well as the art by women of non-western cul-
tures, has been abstract. I'm thinking of the
incredible baskets, pottery, quilts, afghans, lace
and needlework women have created. Many of
the motifs used were based on “the stitch” it-
self. The repetition and continuity of the stitch
or weaver formed the individual shape and also
the pattern resulting from its repetition. Usually
these motifs and patterns were abstract and
geometric. Patricia Mainardi points out that
they had specific meaning for the women who
made them, and in a sense formed a visual
language in themselves:

In designing their quilts, women not only made
beautiful and functional objects, but expressed
their own convictions on a wide variety of sub-
jects in a language for the most part compre-
hensible only to other women. In a sense, this
was a secret language among women, for as
the story goes, there was more than one man of
Tory political persuasion who slept unknowing-
ly under his wife’s ‘Whig Rose’ quilt. Women
named quilts for their religious beliefs. . . or
their politics—at a time when women were not
allowed to vote. The ‘Radical Rose’ design,
which women made during the Civil War, had
a black center for each rose and was an expres-
sion of sympathy with the slaves. 4

As we examine some contemporary abstract
art by women, it is important to develop a sense
of identity and connection with our own past
creativity rather than that of the oppressor who
has claimed “fine art” and “abstract art” for
himself. In fact, the patriarchal putdown of
“decorative” traditional art and “craft” has out-
right racist, classist, and sexist overtones. Eliza-
beth Weatherford states:

Art history assigns creative products to two
categories—fine arts and crafts—and then cer-
tifies as legitimate only the fine arts, thereby
excluding those creative traditions of primitive
people, peasants, women, and many other
groups outside the mainstream of Western
history.5

Until recently, decorative art, or craft tech-
niques and materials, have been valid only as
sources for contemporary male artists. While
women working with these ideas, techniques,
and materials have been ignored (Ann Wilson
first painted on quilts in 1958) or put down for
doing “women’s work,” men like Shields,
Oldenburg, Stella, and Noland are hailed as
innovative. But times have changed. Today
many female artists are connecting to a long
line of creativity by proudly referring to wom-
en’s traditional arts in their own work. They are
recording the ritual of women’s artmaking both
in the past and the present, thereby reflecting a
feminist concern not only with the end product
but with the daily process and function of mak-

ing art. Sewing techniques and materials as
both process and content are used in a variety
of ways in the abstract works of Sarah Draney,
Pat Lasch,Nina Yankowitz, Paula Tavins, Patsy
Norvell, Rosemary Mayer, and many other wom-
en. Barbara Kruger says that she first learned to
crochet and sew when she decided that these
techniques could be used to make art.6 For
women, the meaning of sewing and knotting is
“connecting” —connecting the parts of one’s
life, and connecting to other women —creating
a sense of community and wholeness. Other
women, drawing on women’s traditional arts,
make specific painterly reference to decoration
and craft. Miriam Schapiro utilizes remnants of
fabric, lace, and ribbon along with handker-
chiefs and aprons in large collages, thus making
the very material of women’s lives the subject of
her art. Joyce Kozloff and Mary Gregoriadis ex-
plore decoration as fine art, basing their paint-
ings on the abstract patterning of Islamic archi-
tecture and tiles, Tantric art, Caucasian rugs,
and Navaho weaving.

The way many women talk about their work is
revealing, in that it often denies formal art rhet-
oric. Women tend to talk first about their per-
sonal associations with the piece, and then
about how these are implemented through vis-
ual means; in other words, how successful the
piece is in its own terms. This approach to art
and to discussing art has developed from the
consciousness-raising experience. It deals pri-
marily with the work itself, what it says and how
it says it—rather than with an imposed set of
esthetic beliefs.

In her excellent catalogue introduction to
“Changes,” an exhibition by Betsy Damon and
Carole Fisher, Kathryn C. Johnson comments
that “intent” is most important when defining
feminist art. She states that it is “a powerful
oneness of subject and content” that makes
certain work feminist:

.. .Their work both is and tells about the pain
of their life experiences. It is about pain and is
painful, but does not present woman as passive
victim. The pain is presented with deep under-
standing of its sources and effects, and the
anger which follows confrontation with the
hurt.”7

Fisher writes:

Betsy looked at the work and recognized the
fact that | worked to survive, to keep from
growing crazy, and to keep the pain from be-
coming too great. She recognized the pain in
my work instantly! This was something | had
only come to recently recognize and acknow-
ledge in my work. Like many women in our
culture, | had become adept at hiding and
covering my pain. | had gotten all the messages
that to be vulnerable in our culture is to be
weak and despised.®

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