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You Shouldn't Have To Justify Your Work.

-Judy Chicago

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You Shouldn't Have To

Judy Chicago

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You Shouldn't Have To Justify Your Work.

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I Go To Make Art As Who I Am As A Person. The Fact That I Am A Woman Comes Into Play Maybe In The Kinds Of Things I'm Interested In Or In The Way I Structure A Canvas.

I Believe In Art That Is Connected To Real Human Feeling, That Extends Itself Beyond The Limits Of The Art World To Embrace All People Who Are Striving For Alternatives In An Increasingly Dehumanized World. I Am Trying To Make Art That Relates To The Deepest And Most Mythic Concerns Of Human Kind And I Believe That, At This Moment Of History, Feminism Is Humanism.

There's No Question That Many More Women Artists Are Showing Worldwide Now Than They Were When I Was A Young Woman, And That's Really Great.

Even If I Am Simply One More Woman Laying One More Brick In The Foundation Of A New And More Humane World, It Is Enough To Make Me Rise Eagerly From My Bed Each Morning And Face The Challenge Of Breaking The Historic Silence That Has Held Women Captive For So Long.

With My Early Work I Got Eviscerated By My Male Professors, And So You Learned To Disguise Your Impulses, As Many Women Have Done. And Thats Definitely Changed.

You Shouldn't Have To Justify Your Work.

Donald, My Husband, Considers Himself A Feminist.

Remember Our Heritage Is Our Power; We Can Know Ourselves And Our Capacities By Seeing That Other Women Have Been Strong.

Ah, Well, Do I Wish That We Lived In A World Where Gender Didn't Figure So Prominently? Of Course. Do I Even Think About Myself As A Woman When I Go To Make Art? Of Course Not.

To Reclaim Our Past And Insist That It Become A Part Of Our Human History Is The Task That Lies Before Us. For The Future Requires That Women, As Well As Men, Shape The World Destiny.

So Women Are At The Beginning Of Building A Language, And Not All Women Are Conscious Of It.

People Have Accepted The Media's Idea Of What Feminism Is, But That Doesn't Mean That It's Right Or True Or Real. Feminism Is Not Monolithic. Within Feminism, There Is An Array Of Opinions.

Because We Are Denied Knowledge Of Our History, We Are Deprived Of Standing Upon Each Other's Shoulders And Building Upon Each Other's Hard Earned Accomplishments. Instead We Are Condemned To Repeat What Others Have Done Before Us And Thus We Continually Reinvent The Wheel. The Goal Of The Dinner Party Is To Break This Cycle.

I Set My Sights Upon Becoming The Kind Of Artist Who Would Make A Contribution To Art History

Because Men Have A History, It Is Difficult For Them To Imagine What It Is Like To Grow Up Without One, Or The Sense Of Personal Expansion That Comes From Discovering That We Women Have A Worthy Heritage. Along With Pride Often Comes Rage – Rage That One Has Been Deprived Of Such A Significant Knowledge.

Don't Give Up. It's Really Important To Trust Your Impulses As An Artist No Matter What Anybody Else Says.

I Feel Like I Have At Least Begun To Make A Contribution, But My Most Significant Concern Has To Do With Whether My Actual Art Will Be Preserved For Future Generations Or Be Erased.

I Am Trying To Make Art That Relates To The Deepest And Most Mythic Concerns Of Human Kind And I Believe That, At This Moment Of History, Feminism Is Humanism.

In The Beginning, The Feminine Principle Was Seen As The Fundamental Cosmic Force. All Ancient Peoples Believed That The World Was Created By A Female Deity... Female Deities Were Gradually Overshadowed By Or Incorporated Into The Attributes Of A Number Of Male Gods, Then Eclipsed By The Ascendance Of The Single Male Deity That Dominates The Judeo-christian Tradition.

I Think What's Important Is To Give Space To The Range Of Human Experience.

In The Beginning, The Feminine Principle Was Seen As The Fundamental Cosmic Force. All Ancient Peoples Believed That The World Was Created By A Female Diety.

It's Not Enough To Have A Few Women's Studies Courses. Why Is It More Important To Study Paul Revere's Midnight Ride Than It Is Susan B. Anthony's 50-year Effort To Transform The Face Of America For Women? When You're In School, Most Of The Events You Study Are About Men. Men's Activities Lauded And Repeated Over And Over. What About Us? What About Commemorating The Decades-long Struggle For Suffrage? Why Don't We Hear Those Stories Over And Over And Over Again. It's Almost Inconceivable For Men To Understand What It Would Be Like To Live Without That Constant Valorization.

Do I Even Think About Myself As A Woman When I Go To Make Art? Of Course Not.

Once I Knew That I Wanted To Be An Artist, I Had Made Myself Into One. I Did Not Understand That Wanting Doesn't Always Lead To Action. Many Of The Women Had Been Raised Without The Sense That They Could Mold And Shape Their Own Lives, And So, Wanting To Be An Artist (but Without The Ability To Realize Their Wants) Was, For Some Of Them, Only An Idle Fantasy, Like Wanting To Go To The Moon.

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