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				<title>Miss Willson and Miss Brundidge</title>
				<author>?</author>
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					<persName>Eowyn Andres</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Haley Beardsley</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Lyndon Beier</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Erica Delsandro</persName>
					<resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Mia DeRoco</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Margaret Hunter</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Diane Jakacki</persName>
					<resp>Invesigator, encoder</resp>
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					<persName>Sophie McQuaide</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Olivia Martin</persName>
					<resp>Editor, encoder (2021)</resp>
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					<persName>Zoha Nadeer</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
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					<persName>Bri Perea</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
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					<persName>Carrie Pirmann</persName>
					<resp>Editor, encoder (2023-Present)</resp>
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				<respStmt>
					<persName>Valeria Riley</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Ricky Rodriguez</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Roger Rothman</persName>
					<resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
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				<respStmt>
					<persName>Valeria Riley</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
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					<persName>Kaitlyn Segreti</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-Present)</resp>
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					<persName>Maggie Smith</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
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					<persName>Maya Wadhwa</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp>
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				<respStmt>
					<persName>Kelly Troop</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp>
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					<persName>Lucy Wadswoth</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2022-Present)</resp>
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				<respStmt>
					<persName>Anna Marie Wingard</persName>
					<resp>Editor (2023-Present)</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Olivia Wychock</persName>
					<resp>Graduate Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
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				<funder>Bucknell University Humanities Center</funder>
				<funder>Bucknell University Office of Undergraduate Research</funder>
				<funder>The Mellon Foundation</funder>
				<funder>National Endowment for the Humanities</funder>
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					<name>Bucknell University</name>
					<address>
						<street>One Dent Drive</street>
						<settlement>Lewisburg</settlement>
						<region>Pennsylvania</region>
						<postCode>17837</postCode>
					</address>
				</distributor>
				<availability>
					<licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
						4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence>
					<licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence>
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					<analytic>
						<title>Patterns of Communicating and Space Among Women</title>
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					<monogr>
						<imprint>
							<publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and
								Politics</publisher>
							<pubPlace>
								<address>
									<name>Heresies</name>
									<postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox>
									<settlement>New York</settlement>
									<region>New York</region>
									<postCode>10013</postCode>
								</address>
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				<head>Miss Willson and Miss Brundidge</head>
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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 wrapping 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." (1) 
				 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&apos;
					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." was absolutely taken by it. I didn’t want to travel any more. I
					didn’t want to see Harriet Tubman’s bed. I wanted to go home and research
					Willson and Brundidge, find out all about them, and write a book about them. (2)
				
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			<listBibl>
				<bibl>1. R. Lionel Selisser, Picturesque Catskills: Green Country, Pictorial
					Publishing Co., Northampton, Mass., 1894. Republished in 1967 by Hope Farm
					Press, Cornwallville, New York.</bibl>
				<bibl>2. Jonathan Kratz, Gay American History, Thomas Crowell Co., New York,
					1976.</bibl>
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