told
her about. C. was fascinated by war stories. C.'s mother
talked a lot to C. about the war and with a peculiar
enthusiasm.
K.'s mother K. used to tell her how pretty she was,
especially in the days when K. had long hair and wore
make-up and short skirts. K.'s mother K. tells her about
fires, plane crashes, fatal illnesses and deaths due to exposure. K.'s mother K. thinks these things are terrible
and tells K. about them over the phone. They also discuss their family and politics. K. can usually convince
her mother K. of her political views if she talks to her

mother asking her to discourage her from marrying. She

ləng enough. K.'s mother K. has been a worker for

did not. R.'s mother J. didn't work after she was married

many years. K.'s mother K. has worked at the Post Of-

but started having a family. Later she went to a psychiatrist because she was very depressed. She went for ten

fice for ten years. When she worked at night she used to

years. Six years after starting therapy she got a job as a
social worker and went to graduate school at Columbia
in social work. R.'s mother J. likes her job but feels that
she is underpaid and that the work is overwhelming.
She was fired once for taking a sixteen year old girl from

come home in the early morning to take care of her
senile and bedridden mother. Her biggest fear as she was
climbing the stairs was that this was one of the nights
that her mother had shit and then, in anger at not having
her calls answered, had flung her shit around the room.
K.'s mother K. did not like to face this in the early

a Catholic home to have an abortion, but the American

morning after working all night. K.'s mother K. would

Civil Liberties Union initiated proceedings and got her

clean up, wash her mother and then get her children

job back, but without back pay. R.'s mother J. wants R.
to be able to take care of herself. At the same time she

ready for school.
R.'s mother J. likes to tell her about the bargains she

wants, in any way that she can, to help take care of R.

buys. R.'s mother J. tells R. that she is too self-critical

R.'s mother J. wants R. to be happy and she is impressed
that R. is living in New York and taking care of herself.

and too critical of her mother too. R. admits that this is

C.'s mother M. used to tell her she was sick and tired
of her derogatory remarks. C.'s mother M. used to tell

true. R.'s mother J. tells R. how pretty she is. R.'s
mother J. told her once about how when she was young
her mother would say to her if ever she indicated any
fear: “Afraid? What are you afraid of? There is nothing

her she had a headache. She used to tell her she was a

to be afraid of,” and R.'s mother J. would mimic her

good girl. C. remembers the sound of her mother’s voice

mother’s tone of voice. It was painful for R.'s mother J.

when she told her she was a good girl. It would make C.

to have her fears mocked and she vowed that she would

flush with pleasure. C.'s mother M. was uncommonly
proud of C.'s ability to be bad. When C. was very

give credence to the fears of her children. When R. was

young C.'s mother M. used to tell her friends that C.
was a regular terror that one couldn't keep up with for

fifteen she once made a list of all the things she was
afraid of. When she came to item sixty-eight she began
to think that the list was pretty funny. She showed it to

she was always into everything. C.'s mother M. was
particularly convinced of C.'s intelligence and spunk.

being only sixty-eight things to be afraid of. Later R.'s

C.'s mother M. used to tell her about Nazi atrocities.

mother J. told R. that she had shown this list to her

her mother J. and they laughed together about there

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psychiatrist. R.'s mother J. was very apologetic, for she

depression would prevent her from taking care of her

was usually invariably moral about respecting the pri-

children or that she would create this facade of taking

vacy of her children, but R. felt relieved because the

care of her chidren but she wouldn't really be taking

matter had been taken up with the proper authorities.

care of them. R.'s mother J. is a large and strong woman ;
she is athletic, intelligent, sensitive and capable. It took

C.'s mother M. often tells lies. This pained C. very

R.'s mother J. a long time to believe that she had the

much when she first discovered her mother’s lies. She

power to get up in the morning to take care of herself

cried. Later she felt relieved. It meant that C.'s mother

and her children. R.'s mother J. once threatened to jump

M. was, in fact, crazy and it meant that if C. didn’t lie

out of the car because R.'s father was driving drunk

she wouldn't be crazy like her mother M. C. started dis-

again. R. always believed that her father was trying to

covering her mother’s lies when she was thirteen. She

kill them. R. was convinced that her mother J. was really

broke the glass of a picture that her mother had done

going to jump out of the car and leave her with her

and discovered that the picture was actually a print of

father who was trying to kill them. After they were

somebody else's. C.'s mother M. knit her a pair of mit-

home R. repeatedly asked her mother J. if she really

tens, but the mittens had a store label in them. C.

would have jumped out of the car. R.'s mother J.

wanted to show her mother the store label but C.'s sister

assured her that she only would have done it if she could

convinced her not to. C.'s impulse was always to treat

have taken her children with her. That night R. slept

her mother like a real responsible person. C.'s father and

with her mother J. and R.'s father slept downstairs on
the couch.

sister often tried to convince her that C.'s mother could

not be treated like a fully capacitated person. C.'s
mother M. is after all quite crazy and is to be treated

C.'s mother M. used to brag about C. to her friends.

with condescension. C.'s impulse is to confront her

She often exaggerates C.'s accomplishments. C.'s

mother honestly, but this causes C. and her mother so

mother M. is very threatened by all of C.'s ideas and

much pain and it causes others such discomfort and it

achievements. C.'s mother M. contributed to C.'s

begets them so little that C. often refutes this impulse.

achievements by her sacrifices. She read to C. by the

She is encouraged in this restraint by her father and

hour when she was small. C.'s mother M. has contrib-

sister for it makes things go more smoothly. It is for the

uted to C.'s success by her failures. C.'s mother M. is

sake of expedience. C.'s participation in this paradigm

afraid C. is going to suffer from being strong and single-

of protection and this conspiracy against her mother,

minded. C.'s mother M. has contributed to C.'s strength

this tampering with reality and this denial of her

through a passionate and intensive faith in her. C.'s

mother's experience causes her much guilt and anxiety.

mother M. loves her very much. C. hates her mother M.

She identifies with her mother and yet she betrays her.

and is sure that her mother is determined to destroy her.

After her last child was born K.'s mother K. thought

She exaggerates this hatred in order to protect herself

seriously about abandoning her husband, taking her

from identifying with her mother M., who she perceives

four children and leaving the baby with his father. She

as a defeated person. Recently however, in an unguard-

realized then that she was trapped and lonely in a large

ed moment, C. felt overwhelmed with compassion and

house with someone who didn't love her and was never

gratitude towards her mother. It was a tremendous relief

at home. She didn't have anyone she could discuss this

to C. to feel compassionate towards her mother. C.

with. K.'s mother K. realized then that her children were

identifies with her father. Her father embodies and sym-

her only life. She stayed. K. hated the way her father

bolizes intellectual freedom, economic independence,

used to humiliate her mother in front of his friends. K.'s

and the ability to reason and articulate. To identify with

mother K. would be serving coffee to K.'s father’s

her mother means destruction and defeat but to identify

friends and he would deliberately demean K.'s mother

with her father means she betrays her mother, who loves

K. in front of his friends. K. despised this more than

her very much.

anything. K. hated her father with vehemence mostly

K.'s mother K. always talked to K. about most things

for what he did to her mother. In collusion K. and her

but never showed extreme emotion or despair. K.'s

mother K. used to make jokes about K.'s father. They

mother K. never cries. K. doesn't cry. It doesn't make K.

would get back at him privately by making fun of him

feel better to cry, so she doesn't. The only time K. feels

and making him ridiculous. This was not difficult. Now

near tears is when she is talking or thinking about her

K. and her mother K. no longer make fun of her father.

mother K. When K. went away to college she had to

He has less power. K. realizes how pathetic and deflated

leave her mother K. It was the most difficult thing K.

he is, and how her mother K. will need someone to grow

ever had to do in her life. It has been the hardest separa-

old with. K.'s mother K. is now slightly embarrassed

tion, but the four years of K.'s college education have

about making fun of K.'s father. After all she married

separated her permanently from her mother. K. often

him. The pain of her marriage is distant and removed.

fantasizes about being reunited with her mother K. She

The worst battles have been fought and won and are of

jokes about her mother coming to live with her. She

a different time. K. feels that much of her mother K.’s

jokes about moving back to Buffalo, New York, to live

energy has been wasted. K.'s mother K. is not one to

with her mother K. when she gets old. K.'s mother K.

make much of her own needs or her pride. K. feels that

didn't send her a valentine this year. K. fears that her

her mother K.'s close relation to her children, in spite of

mother will stop loving her if she tells her she is a lesbian.

economic hardship and great personal sacrifice, has kept

K. fears that this is the one thing that would come

her fundamentally human and enriched.

between her and her mother K., although her mother K.

R.'s mother J. lived for a long time with insufferable

loves her very much. Recently K. started work as a car-

depression. R.'s mother J. would wake up very early in

penter. She used to be a waitress. Working as a carpen-

the morning and tear that she would not be able to get

ter makes her feel odd because her father is a carpenter.

up. R.'s mother J. would feel so depressed she would be

When she is having a particular problem she swears,

physically sick. R.'s mother J. was afraid that her

muttering to herself, and swings her hammer recklessly.

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This behavior reminds her of her father and she fears
being ridiculous like her father. Identification with her
father is dangerous and oppressive to her, but carpentry
pays better than waitressing and is more gratifying.
R. sometimes cried when she was a child for reasons
unknown to anybody else. R.'s mother J. would comfort and soothe her but R.'s heightened sense of pain
perplexed her mother J. R. used to cry sometimes and
get hysterical. She would panic and have trouble breathing. R.'s mother J. would come to her room and hold
her and R. would listen intently to the beating of her
mother J.s heart. R. was terribly afraid that her mother
J.s heart would stop beating and her mother J. would be
dead. Once when R. was twelve she went away to camp
and was hysterically homesick. She panicked. She was
afraid that she was going to have to either jump over the
balcony or go home. Both choices were frightening and
humiliating. R.'s mother J. came to see her and convinced her to stay at camp. R. had been afraid that her
mother J. would be overcome with guilt and allow her
to go home. R. was afraid that her mother J. needed her
as much as R. needed her mother J. and that kind of

dant. When R.'s mother J. was getting her separation
and divorce R. would come home from school on vacations and she and her mother J. would have long talks

about the situation. They would cry together. R.'s
mother J. told R. that she never felt as intelligent or as
capable as R.'s father although now she realized that she
was. R. had known this for a long time. R.'s mother J.
told R. that she finally realized that their friends as a
couple were really her friends. R.'s mother J. asked R.'s
advice about breaking the news to R.'s younger sister.
R. was the first to know. R.'s mother J.'s divorce was
long overdue. R. was relieved that it finally happened.
It made both R. and her mother J. feel autonomous.
Two years after her mother J.’s separation R. told her
mother that she is a lesbian. R. felt that her mother R.'s
not knowing was a prevarication not befitting their relationship. R. knew that this would not please her mother
J. andit was the first time that she had ever consciously
displeased her mother J. Telling this to her mother J.
created a certain distance and caution in their relationship, but R. feels that this is, for the time being, a necessary relief.

bond would be terrible and terrifying. But her mother J.

was very calm and talked to R. quite normally. Her
mother J. instilled her with strength. Her mother J. took
her to Great Barrington to visit a friend for the day and
they went for a walk beside the lake. R.'s panic went
away. R. went back to camp for two weeks and had a
pretty good time. R. was grateful to her mother and
proud of being able to stay at camp.

C.'s mother M., K.'s mother K., and R.'s mother J:
are afraid that C., K., and R will suffer from not being

C.'s mother M. punished her severely once for lying

about spraying her friend with moth killer. C. was
afraid of being punished for what she had done so she

loved by men. C.'s mother M., K.'s mother K., and'R.'s
mother J. have suffered mostly in their lives from the
loving of men. It is a strain this thing called loving of

lied about it. Her mother explained to her very carefully

men because it means the serving of men and their inter-

that she was not being punished for spraying her friend

ests. Having sacrificed their lives they also want to sacri-

with moth killer but she was being punished for lying.

fice the lives of their daughters. Limited in their choices

C. always felt very guilty about lying but she compulsively told stories to make her life more exciting, to present herself in a better light, to exonerate herself, to present herself as someone else, and to protect herself. She
was terribly sensitive to the opinion of others and spent
a lot of time figuring out what was expected of her.

Nevertheless C. was naughty, mischievous and disobedient. C.'s mother M. both encouraged her and punished
her when she was bad.
K. was always a very good girl like her mother K. was
when she was young. K. never had any real conflict
about being good. It hardly ever occurred to her to be

they see the extension of their history through their
daughter's lives as logical, natural, and inevitable. C.,
K., and R. reject this and hurt their mothers’ feelings.
They reject their mothers and separate themselves to
avoid identifying with their mothers. They feel guilty

when they hurt and reject their mothers and their

mothers’ notions of their lives. Life is about sacrifice and
giving of self. Life is not complete without the loving of
men.

C.'s mother M., K.'s mother K., and R.'s mother J:
are afraid that C., K., and R. will suffer by loving men.
They say that their husbands and men in general are

bad. It almost always made sense to be good to help and
please her mother K. When K.'s mother K. worked in

selfish, insensitive, and incompetent. They have warned

the Post Office K. would take care of the younger chil-

can hurt and maim. More often they say that men are
ridiculous.

dren and make sure they got to school. K.'s mother K.
used to prepare dinner and serve it to her family. When

there weren't always enough places at the table her
mother K. would stand while everyone else ate. Nothing
would induce K.'s mother K. to sit with the rest of them
until K. stood and ate beside her mother K. Then her
mother K. saw how ridiculous it was and sat down with
the rest of them to eat. K. wants to protect her mother
from the deprivations of working class life. K.'s mother
K. never wants or will take anything for herself. She
spends all her money on her children. K.'s sister once
remarked to K. that there was no way one could ever
repay Mom. K. thinks she is right. K. is eternally grateful to her mother K.
R. at times has been her mother J.’s friend and confi-

C., K., and R. that men are dangerous and ruinous and

C., K., and R. say that men are selfish, insensitive,
and incompetent. They tell their mothers that men are

dangerous and ruinous and have hurt and maimed.
More often they say that men are ridiculous. Their
mothers feel guilty about denigrating men to their
daughters. They reconsider. Not all men are so bad as
their husbands. Even their husbands are not so bad—
not quite so bad as they might have previously indicated
in a moment of unguarded anger or frustration. Nothing
is so bad as hearing their daughters denigrate men so
severely, thereby ruining their chances for happiness
through the loving of men. Twenty or thirty years of
marriage with someone who is selfish and incompetent
was really not so bad. These were their lives and they
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had their children. They made their sacrifices for the

that their destinies could be stolen from them. The

general good and for the good of their daughters. It was

world that took power from their mothers’ lives is still

really not so bad.

dedicated to taking power from the lives of their
mothers’ daughters. They protect themselves by living

C., K., and R. are painters. It is their primary profes-

sional identity, although they read, write, dance and

without men. They feel safety in their tangency and take
pride in their marginal status. Often when dealing with

play basketball. They don't wish to explain why they

the world beyond their lofts they feel angry, ostracized

paint and what they paint. They paint because it enriches

and endangered. It is a confusion in their minds as to

and intensifies all other aspects of their experience. They

whether they are the elect or the outcast. Whether they

paint because it is the most poignant way to be alone

have been saved or damned is a question they have not

that they know. They paint abstract oil paintings. They

quite settled in their minds. At times they feel that their

paint small awkward images. At times they have trouble

identity as lesbians and artists is fierce and pronounced

getting into their studios to paint and at times it is a

and they wear it on their sleeves. At times they feel

relief to them to go into their studios to paint. Often

small, doubtful and powerless and they are silent.

working for money gets in their way and sometimes

C.'s mother M., K.'s mother K., and R.'s mother J.

their social life does. Sometimes they retreat from their

are intensely involved in either their chidren’s lives or

social life into their studios. They are looking forward

some mythological concept of their children’s lives. It

to a time in their lives when they establish productive

relieves responsibility and urgency from their own lives.

and even-keeled working patterns. There is something

Their children give them a sense of purpose and make it

about completion that frightens them. If they complete

all seem worthwhile. They are both proud that their

a work and say that it is finished they invite judgment

daughters are different and terrified that their daughters

from their public. They invite others to consider them

are different. They have experienced both the privilege

seriously as women who are artists or as artists who are

and the bondage of their particular class of women and

women. As yet their audience is very small. They try to

in their realized value system they endorse the choices of

work eclectically. The idea of the “Big Idea,” the master-

their lives. But in their secret places where the shards of

piece, encouraged so systematically by their art profes-

unrealized self-worth and independence lay scattered

sors in college, is an anathema to them. They are gather-

and disguised by years of subservience to their men and

ing little ideas and putting them together in their studios.

their children, they are envious—are even glad for the
difference in their daughters’ lives, although they must

C.'s mother M. likes art and even draws and paints

keep this gladness secret, even from themselves.

herself. C.'s mother M. likes the Impressionists but
-doesn't like Picasso. Recently C.'s mother M. walked
through C.'s studio and told C. that her work was

mother loves them most. It is a perpetual contest and

dreadful. C.'s mother M. thinks that C. is wasting her

Won in various ways, at various moments by various

talent. C.'s mother M. thinks that non-objective abstract

contenders. If K.'s mother calls her long distance then

painting is “on its way out.” After this incident C. asked

she loves her more than C.'s mother loves C., but if R.'s

her mother M. not to comment on her work.
K.'s mother K. likes art. She likes the Impressionists,

Turner and Frank Church. K.'s mother K. reads art
books. K. took her mother K. to see the Clyfford Stills

There is a joke among C., K., and R. about whose

mother sends her home with half a turkey and lasagna
then her mother loves her most. C.'s mother knits and
sends her a cable knit sweater which fits her perfectly.
C.'s mother loves her more. Mothers’ love is uncondi-

in the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York.

tional, all-embracing and expressed directly with aid to

Now K.'s mother K. likes Clyfford Still. K.'s mother K.

real survival needs. If their mothers care about them

doesn't understand K.'s work and K. feels it is beyond

they are at least partially immune to the taxation of survival and the terrors of the world.

her power to explain it to her so they never talk about it.
R.'s mother J. is not very interested in art. R.'s mother

There is a joke among them that they can do anything

J. doesn't understand R.'s work but recognizes its

they want because their mothers aren't present. Their

importance to her. When R. was at college she always

choices and capacities are limitless because they are

told her mother J. that she never did enough work. In

beyond the realm of control of their mothers. They are

the spring R.'s mother J. came to see her show and cried

free to be mean and ugly and go out immediately after

at seeing the huge space that R.'s work filled up. She
told R. that she had believed her when she said that she

washing their hair, while it is still wet. They stay up

had not worked enough, but here was evidence very

beer out of cans. They can come and go as they please,

much to the contrary. R.'s mother J. was very pleased
with R.'s work.

earn money, and yell coarsely at men who harass them

C., K., and R. are dedicated to the difference between

late, eat poorly, and dress improperly. They can drink

on the street.

C., K., and R. sometimes think of their mothers when

their lives and their mothers’ lives. Both the dedication

they are with their lovers. They think of their mothers’

and the difference are spontaneous, impulsive and reac-

shock and repulsion that they are with their lovers.

tionary. Both the dedication and the difference are cal-

They think that their mothers hate them. They think

culated, controlled and premeditated. It is absolutely

how extraordinary to be enfolded once again in the arms

necessary that distinctions between their mothers and

of a woman, flesh of their flesh. They think that their

themselves are recognized and ritualized. Although the

mothers love them. They think that if their mothers had

compulsion to preserve alternatives in their lives makes

this loving of other women instead of the endless battle

them contrary, recalcitrant and enigmatic to their

in which women are culturally predetermined to submit

mothers, they feel great compassion for their mothers.

economically, socially and psychologically to men, they

C., K., and R. feel that very easily the choices of their

would have had a better time of it. They project their

lives could be circumscribed and narrowed. They feel

hopes onto their mothers and fantasize about their

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mothers seeking and finding the tenderness of other

women. They make jokes about discovering their
mothers in a lesbian bar. The lesbian bar is often a desperate setting for those seeking tenderness and affirmation. But perhaps not so desperate as the setting of their
mothers’ lives. There would M., K., and J. sit in a corner
as their daughters might sit, looking at other women

or to be either first or next. It is a matter of pride to be
first to track down and acquire certain books. C., K.,
and R. want to be writers. It is a more acceptable profession to them and to the world than that of the artist.
They enjoy the power of the word. It is so tangible.
They sleep with their dictionaries beside them in their
beds. When either of them finds a new word to their

and discussing sexual politics. The impossibility and the

liking they give it, almost as a gift, to the others ; and

possibility of this vignette provides the laughter that

when acknowledged it is added to the lexicon of the

buffers the painful recognition of the limits of their
mothers’ lives. They want the best for their mothers.
They only want their mothers to be happy. In moments

of a more earth-seated reality they do not fantasize
about the possibilities of their mothers’ lives.

In spite of contemporary technology and a deeprooted, puritanical sense of responsibility, C. has
become pregnant twice and has had two abortions. The
pregnancies were detected within the first five weeks,
the operations were paid for by medical insurance and

were painless. The surgeon and anesthesiologist were
highly qualified and competent and she received emotional support and solace from her friends and lover.
She stopped sleeping with men. K. dislikes penetration,
its concept and its physicality. Incidental friction is not
adequate criteria for sexual fulfillment for very long.
She stopped sleeping with men. R. feels that the men
that she slept with presumptively raped her. She stopped
sleeping with men. Sex with men is irreversibly connected in their minds with violence to their bodies and
their psychologies, and their participation in the phallusoriented sexuality of their past is irrevocably connected
in their memories with a willful and shameful masochism and an unnecessary risk of death. Through lesbianism, C., K., and R. axiomatically and coincidentally reject phallus-oriented sexuality and the institution of
motherhood. They believe that the revolution begins at
home.
C., K., and R. hate and fear the power that men have
in the world. They make fun of male genitals in a way

that would shock and frighten their mothers. Their
mothers, in varying degrees, prefer their daughters to be

polite and demure. Making fun of male genitals is
unnecessarily defensive, adolescent and unkind. It
threatens the god-head. It threatens the idea of mutual
respect.
C., K., and R. fear rape. They fear that having seized
the means of production it will be seized back from
them. They wear sneakers with the possibility of escape
in their minds. They walk in the street psychologically

community. They read voraciously but never enough.
They scribble in their journals. When they apply for
part-time jobs in the business community, they say, by
way of explanation of their desire to work part-time,
that they are writers. They don't wish to explain why
they paint and what they paint. Mostly they disdain not
being taken seriously. Women as artists are not taken

seriously. Women in general are not taken seriously.
Their mothers were never taken seriously and C., K.,
and R. have been mocked in their lives for taking themselves so seriously. They are sometimes afraid to take
themselves seriously, for this is a great demand which
they, at times, feel unprepared for.
Recently they went to a free health screening clinic.

Each of them took something to read. C. took The
Spoils of Poynton, by Henry James. K. took Our Blood,

by Andrea Dworkin. R. took Gothic Tales, by Isak
Dinesen. They ended up reading pamphlets about gay
venereal disease. At the clinic they pretended they were
each trying out for the leading role in a film. They
argued about who got the part. All three had to come

back for another appointment. K. and R. had slight
vaginal infections and C. had to reschedule a Pap smear
because it was the first day of her period. C. insisted
that the nurse put down on her chart that she is five feet
seven although she is only five six. R. and K. discussed
the pleasures of having their breasts examined. None of
them had anemia in spite of a poor and irregular diet.
Although C., K., and R. all want to be movie stars
they are afraid to be romantic or sentimental. They are
more comfortable with their cynicism. They are afraid

people will think that they are romantic and sentimental. There is a certain myth that women in their
thoughts and language are sentimental and this sentimentality undermines and diminishes the content and
validity of their ideas. This myth pervaded the atmosphere of their education and it strikes fear in their hearts

that they should be thought sentimental. The people
that they meet and know think that they are unusually
hard and articulate. C., K., and R. are afraid to talk

prepared for attack. Sometimes they take cabs. They

about ideas—especially ideas about art. Their education

feel angry that their lives are circumscribed by the im-

provided a language for this purpose and it is used most

minence of rape. If they were raped the practical control of their lives would return to men. The doctors, the
police and the courts—the vehicles for protection and
retribution are too connected with the perpetration of
the crime. There are no vehicles for protection and retribution. The power of recovery would have to be genera-

ted from within. It would tax their capabilities and
undermine their humanity. The thought of what it
might require of them-is beyond their imagination and
beyond their imagination is the realm of their fear.

C., K., and R. read a lot; voraciously, but never
enough. They will readily and easily discuss whatever
they are reading with each other and with other friends.
With new or hard-to-find books there is a general clam-

deftly and casually by the boys in the business. But C.,
K., and R. choke on it and it makes their tongues swell.
It makes them avert their eyes. They avoid using it,
have nothing to replace it and they think that they are
better off without it. This language is deficient in its
ability to describe the motivating force and purpose of

their art. This language bypasses all the immediate
feelings involved in making art and imbues the work
with a false pride and a false esoteric theory of making

art. Sometimes when dealing with the double-edged
myth of what constitutes womanhood and reacting to
its destructive polarity they are caught between its edges
in a place where nothing is yet defined or understood;
no language, no concept—only the impulse to repudiate. They are left with the necessity of inventing a suit113

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able language for sharing ideas, but as yet they are often
mute. Their silence both protects and isolates them.

Rather than pledge themselves to love they have
pledged themselves to their work and they romanticize

were educated in an environment where this concept of

sacrosanct Idea—pure in its divorce from personal
feeling, large and conceptual and abstract—prevailed.
Naturally the Idea is coveted. The Idea is the means to

about their commitment as diligently as others romanti-

recognition. What they have been painfully conscious

cize about love. They resign themselves to the clarity of

of is that they are afraid that their ideas are poor and at

loneliness as others resign themselves to the confusion

the same time that someone might steal their not so

of love. And for the same reason: they see no other way

good ideas and perhaps put them to some better use or

to live. It has become a noble idea. They will, however,

make them somehow seem more glorious than they can

probably be no lonelier than others, nor will they love

make them. They protect them by casually intimating

less, nor be loved less. It confuses their mothers some-

their subject matter for certain projects and by announc-

times that they refuse to dedicate themselves to love.

ing certain intentions and by staking claim to certain

Their daughters cynicism is cryptic. They can't under-

contents and constructs. They want to be both original

stand what caused it, although they above all should

and brilliant. They want individual recognition. This

know.

joke about the pilfering of ideas rests a little uncomfort-

C., K., and R. are interested in what they euphem-

ably with them. If most of the professional recognition

istically call “the work”; ie. painting and literature, a

(and with it, money) is for men and women’s ideas

body of feminist/socialist ideas, as yet ill-defined and

aren't pure anyway then what morsels or esteem are left

inchoate. These interests take a certain responsibility

to split amongst them? Who gets what? But what they

from the role of love in their lives. They prefer to

also realize is that they are forging with their lives a

depend on friendship, for after investing in a friendship

collective of ideas, a new concept of idea; perhaps even

for awhile it seems more dependable and sometimes

an ideology. By implementing their ideology they will

more interesting than love and investing in love takes

beget a forum. They will recognize themselves. Whereas

energy from their work. Not investing in love, however,

their mothers suffered in isolation, without hope of indi-

closes them up, limits their vision, narrows their experi-

vidual recognition, without support and without ever

ence and eventually takes energy from their work. They

being taken seriously, they have in their small circles,

try maintaining a balance somehow between love,

intermingled with their political struggles, a wealth of

friendship and work. As in any triangle, however, one

information and a beginning of a counter system. Their

is always betrayed: the love, the friendship or the work.

hope is that they don't ponder alone, that their ideas

At any given moment one of these things is in some way

belong not to any one of them, but to all of them at

betrayed; one of these things is always a usurper,

once. That which one of them can't articulate in a

uncontrolled and recalcitrant. The idea is to integrate

moment, another of them will in the next.

and coalesce, but the difference between the conception

What interests them most is that which is not yet

and the reality is often great. There is conflict. They

expressed; ideas that have not yet found words, a body

dream. They fantasize. They talk a lot. They discuss

of experience and a system of education whose processes

these things and they think about them diligently.

are not impaired (at least at the instance of conception)
by the dogma of male institutions. It is the Little World,

There is a joke among C., K., and R. about the pil-

this interaction between them, and it is their opportun-

fering of ideas as if there were too few to go around.

ity and the purpose of their lives to endow the Little

This joke is a parody of professional competitiveness.

World with the credence and magnitude ordinarily attri-

They have seen it often among the Artists, and they

buted only to the Big World.

Christine Wade is a painter and computer programmer who
lives in New York City.

Thanks to Barbara Grossman for permission to quote the last
lines of her poem “I Am Strong.”
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Foster, Jeanette. Sex Variant Women In Literature. Originally
published New York: Vantage, 1956, at author's expense.
Reprint, Baltimore: Diana Press, 1975, with an afterword by

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barbara Grier.

The criteria for the entries below are: 1) that books and
articles be pertinent to the subject of lesbian artists, 2) that
monographical material that doesn't at least acknowledge an
artist or artists as lesbian(s) were usually excluded, 3) that the
authors are not necessarily lesbians, 4) that some books and
articles do not specifically deal with lesbianism but come from

Gordon, Mary. Chase of the Wild Goose: The Story of Lady
Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, Known as the
Ladies of Llangollen. Originally published 1936; reprint, New

York: Arno, 1976.

Gould, Jean. Amy. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976. On Amy

Lowell.

what I considered to be a specifically lesbian point of view, 5)

de Gourmont, Remy. Lettres a l'Amazone. Paris: Cres, 1914.

that entries are limited to the subjects of visual art and writing.

To N.C. Barney.

I found a lot of material that I had forgotten or had been
unaware of just as this was going to the typesetter. I also didn't
1926.

have time to do any research on historical artists (or contemporary, for that matter) who I didn't know to be lesbians. This
list can just be viewed as a sampling of easily accessible information. I hope it grows.

Thanks especially to the Lesbian Herstory Archives for
existing, and for being the main reference library available to

me as a lesbian.

. Lettres intirnes a l'Amazone. Paris: La Centaine,

Grier, Barbara (also known as Gene Damon). Lesbiana.
Reno: The Naiad Press, 1976. Complete record of all her
columns of reviews from The Ladder from 1966-1972, including books, periodicals, records, art, etc.

Grier, Barbara, and Coletta Reid, editors. The Lavender HerAmy Sillman

BOOKS
de Acosta, Mercedes. Here Lies The Heart. New York, 1960;
reprint, New York: Arno, 1976.
Anderson, Margaret. My Thirty Years War: Beginnings and
Battles to 1930. New York: Horizon Press, 1969.
. The Fiery Fountains: Continuation and Crisis to
1950. New York: Horizon Press, 1969.
. The Strange Necessity: Resolutions and Reminiscence
to 1969. New York: Horizon Press, 1969.
Barnes, Djuna. The Ladies Almanack. Originally published
Paris, 1928; reprint New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Barney, Natalie Clifford. Adventures de L'Esprit. Originally
Paris: 1929; reprint, New York: Arno, 1976.

ring, Lesbian Essays from The Ladder. Baltimore: Diana,
1976. One section of particular note: “The Lesbian Image in
Art—eight essays by Sarah Whitworth, including one on
Romaine Brooks.
. Lesbian Lives, Biographies of Women from The
Ladder. Baltimore: Diana, 1976. Includes many artists and
writers. Great pictures.

Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 1856-1935. Originally
published London: 1964; reprint, New York: Arno, 1976.
Violet Paget was a British Victorian author.

Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. New York: Doubleday, and (paperback) New York: Pocket Books, 1950.
Harris, Ann Sutherland, and Linda Nochlin. Women Artists
1550-1950. New York: Knopf, 1976. Also published by the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art in conjunction with exhibition of the same name. Includes excellent pictures, bibliography, and information on some lesbians, such as Romaine
Brooks and Gwen John.

. Traits et Portraits. Originally Paris: 1963; reprint,
New York: 1976.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1959.

Birkby, Phyllis, et al. Amazon Expedition. New York: Times
Change Press, 1973. Includes article on lesbian society in Paris
in the twenties by Bertha Harris.

Hosmer, Harriet. Letters and Memoirs, Harriet Hosmer.
Edited by Cornelia Carr. New York: Moffat & Yard, 1912.
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History. New York: Thomas
Y. Crowell, 1976. Includes an interview with Alma Routsong,
author of Patience & Sarah, p. 433; Willa Cather, excerpt
from her 1895 newspaper article on Sappho, p. 522; and
more. Also an excellent bibliography.

Breeskin, Adelyn. Thief of Souls. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press, 1971. Catalog to a major Romaine Brooks exhibition. Beautiful reproductions.

Keysor, Jennie Ellis. Rosa Bonheur—A Sketch. Boston: Educational Pub. Co., 1899. Veiled information, but it’s there!

Brooks, Romaine. Portraits, Tableaux, Dessins (Portraits, Pictures, Drawings). Originally Paris: 1952; reprint, New York:

Flammarion, 1908. Text in French; great pictures. For example, caption of one photo reads: “Rosa Bonheur en compagnie
du colonel Cody, de M. Knoedler, de M. Tedesco, et des
Indiens Red-Shirt et Rocky-Beard.”

Arno, 1976.

Carr, Emily. Growing Pains, The Autobiography of Emily
Carr. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1946.

Klumpke, Anna. Rosa Bonheur—sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris:

Kunitz, Stanley. Living Authors: A Book of Biographies. New
York: H.W. Wilson, 1931.

. Hundreds and Thousands. Toronto: Clark, Irwin
and Co., Ltd., 1966.

. Twentieth Century Authors. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1942,

Casal, Mary. The Stone Wall, An Autobiography. New
York: Arno, 1975. Not much about being an artist, but she is
an illustrator and painter.

Clement, Clara Erskine. Charlotte Cushman. Boston: James
R. Osgood, 1882.
Colette. The Pure and The Impure. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1966. This edition includes foreword by Janet

Flanner.

De Lisser, R. Lionel. Picturesque Catskills. New York: Pictorial Pub. Co., 1894. Pages 34 & 35 on Mary Ann Willson
and Miss Brundidge.

Edwards, Samuel. George Sand. New York, McKay, 1972.

. Twentieth Century Authors, First Supplement. New
York: H.W. Wilson, 1955.
Leach, Joseph. The Life and Times of Charlotte Cushman.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.
Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living. New York: Knopf, 1953.
McDougall, Richard. The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier. New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1976.
McSpadden, J. Walter. Famous Sculptors of America. New
York: Dodd, Mead, 1924. Harriet Hosmer included.
Mellow, James R. Charmed Circle. New York: Praeger, 1934.

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. “Jane Rule—The Woman Behind Lesbian Images”,
The Body Politic. No. 21, Nov/Dec 1975.

Mercure de France, publisher. Sylvia Beach—1887-1962.
Paris: 1963. Assorted authors write pieces on Sylvia Beach
and her circle, in French and English.

. “Profile: Arlene Raven,” Lesbian Tide. Nov/Dec
1976. Not about lesbianism.

Miller, Isabel (Alma Routsong). Patience and Sarah. Originally published by Isabel Miller under the title A Place For Us,
1969. Reprinted, New York: McGraw Hill, 1973. ABout the

. “Profile: Jan Oxenberg,” Lesbian Tide. Mar/Apr

lives of Mary Ann Willson and Miss Brundidge.

1976.

Millet, Kate. Flying. New York: Random House, 1974.

. “Sweaty Palms,” Off Our Backs. V. 5, no.5, p. 18;
Washington, D.C. (Review of a four-woman lesbian exhibit in
Chicago.)

Myron, Nancy, and Charlotte Bunch. Women Remembered.
Baltimore: Diana, 1974. Included are articles on Gertrude
Stein by Fran Winant and Loretta Ulmschneider and on Emily
Dickinson by Jennifer Woodul.
Patterson, Rebecca. The Riddle of Emily Dickinson. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin, 1951.
Rogers, W.G. Ladies Bountiful. New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World, 1968.

L'Autre, Gabrielle. “Natalie Clifford Barney—A New Translation from Traits et Portraits,” Amazon Quarterly. V. 1, no. 2.

Birkby, Phyllis. “Amazon Architecture,” Cowrie. V. 2 no.1.
Bizarre. Entire issue devoted to Romaine Brooks, with texts by
Paul Morand, Edouard MacAvoy, Michel Des Brueres. In
French, ill. no. 27, March 1968.

Rule, Jane. Lesbian Images. New York: Doubleday, 1975.
Essays on twenty-four lesbian authors.
Schapiro, Miriam. Art: A Woman's Sensibility. Valencia:
California Institute of the Arts, 1975. Some lesbian artists’
statements included.

Bloch, Alice. “An Interview with Jan Oxenberg,” and a review
/testimonial by the Women’s Film Co-op on Home Movie,
Amazon Quarterly. V. 2, no. 2.
Boyd, Blanche. “Interview with Adrienne Rich,” Christopher
Street. V. 1, no.7, New York.

Secrest, Meryle. Between Me and Life: A Biography of
Romaine Brooks. New York, Doubleday, 1974.

Brown, Rita Mae. “Out of The Sea of Discontent,” and “A
Manifesto for the Feminist Artist,” Furies. V. 1, no.5.

Sewell, Brocard. Olive Custance, Her Life and Work. London: The Eighteen Nineties Society, 1975. Great pictures.

Carr, Cynthia. “ ‘Sweaty Palms’ Re-Visited,” Lavender
Woman. June 1975. Interview with four lesbian artists.

Simon, Linda. The Biography of Alice B. Toklas. New York:
Doubleday, 1977.

Chase, Chris. “jilljohnstonjilljohnstonjilljohnston,” Ms. Nov
1973.

Stanton, T. Reminiscences of Rosa Bonheur. New York: D.
Appleton Co., 1910. One chapter called “Other Mental and
Personal Traits” is particularly interesting.
Stein, Gertrude. Fernhurst, Q.E.D., and Other Early Writings.
New York: Liveright, 1971. Q.E.D. first published under title
Things As They Are; Vermont: Banyan Press, 1950.
. Autobiography of Alcie B. Toklas. New York: Random House, 1933.
. Lectures in America. New York: Modern Library,
1935. Includės essays on literature, plays, pictures, et al.
Toklas, Alice B. Staying On Alone—Letters of Alice B. Toklas.
Edited by Edward Burns; New York: Liveright, 1973.
. What Is Remembered. New York: Holt, Rinehart &

Covina, Gina. “Emily Carr,” Amazon Quarterly. V. 1, no. 1.
DeLano, Sharon. “Lesbians and Books—An Interview with
Barbara Grier (Gene Damon),” Christopher Street. V. 1, no.
4.

Fein, Cheri. “Olga Broumas, with an introduction by Cheri
Fein,” Christopher Street. V.1 no.9.
Flood, Lynn. “Willa Cather,” The Ladder. Feb/Mar 1972.
Forfreedom, Ann. “Sappha of Lesbos,” Lesbian Tide. Pt. I,
Dec 1973; Pt. II, Jan 1974.

Galana, Laurẹl. “Margaret Anderson, in 3 parts,” Amazon
Quarterly. Pt. I, v. 1 no. 1; Pt. Il, v. 1 no. 2; Pt. Ill, v. 1
no. 3.

Winston, 1963.

Troubridge, Una. Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall. London:
Hammond, Hammond, 1961.
. The Life of Radcylffe Hall. New York: Citadel, 1963;
reprint, New York: Arno, 1975. Perhaps these two entries are
the same book?

Wickes, George. The Amazon of Letters; The Life and Loves
of Natalie Barney. New York: Putnam, 1976.
Wood, Clement. Amy Lowell. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,
1925. Especially last chapter.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather, Her Life and Art. New York
Pegasus, 1970.

Gallick, Jeanne. “Phallic Technology and the Construction of
Women,” Amazon Quarterly. V. 1 no.2. Not about art per se,
but relates to the invention and art-making process.

Grenoble, Penny. “Culture without Politics is Just Entertainment,” Lesbian Tide. July/August 1976. About the Los Angeles League for the Advancement of Lesbianism in the Arts,
otherwise known as LALALA.
Grier, Barbara (Gene Damon). “Lesbiana,” The Ladder. every
issue. Reviews of books, periodicals, art, records, etc. A good
reference particularly for herstorians.

Hammond, Harmony. “Feminist Abstract Art—A Political
Viewpoint,” and “Personal Statement,” Heresies. Jan 1977.

PERIODICALS
Harris, Bertha. “Renee Vivien, An Introduction,” Christopher
Adam: International Review. “The Amazon of Letters: A
World Tribute to Natalie Clifford Barney,” No. 299, 1962.
Anonymous. “Feminist?Art Galleries,” Lavender Woman. Oct
1973; Chicago.
. “Gay Arts Feśtival,” Off Our Backs. V. 3, no. 1, p.
22; Washington, D.C.
. “Interview with Jan Oxenberg,” Off Our Backs. v. 6
no. 10; Washington, D.C.

Street. V. 1, no. 4.

Hodges, Beth. Guest editor of “Lesbian Feminist Writing and
Publishing,” special issue of Margins. No. 23, Aug 1975.
. Guest editor of “Lesbian Writing and Publishing,”
special issue of Sinister Wisdom. V. 1 no. 2, Fall 1976.

House, Penny, and Liza Cowan. “Photographs by Alice
Austen, with an introduction by Penny and Liza,” Dyke
No. 3, Fall 1976.

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BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Kelly, Katie. “Amy Was A Right-On Woman,” Village Voice.
Jan 12, 1976. On Amy Lowell.

Lynch, Jody. “An Interview with Rock—Lesbian Filmmaker,”
Lavender Woman. March 1973.
Lynk, Carol. “A Look At Some Minor Works of Djuna
Barnes,” The Ladder. Oct/Nov 1970.
. “Love Beyond Men and Women...” The Ladder.
Apr/May 1972. On H.D.
. “Strange Victory of Sara Teasdale,” The Ladder.
Dec/Jan 1970-71.

The Ladder Index. Everything published therein. $10; available from The Ladder.

Damon, Gene (Barbara Grier), Jan Watson, and Robin Jordan.
The Lesbian In Literature. second ed., Reno: The Ladder,
1975. $7/indiv., $10/inst. “Listed are all known books in the
English language about lesbians and lesbianism in the fields of
fiction, poetry, drama, biography, and autobiography, with
selected non-fiction titles.” Complete through 1974.
Kuda, Marie. Women Loving Womeẹn. Chicago: Womanpress. “A selected and annotated bibliography of women
loving women in literature.” $1.50.

Mahl, M. Joanna. “Raising the Feminist Standard,” Off Our
Backs. V. 4 no. 10. Specifically on being a lesbian artist.

Shapiro, Lynn. Write On, Woman! New York. “A Writer's
Guide to Women’s/Feminist/Lesbian Alternate Press Peri-

Nancy. “Way Off Broadway Production,” Lesbian Tide.
August 1973. About “The Heart of the Matter,” a lesbian

odicals.”

adaptation of West Side Story by Evan Paxton.

[Periodicals and presses listed in the bibliography :

O'Neil, Beth. “What Is A Lesbian Cultural Festival,” Lavender
Woman. Oct 1973.

A New York Times Co., 11241⁄2 N. Ogden Drive,

Roberts, J.R. “Gabrielle L'Autre—Poet and Translator,” Lavenaer Woman. July 1976. An Interview.

Arno Press, The Lesbian Tide,

330 Madison Ave., Los Angeles, Ca 90046.

New York, N.Y. 10017. (4x/yr. $8.)

The Body Politic, Naiad Press, Inc.,
Box 7289, Sta., 20 Rue Jacob Acres,

M5W 1X9. :

. “Was She or Wasn't She? Dickinson controversy continues. ..,” Lavender Woman. July 1976.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Bates City, Mo. 640110.

Thurman, Judith. “A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose,” Ms. Feb

Christopher Street, 1727 20th St. NW,
60 W. 13 St., Washington, D.C. 20009.

off our backs,

1974. On Stein with excellent pictures.

New York, N.Y. 10010.
Usher, John. “A True Painter of Personality,” International
Studio. Feb 1926. London.
Warren, Steve. “Feminist Theater,” The Advocate. Issue 202,
Nov 3, 1976. Article includes section on Red Dyke Theater,
whose address is listed as 324 Elmira Pl. N.E., Atlanta, Ga.
30307.

Sinister Wisdom,

Diana Press, 3116 Country Club Drive,

12W. 25 St., Charlotte, N.C. 28205. |

Baltimore, MD 21218. (3x/yr. $4.50/ind., $9/inst.)

DYKE: A Quarterly, Times Change Press,
70 Barrow St., 62 West 14 St.,

New York, N.Y. 10014. New York, N.Y. 10011.
Whitworth, Sarah. “Angry Louise Fishman (Serious),” Ama-

(4x/yr.)

zon Quarterly. V. 1 no. 4 and V. 2 no. 1. (Double Issue.)
The Ladder,

. “Lesbian and Feminist Images in Greek Art & Mythology,” The Ladder. Feb/Mar 1972.

P.O. Box 5025,
ashington Sta.,

Reno, Nev. 89503.
. “The Other Face of Love,” The Ladder. June/July
1972. A review of a book by a man about homoerotic

(No longer publishing.)

imagery.

. “Romaine Brooks, Portrait of an Epoch,” The Ladder. Oct/Nov 1971.

THE NAIAD PRESS, INC
LOVE IMAGE
by Valerie Taylor 180 pp. paper 4.50

Wickes, George, ed. “A Natalie Clifford Barney Garland,”
Paris Review. V. 61.

New Lesbian novel from the best-selling author of Whisper
Their Love, Stranger On Lesbos & The Girls In 3-B.~%%

THE MUSE OF THE VIOLETS

Win. Entire issue on lesbian culture, June 26, 1975. Includes an

interview with Carol Grosberg by Karla Jay, on lesbian
theater.

by Renee Vivien 84 pp. paper 4.00
The lyric Lesbian poetry of Renee Vivien available in
English for the first time. “3%
LESBIANA

Wolfe, Ruth. “When Art Was A Hoùséhold Word,” Ms. Feb
1974. Includes info on Willson and Brüùndidge and other
women folk artists.

by Barbara Grier [Gene Damon] 310 pp. paper 5.00
Her famous columns from the Ladder. “3%
A WOMAN APPEARED TO ME

by Renee Vivien 135 pp. paper 4.00

Woodul, Jennifer. “Much Madness Is Divinest Sense,” Furies.
Feb 1972, V. 2. On Emily Dickinson.

UNPUBLISHED PAPERS

Autobiographical novel about her affair with Natalie
Clifford Barney. 3%
SPEAK OUT, MY HEART

by Robin Jordan 148 pp. paper 4.00
Novel about coming out to your family. “3%
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Hodges, Beth. “Lesbian Aesthetics—Her Own Design”; paper
delivered at the second annual conference of the Gay Academic Union, Nov 1974, New York City. On file at Lesbian Herstory Archives, New York City.

Stanley, Julia, and Susan W. Robbins. “Toward á Feminist
Aesthetic”; paper on file at Lesbian Herstory Archives, New
York City. About language, linguistics, and literature, draw-

by Sarah Aldridge 240 pp. paper 5.00
Lesbian novel set in the early sufferage movement. 3%
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Z/N TER WI/DOM

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The following people made contributions ta HERESIES, ranging from $1 to $200. We thank them very much.

K. Porter Aichele Kathy Carrido Estelle Leontief Andra Samelson
Wesley Anderson Liza Cowan Betty Levinson Marguerite Shore
Carl Andre Everson Art Museum Sylvia Mangold : Marcia Storch

Linda Bastian Lenore Friedrich Jeannette Wong Ming Dr. Benjamin Spock

Adele Blumberg Ann Harris Jacqueline Moss Esther Wilson

Louise Bourgeois Sylvia and Irving Kleinman Tina Murch Julia Wise
Judith Brodsky Ida Kohlmeyer Ann Newmarch and three anonymous contributors

The Lesbian Issue Collective would like to thank the following
people for their generous help in many stages of completing
this issue: in design and production; Tina Murch, Janey Washburn, Ann Wilson, and Ruth Young; for use of his photostat
machine, Tony De Luna; for photographic reproductions,
eeva-inkeri; as valuable information sources, Jonathan Katz,
The Lesbian Herstory Archives, and Barbara Grier; for additional help, Janice Austin, Mark Merritt, Bernice Rohret, and
Ann Sperry; our lawyer Eleanor Fox, and The Experimental
Media Foundation.

HERESIES POSTER

Texts, pictures, portraits, decorative panels in silvery blue on pearl-gray transparent vellum.

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HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics is published in January, May, September and December
by Heresies Collective, Inc. at the Fine Arts Building, 105 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10013. Subscription
rates: $10 for four issues; $16 for institutions. Outside the U.S. add $2 postage. Single copy: $3. Address all correspondence to HERESIES, P.O. Box 766, Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y. 10013. HERESIES, ISSN
0146-3411.
Vol. 1, No. 2, May 1977. © 1977 Heresies Collective. All rights reserved. On publication, all rights
revert
to authors.

This issue of HERESIES was typeset by Karen Miller and Myrna Zimmerman in Palatino, with headlines set by
Talbot Typographics, Inc. Printed by the Capital City Press, Montpelier, Vermont.

E ÕÕÔÕÔÕÔÒ
120

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Women’s Traditional Arts and Artmaking: decoration,
pattern ritual, repetition, opulence, self-ornamentation ;
arts of non-Western women; the effect of industrialization on women's work and work processes; female
origins of collage: scrapbooks, collections, photo-montage; oral histories of craftswomen with photographic

Women and Violence: Possible topics: Cultural: violence against women in mass media, literature and art;

women's self image...Family: wife beating; child
abuse; sexual molestation; violence among lovers and
friends. .….Institutionalized: incarceration in prisons

and mental hospitals; psychological and physical

documentation; the politics of aesthetics; breaking

repression in traditional religions; racism; imperialism

down barriers between the fine and the decorative arts,

and economic deprivation; torture of political prison-

the exclusion of women’s traditional arts from the mainstream of art history...
Deadline: September 30, 1977.

ers; sterilization abuse; homophobia; rape...Rebellion: feminism as an act of self-defense; revolutionary
struggles; organizing against violence in the media; art
which explores violence; art-making as an aggressive
act. ..This issue may have a particular focus on Latin
America.
Deadline: mid-February, 1978.

The Great Goddess/Women’s Spirituality: common
bondings in the new mythology; ritual and the collective woman; avoiding limitations in our self-defining
process; recipes and wisdom from country “spirit
women”; the Goddess vs. the patriarchy; the Goddess
movement abroad; hostility against and fear of the

Guidelines for Prospective Contributors: Manuscripts (any length) should
be typewritten, double-spaced on 81⁄2” x 11” paper and submitted in duplicate with footnotes aná illustrative material, if any, fully captioned. We
welcome for consideration either outlines or descriptions of proposed articles. Writers should feel free to inquire about the possibilities of an ar-

Goddess; original researches; locating the Goddess-

ticle. If you are submitting visual material, please send a photograph,

temples, museums, digs, bibliographies, maps; the

xerox, or description—not the original. HERESIES will not take respon-

new/old holydays; healing; reports on the feminist
spirituality movement; political implications of the
Goddess; psychological impact on women of female-

sibility for unsolicited original material. All manuscripts and visual material must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. HERESIES
will play a fee between $5 and $50, as our budget allows for published
material, and we hope to offer higher fees in the future. There will be no
commissioned articles and we cannot guarantee acceptance of submitted

centered spirituality ; Goddess images and symbols. ..….

material. We will not include reviews or monographs on contemporary

Deadline: mid-December, 1977.

women.

THE LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES is both a library and
a family album, attempting to preserve records of lesbian lives
and activities so that future generations of lesbians will have
ready access to materials relevant to their lives. The process of
gathering material serves to uncover and collect our herstory,
denied to us previously by patriarchal historians in the interest
of the culture they serve. The archives include old and new
books, journals, articles, by lesbians, as well as any material
dealing with the lives and work of lesbians, such as interviews,
photographs, letters, announcements, posters, etc. Lesbian
Herstory Archives, 215 W. 92nd St. Apt. 13A, N.Y.C.

PROJECT ON THE HISTORY AND MEANING OF LESBIAN
ART AND LESBIAN SENSIBILITY. A three year multi-faceted
project on the history and meaning of lesbian art and lesbian
sensibility will be conducted by members of the Feminist Studio
Workshop, beginning in the Fall of 1977. The project will
gather information about lesbian creators of the past, explore
lesbian sensibility through the group process of participants in
the project, compile archives and a slide registry, and interview
contemporary lesbian artists on audio and video tape. Further
information may be obtained from the Feminist Studio Workshop, The Women’s Building, 1727 N. Spring St.,:L.A., Ca.,
90012, atten: History and Meaning of Lesbian Art.

SLIDE REGISTRY OF LESBIAN ARTISTS. In trying to document the work of lesbian artists I am collecting slides of work
by past and contemporary lesbian visual artists. This collection
will be housed and available for viewing at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York City. Please send one or two
slides of your work or that of other lesbian artists to Harmony
Hammond, 129 West 22nd St., N.Y.C. 10011. If you can
donate the slides, great, if not, send a SASE and I will make
duplicates and return your originals. Please label each slide
with the following information: artist's name, title of work,
media, date of work, and indicate top of piece.

Errata: Second issue of HERESIES.
On page 62, the journal entry #10 by Reeva Potoff was mistakenly printed upside down.
On page 124, “Doing the Laundry,” by Mierle Laderman
Ukeles was printed sideways. Our apologies for these errors.

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FALL 1977

Miss Willson and Miss Brundidge

Story

64

Cynthia Carr

From The Third-Issue Collective:
Editorial Statements

Natalie Barney on Renée Vivien

65

Translation by Margaret Porter

What we mean to say: Notes Toward Defining
The Nature of Lesbian Literature

Visual Art Portfolio

Bertha Harris

72

Louise Fishman, Barbara Asch, Harmony
Hammond, Leora Stewert, Sara Whitworth,

The enemies of She Who call her various names

Gloria Klein, Dona Nelson, Ann Wilson, Kate

Judy Grahn

Millet, Nancy Fried, Dara Robinson

The 7,000 Year Old Woman

10

How I Do It: Cautionary Advice From A

Betsy Damon

74

Lesbian Painter

Photographs by Su Friedrich

Louise Fishman

they're always curious

14

Architectural Icon: The Shrine, The Votive,

Irena Klepfisz

78

The Gesture

The Tapes

15

Edited by Louise Fishman

Ann Wilson
Growing Up A Painter

Photographs by Betsy Crowell

80

Dona Nelson

Photographs

22

Bettye Lane

Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff

84

Adrienne Rich

Feminist Publishing: An Antiquated Form?

24

Photographs

Charlotte Bunch |

85

Carol Bloom

Alice Austen's World

27

Use of Time in Women’s Cinema

Ann Novotny

86

Barbara Hammer

Class Notes

34

Joy Through Strength in The Bardo

Harmony Hammond

90

Sally George

Photograph

37.

Definitions

Yoland Skeet

91

Susan Sherman

What Does Being A Lesbian Artist Mean To You?

38

Jane Stedman, Maryann King, Ellen Ledley,

Reality / Fantasy — Portrayals

92

E.K. Waller

Sandra De Sando, Joan Nestle, Melanie Kaye,
Lesbianism as a Liberating Force

Janice Helleloid, Monica Sjoo, Debbie Jones,

Kathryn Kendall, Olga Broumas, Sandy Boucher

Photograph of Gertrude Stein

50

Photograph of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
51

Carole Glasser

100

102

A New York City Collective
52

Jessica Falstein, Maxine Fine, Flavia Rando,
Ellen Turner, Fran Winant

Adrienne Rich

Lesbian Art and Community
57,

Olga Broumas

Ulrike Ottinger and Tabea Blumenschein

Iris Films: Documenting The Lives
Francis Reid

Joan Larkin

and Performance

97

51

of Women

Texts and Photographs from Projects, Films

96

of Lesbians

Some Unsaid Things

Sometimes, as a child and Artemis

Charlotte Cushman
Design for The City of Women
Jacqueline Lapidus

Untitled

Conditions For Work: The Common World

94

Elsa Gidlow

/

Amy Sillman

Generation
58

106

Marguerite Tupper Elliot
108

Christine Wade
Bibliography on Lesbian Artists

115

Amy Sillman

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