ART: LET'S SAVE Judy Chicago's "DINNER PARTY"
MichaelP
Forwarded By: Brakha <Bra...@star21.com
To: Brakha <bra...@star21.com
Send your dollar! Email at least ten friends! Send them this essay!
Send one dollar (or more) to: THROUGH THE FLOWER, 101 N. 2nd Street,
Belen, NM 87002
LET'S SAVE THE DINNER PARTY by Barbara Louise
Perhaps you have heard of Judy Chicago's THE DINNER PARTY, a monumental
work of art celebrating women's history, created by using the traditional
crafts of women: embroidery and china-painting.
Perhaps you were lucky enough to see it in the early 80's when it toured
the USA and other places, due to the grass-roots organizing of interested
women's groups.
Since its first showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in March
of 1979, where it drew the largest and most enthusiastic crowds that
museum had ever seen, this great work of art has rarely been shown in a
museum, and still, more than twenty years later, does not have a permanent
home.
Several years ago, Judy Chicago gifted THE DINNER PARTY to a university in
Washington, D.C., which planned to open a multicultural museum, featuring
the works of "artists of color, feminists and others whose life and work
were devoted to the struggle for freedom and dignity."
A vicious campaign of misinformation by conservative journalists, and
like-minded members of the U.S. Congress, resulted in a huge public
controversy and serious financial consequences to the university to
"punish" it for planning to provide a permanent home for a monumental work
of woman-empowering art. Right-wing fanatics called Judy Chicago "the
Antichrist" and THE DINNER PARTY "pornographic." (I took a nun with me
when I viewed the work. She did not think it was pornographic.)
Judy Chicago was forced to rescind the gift, and since that time no
institution has come forward to offer a permanent home.
Perhaps you were lucky enough to see THE DINNER PARTY when it was shown
again recently in Los Angeles. However, it has spent most of the last
twenty years in storage, where no one can see it, and no woman of any age,
color, class, sexual preference, or artistic talent can be inspired by
this great and beautiful work of art showcasing the history, achievements
and sexuality of women.
Twenty years of fund-raising, twenty years of searching for artistic
validation from male-dominated institutions has not succeeded in raising
the million dollars or more needed to build a museum to house and protect
THE DINNER PARTY and other important works by woman-artists.
I propose another grass-roots movement, which many kinds of women can
participate in without having to attend bake sales, tedious planning
meetings, expensive fund-raising dinners or raucous public demonstrations.
There are at least a hundred million women and supportive men in the
United States of America. If even one percent of that number (one
million) sent ONE DOLLAR or more to the Through the Flower Foundation (a
non-profit set up twenty years ago by Judy Chicago and friends to care for
her art projects), we could have that Women's Museum built in the dry
preserving heat of the New Mexico desert near Chicago's studio.
Surely we can reach ONE PERCENT of the women in this country (and the
gentlemen who support them). Here's how I think we can do it:
Send one dollar (or more) to: THROUGH THE FLOWER, 101 N. 2nd Street,
Belen, NM 87002
And then (and this is the most important part), ask (at least) ten of your
friends and associates, as a personal favor to yourself, to, first of all,
send one dollar to Through the Flower, and in addition talk to, write,
email, or phone ten of their friends and associates to send a donation,
and urge others to do the same .......... and so forth.
If we can do this through six or seven levels, Through the Flower will
have enough money, one woman and one dollar at a time, to build that
Women's museum.
Do not send the money to me. Do not send the money to whatever
publication you may have found this essay published in. Send one dollar
(or whatever you can afford) for "A Permanent Home for THE DINNER PARTY."
(Since Through the Flower is non-profit, if you itemize deductions, you
can take your donation off your income tax.) Send your name and address,
or if you desire, send an anonymous donation. (And find at least ten other
people to do the same.)
Perhaps, in order to save money on postage, checks, and envelopes, you
could collect cash at gatherings and mail just one check to Through The
Flower. But remember, the most important part of this action is to get at
least ten of your friends to do the same, especially getting ten of their
friends to get ten of their friends to get ten of their friends.....
This will be the easiest activist or political work you have ever done.
All you risk is one dollar (or whatever small amount you can afford), and
the brief time it takes to talk or write to friends you want to get in
touch with anyway. Xerox this essay if you wish.
(This is not a project of THROUGH THE FLOWER, Judy Chicago, or her
husband, Donald Woodman, although I have sent them a copy of this essay.
This is one woman's attempt to begin a grass roots movement dependent for
its success only on the connections women make among themselves in order
to survive, a fund-raising project not at all beholden to rich and
powewrful men and their institutions.)
If you want to know more about Judy Chicago and her art, you can find her
online at: www.judychicago.com (If you don't have a computer, you can
get internet access at your public library.)
Judy Chicago has written (in Beyond the Flower, her recent autobiograpy,
which inspired me to write this essay): "What will it take for women to
turn their attention to the honoring of our own history and achievements?
Women do not yet understand that they must financially support the work
that speaks to them."
She concludes her autobiography with this dedication: "To the future
generations of women, to whom I offer my shoulders to stand on with the
hope that they may climb out of the terrible cycle of repetition that is
too much of women's history."
We cannot stand on Judy Chicago's shoulders if her life's work cannot be
seen. Send your dollar, talk to your friends, xerox this essay, let us
start the grass-roots chain which will lead to a permanent home for THE
DINNER PARTY, so future generations of women (and supportive men) can be
inspired and empowered through the twenty-first century and beyond.
*************************************************************************
"We are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation."
-- From Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March, 1776
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