THE AMERICAN MOVE- MENT OF THE 1970s, HISTORY AND IMPACT EDITED BY NORMA BROUDE AND MARY D. GARRARDWOMANHOUSE BY ARLENE RAVEN Womanhoue, a daring, avantgarde sue house and an unexpected happening during. ine Hollywood, directly addressed the housewile, The collaborative arte ‘created by twenty-one suderss in the Fen ute of the Arts under the dine hicago and Miriam Schapiro. Yor + bys moment, »condesnned mansion a 58 Maryn was transformed imo an atic revelation sh sere their bores Womanbense was crea open tothe public beween January 30 ae be 1972. The abandoned boue, which had bees kere bythe city of Low Angeles, was eventually destined as planned, but no before Womanhonse made 2 te fereace in feminist art making and inal sabsego art Eotrely new aesthetic subjects that had nal he in the dita shadows in suburban American boxes the public where through the installation ad prtr of Womankouse, The suburban hore, where the cer teomars concerns such ab nurturance, se, selon rape, and murder had been imprisoned since the 16 tell Known tothe young artis who created Woes, had lived their childhood and adolexence right bee Judy Chicago, a pioneer in feminis education. ba smanded an all-female space for her at class at Fees College in 1970. She was convinced that» erence yet existed that would allow for an understanding ‘romarls struggle and suggest an appropriate wa to rv it! *Womantonse became bath an environment that bo ‘work of women artists working out oftheir own exper the ‘hous of female reality into which one entered tse cence the real facts of womens ives feelings, and conte (Chicago summarized * Miriam Schapiro was aeeads known painter who had shown her hard-edged works = prestigious Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York 20 init leader inthe incipient women’s movement i he 2° Los Angeles. The inital idea to create Womanhouse was Pals Hs then staff art historian forthe Feminist Art Program » fornia Institute of the Ars in Valencia. Although Hare: to conceptualize the project at the beginning of the 17 demic year, the collaborative art environment a 982° developed and executed by the twenty-one female woe the program under the direction of Chicago and Shap" Angeles artists Wanda Westcoast, Sherry Brody od C= 400 Mitchell aso cllaborated in the environments a6“ ‘heir work in Womanhouse. Largely responsible forthe © ful completion of what proved wo be a vas creative wien students thus were granted the professional satus of 27 eee sm alee nm ater Wilding, a weaver turned painter in Chicago 2 female clas at California State Universi, Fresno, ge 1970, had followed Chicago to CalArts in 1971 10 be 2 5° studenv MFA candidate in the Feminist Art Program. 10 ‘ay for this book, Wilding describes in deal the hoped ‘ccomplishents lad out by the faculty, in which sue **-_ encouraged to grapple with the emotional and con of the project. A “learning by doing” educational meth Womanhouse put into practice the psychological self. dis: offered by the consciousness-rasing format of the wome movement. Designed to be a structured conversation, consciousness-raising allowed each nd—building Womanhouse. Cone cant goals and deadlines, expectations and measurable achievements Repairing and structuring the house as an independent « hibition space as well asa work of art in itself was a vital clement in a course of study and work designed to builds dents skills and to teach them to work cooperatively. This fc ‘on collaboration cannot be overemphasized, for collaboratin form or subject has characterized much ofthe feminist ar ated after Womanhouse in Southern California. Because the West Coast became a model and leader for feminist produc nationally and internationally, the influence of the transitory Inboration at Womanhouse has been pervasive and lasing ‘Moreover, every contributor to Womanhouse was forever changed by the experience. Each felt taken apart and put back proue, Worantause together, but altogether differently. The profound alterations tei. 1971 and artistic identity affected the indi uals in the group to such an extent that the majority were lnunched on challenging personal and profesional paths Abandoned and condemned, the house on Mariposa Av nue was sill architecturally imposing but also in need of extensive reconstruction. Vandals had broken windows. Fite: and furnishings required replacement. The house had 10 bo water, heat, or plumbing. In November, when the twent-or CalArts Program students began work on the house they hd rude awakening, One surprise was the amount of work rue to create the collaborative environment. Another astonishing alization was that the nature of the work ranged from caning to construction, labor that crossed not only class and gener lines, but that was outside of the scope of “at” experience the rest of the art school. Students enrolled in the concept oriented CalArts learned graphics and text display, electron music and “idea art,” in which an art abject may nex even be ‘made, But forthe Feminist Art Program workers, sil such Carpentry and window glazing became part of the creative process. Before picking up a paint brush, etching pat.‘ ing tool, or video camera, each young artist had alread ws! clectric saws, drills, andl sanders, The seventeen rooms of the house increasingly worldly applications n sellimage, selP-esteen Ath inspired group. One by one, the rooms became dean white cbes 201 rectangles forthe presentation of a radical and complex co each young aris uncogged ties rine porary art. doors, she imagined the transformed environment tually chose one ofthe spaces in the house for “her WH", wherein she created her own installation en il plans for the environmental artworks dema = ved a rant of competence never remotely necessaryart making or arteducational settings. But involving the art ry and the American feminist network tions was part of Chicago's and Schapitos pedagogic pla Although all women working the stipulated eight-hour day do 50, most foun the labor unbearably taxing, In other American art schools of the 1960s, these same students might never have learned the real and absolute neces: sig of consistent, hard work in the fel of fine art. And they might very well have been among the many women discouraged by art teachers from becoming artists at all. Various meetings were necessary to air feelings, discuss plans for the art environments o to prepare Womanhouses ‘eventual exhibition to the public. Group meetings were initiated twair the students tangled feelings of anger at one another and ‘themselves, anxiery about the successful completion ofthe pro- jet. and resentment of the authority of their female role models, which arose as their own emotional growth ane physical dexterity increased. In these meetings, the frequent disputes ‘over teritory in the house and the articulation of ideas were ‘often resolved. which in turn pushed! forward the progress of the work. Smaller collaboration groups explored the possible forms and meanings they wanted to infuse into the environ ‘ment. And because the group as a whole had decided to add special events and present performances during the exhibition, additional work groups were formed. “The relationship between biology and socal roles underlay the content of Womanhouse, its rooms and activities. Moreover, ‘Womanhouse presented a special kind of diect—even, some {el obvious—representation of women in their homes. Most of the rooms replicated the conventional areas of a house ‘tathroom, dining room, ktchen—while atthe same time they challenged the activity of that room and the meaning of that ac- tivity to womerisselEimage, through creative exaggeration of the ordinary physical and emotional elements of each space. “hice different conceptual bathrooms, for example, were de- sigued: Robbin Schiff's Nightmare Bathyoom, Camille Grey's ‘Lipstick Bathroom, and Judy Chicagds Menstruation Bathroom. ‘Shawnee Wollenmaris Nurser, with its gi ‘made the viewer feel lke a child. Faith Willing’ Crocheted Enis ‘ronment had a second wall or skin of a cavelike protective yet | open fabric tent, much like a modern weavers version of Afri- ean tribal menstruation hus. Vieki Hodgetts kitchen, called ‘igs to Breasts, featured ceiling and walls covered with fried- and innumerable plates of prepared food. Manne- | quins were alo employed: one mannequin, in full bridal atte, paused onthe staircase, her bridal train (which turned from tite wo dingy gray) train wo the kitchen, Another mannequin 2 woman segmented and confined by the shelves of "her linen closet. Beth Bachenheimer's many-shoed shoe closet ‘comeyed ways a woman could change her identity. And there ‘vas much more. In every theme room, feelings raged in the striking colors chosen to represent household roles and arenas, inthe many media colliding together, andin the surprising jux- “tapositions of and representational images ‘Womanhouse literally brought to life the ideas and view ois frst articulated in Betty Friedan’s 1968 The Feminine bad freely chosen Mpstique and soon to be developed in Ms. magazine, which was founded in 1972 The emphases fit Feminist es ad viewpoints concerning menstruation, sexuality, marriage, and. promiscuity, pregnancy and post-partum depression, peychie breakdown and suicide in middle-class suburban homes was one of frustration and despit® This kind of bld looking it issues created an apprehensive tension inthe audience for Woman- house, provoking argument as well as revealing terrible pain. “The only two human figures one ses in Womanhouse are the bride and a mannequin literally closeted with ber sheets (Linen Clst by Sandy Orgel, page 35)—the one sumpanously dressed in every convention of bridalwear and the ether naked among her clan, presse linens They ar, in fac, two cinema tic aspects ofthe sume woman, who squeezed herself into a ‘cultural identity which finally dictated tha, in the words of Beit Friedan, “fullment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949—the housewife-mather"* Many white middle-class women were alone, confined in their homes, and didsit know who they were except in relationship to family members. How, then, was the American housewife to answer the cardinal existential question about twentieth-centary identity = tablished inthe fist years of the modern era—"Who am 1?” She could only respond with *Tom’s wife, ... Marys mother Fricdan sa inthe feminine mystique the echo of Nazi Ger smany’s imperative that womenis realm consist only of “Kinder, ‘Kuche, Kirche.” It was with trepidation that Friedan described in the early 1960s a condition $0 hidden and censored that even the women affected could not ame ite became the’ problem that had no name) 1m contrast to the linear nature of writing, the visual infer: ‘ation of Womanhouse could be taken in all at once. Insight imo the ilogic ofthe prevailing division of work by gender was first introduced in 1971 by Jane O'Reilly in her article, “The Housewifes Moment of Truth:* “We are... clicking-thingssinto- place-angry, because we have suddenly and shockingly perceived the basie disorder in what has been believed to be the natural ‘order of things”® The instantancousness of Feminist insight ‘could be felt asa completely pure personal moment of truth. A year before Womanhouse was completed, Ms. author Judy Syfers pointed wit irony tothe advantage of being a pe son with a wife rather than a wife: “I want a wife who will ‘keep my house lean. wife who will pick up after me. L want wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, re- placed ... My God, who wouldit want a wife? No husband appears in Wommanhouse, but “husband” symbolically isthe ‘whole wider world of social relations and territory beyond the hearth, Artist and historian Pat Mainard specified housework 38 a political issue about which women had been coerced and brain ‘eashed. “Probably too many years of seeing television women in ecstasy over their shiny waxed floors or breaking down over their dirty shir collars. Men have no such conditioning, They recognize the essential fat of housework right from the begin- ing. Which is that it stinks"* Even more so, housework is presented in Womanbouse asthe stinking fat that is also a mantle of identi “The brides tran in Kathy Huberland’s Bridal Staircase—— follow the fil own the staircase to the pant 5a row of pl sideboard, each illum hanging light bulb. On the plates are breakfast, lunch, and di lunch, and dinner. The linear, repetitive path of plates which Fepresents the continuity of "women’s work’ fn entrance of Robin Weltsch’s sensuous, pink Kitch Through Wanda Westcoast’ vacu-formed plastic kitch Vicki Hodgetts plastic fried eggs mounted on the ceiling, wh are transformed into equal numbers of ly “traveling” to the frying pan on the stove, the small round f eggs. When Hodgets, Weltsch, and Susan Frazier began work on the kitchen, the were stuck for images. Schapiro suggested a consciousness aising session about feelings raised by the kitchens of the hildhood memories. The flesh-pink kitchen, the institutional source of all mothers milk, had also been the war zone of t home. Struggles between mothers and daughters fo al power were embedded in the gestures of giving and ving food. Part of growing up and slipping back into child — mother or rigins of the social meanings of food. At the stove 9f the kitchen, the egg isthe image of nourishment bile. But because women have breasts they are to be nourishers and must also cook the family meals. The dilemma between ni he giving mother and the consuming daughter—is succinct! contained in that frying pan The Womanhouse Dining Room, a collaboration among, Beth Bachenheimer, Sherry Brody, Karen LeCog, Robin Mitchell, Miriam Schapiro, and Faith Wilding, isa formal famil oom, but unoccupied (page 56). The table is elaborately laid, but with entirely inedible artificial food (such as treated bread dough) on sewn fabric plates. A mural interpretation ofa sti life by Anna Peale on the wall featu + food mote believable though two- dimensional) than the chilly dinner on the table The Dining Room is linked « viewer from room to room, When moving from the kitchen, through the pantry, to the dining room, questions arise: How did the nurturing breast that becomes the emblem of the Kitchen, the plates of food prepared and placed in line in the pantry, conceptually move from the ‘other spaces by the passage of the private rooms of food preparation to the social act of eating and breaking bread together? And how did this evolution become empty and perverted? Faith Wilding’s Crocheted En the ancient female art of architecture, was adapted by Wilding ously based on as a formal mode in her sculptural environment (page Wilding made forms inspired by and derived from those of the female body. Crocheted Environment has numerous meanings, ‘Beth Bachenhelimer. the stars the beso changesred heart of the Virgin Mary, and the hearth me this nest of her physical home most of all for herself Often deprived of having been ber red, martying young and faring children before she could complete her own childhood ot Hucation, housewives ofall ages needed to be nourished Seain—this time in the metaphorical womb of the home, to ¢ p imo fully adult humans. Feminism provided a second lo the allencompassing needs of people for mothering. The tirthing and nurturing nest that Wilding created was a repre sentation of not only a ste but a biol because intercourse, pregnancy, and birth can be accompanied by blood, actual menstrual blood and bloodlike images of body organs concerned with feminine biologic events and roles appear with frequency in womens art. Menstrua Wilding’s Gaochated Environment, this time presenting women’s blood as Bathroom isa blood relative taboo and, by implication, puberty as the moment of shame when signs of womanhood appear and must be hidden behind Jocked bathroom door. Pristine white, with feminine hygiene products double-wrapped, the bathroom was shrouded in silence dnd became a metaphor forthe unspeakable (page 57). Judy “Under a shelf full of all the paraphernalia with ion was a garbage can Chicago reea which this culture ‘leans up’ menstru filled with the unmistakable marks of our animality. One could fot walk into the room, but rather, one peered in through ad veil of gauze, which made the The black, green, and rustcolored Night picid a woman in the bathtub (page 57). Made entirely of sand, she was literally erased by an audience that couldiit keep its hands off her during the six weeks of the exhibition. The sulnerabilty of the naked body in the unguarded setting of the Bathroom bath cannot exist without the bathers avareness of a potential fnuder. Sand-Slled bottles that origin a residue and symbol of past losses to both the underside of vul- ly held toiletries serve as peratiley and the limiting nature of fear. A snake, reminiscent ofthe slimy creature who was the biblical corrupter of the once mn the ground. Who might mnocent Eve, crawls toward her come in through the window? Or open the door? Or thrust up from the toilet In addition to The Nursery, whose large scale, and in partic ular gigantic working rocking horse, makes adults feel child sized, there are three other bedrooms— Personal Space by Janice Lester, Painted Room by Robin Mitchell, and Leah’ Room by Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman. Lester's and Mitchell's spaces look, appropriately, like college dor smal single beds and references to self and vocation. These two avoid the decorative quality singular post-adolescent bedrooms we astciate with homemaking and the sexual and procreationa functions of the marriage bed. a tableau of In contrast, the watermelon-pink Leah’ R the aging courtesan of Colettes novel, Cher, is elaborate and fantastic (page 60). During the public viewing of Womanhouse 4 young woman sat atthe dressing table applying the makeup that transformed her from biological female to culturally-created woman, Fantasy far exceeds fact, we may conclude, in the nigh ‘Susan Frazis, Vick! Hodgetts, Robin Weltsch. NurBeth Bachenheimer Sheny Brody, Karen LeCoa, Robin Iitchell, Miriam Schapir, Faith Wiking,‘human beings only insofar as they are those corto ver thnsands of years, men have crated ond main, enclonare of tsitutionalised oppresion to ory th ‘ation of omen by using many institutions ond we chiles of oppression, 0g. marriage, family, sent course, lve, religion, rosituion. Women are the yen ‘his oppresion."' “The rationale which accompanies that impeniion o authority euphemistcally referred to a8 'the battle of ne Kate Millett wrote, “bears a certain resemblance 1 the 1, ‘of nations at war, where any heinousness i usted cn that the enemy is ether an inferior species or sy Eee Tepe ts ces series of rationales about women which accomplish ths olerably well. And these traditional belief ill invade. ousness and affect our thinking to an extent few of i ~ be willing to admit? Shulamith Firestone asked, “How 4 the sex class system based on the unequal power distribu the biological family affect love between the sexes"! Chicago dramatized what Atkinson, Mille, Fitesone ‘other feminist theorists illuminated: womens most iru ships, induding love and mexherhood, are a irri. ‘of “sex class system” in this country. ‘But Womanhouse is addressed to womens relations ‘with others primarily as internal dialogues in their/our om: ds and as aspects of se. The housewife, whose roe» ‘evoked in Womanhouse, has but one clear relationship, an! is to her environment as a whole. In this relationship, she ‘bearably lonely. The tasks and implications of the home surround her in a complex, unified yoke. ‘The environment packed with images and abjecs seye ‘Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman. Leah’ Room, based here. Mars meda te station at Worantouse, prance, «woman contnusly sppd ayers of epressng, he arts sai, “he pan of aging, of osg beauty, pan of competien wih ober wore, We ware to deal be ay woman ae itis by the cutie fo cantanly rrantan ther beaty and be ling of desperaten ana Feblessness once ths beauty set hheard—as a sign of Nothingness, which is a keystone of modern art and a part of the existential gestalt of our time. But her exis- tential emptiness is overcrowded with mundane incident. In the act of waiting in the empty space which she attempts to fill with the litany of all she has waited for in her life, Wilding is the American female vernacular of existential modern “man,” a lone figure whom we know in the spare sculptures of Alberto Giacometti or in the narrow space of the stripe of a Barnett, Newman painting. Becketts singular figurés waiting for God, an interpretation of human hope and futility based on Heidegger's philosophy and Sartre’s fictional characters, somehow find courage nd the fhe housewife has not freely and fully committed herself ‘own life, nor has she been invited by the structure o tence to do $0. The housewife is a full-time solitary worker who has 1 her own mind, stood alone. Sitting and waiting, she sil f stood up.” And for the young women working on the Ws house project, even as they evoked her they bade her g as an image of the women they would become. Their already led them into far different realms than the woeful stricken traditional female model they portrayed. ‘But what was the relationship between the womai dressed in Womanhouse and the young women students created environments? Mostly in their late teens and cary ties, only a very few of the women had married. They ha experienced what they depicted in Womanhouse 2s wives ‘mothers, but rather as daughters. Three Women, written by the Feminist Art Program Pe mance Group and performed by Nancy Youdelman, Shaw Wollenman, and Jan Oxenberg, differed from most of th Womanhouse performances because it grew indirectly ou experiences of those developing the piece. In their perform group, they asked themselves a hypothetical question: “Wh our lives had taken a different turn?” In roleplaying ses they explored the psyche of three female stereotypes: 2 hip prostitute (with a golden heart), and a mother (naive and s looking for a Mr. Right). Judy Chicago remembers: (ne evening inthe pefrmance workshop we (Chicag.k thy Huberiand, Judy Huddleston, Sandy Orgel, Chris Rosh, Nany Youdelman, Faith Wilding, and Shawne Wollman) al dried up, making up eur oc, ting wis ond entlandih conte, Immediately, he 00m w tenorsed ea beh orf tat pen rely Kind froin of hs Ire appowt, We rlted Yo each ether “through” Gad ou of ha cooing gre ee clled Tree Wa based onthe autobiographies fee women in te 6 Each of them had ache crreads in th li ‘had to make decisions about being “women” in the sense society demanded, or defying society and being themsel They had all made healthy choices, but it was easy forthe fmagine what would have happened to them if they ho cepted society’ commands, In fact, these students—each someone's daughter —ha termined to make original choices in their lives. They wants break out ofall previously defined roles and live in the ¥0 artists. They were influenced not only by the content off thought current in 1971, but by experiences in their 8 ilies. Their child’ and adolescent's points of view formed the Strong center of their oeuvre. Theit visions, however, were * to some extent covert. Seldom did a real memory become # rect autobiographical subject, and in their communal work. Feminist Art Program artists were les clear in articulating sonal realities than they were in their individual efforts Ths Three Women, the focus on fantasy, and the elaborate cost"shot concealed authentic individual identity in favor of cultural ion, drew the text away from imagh fuuures ofthe players Since beginning to work together, the participants in shared in a new experience, They had interacted find created i an all-female community of artis, ted by io and Chicago, female teachers who had become power: fal role models. They were strong and resourceful—and sil ‘women!-—synthesizing two qualities that had been nearly contra ‘Gicsions in terms, Relationships with their female peers and ‘ders were given a name by feminist theorists: woman- ‘deaifiation.” These new relationships were expressed in only performance at Womanhouse ith Tilogy vasa riual of rebirth and new identty sym. polding the community of women who attend their own and ‘one ancsher’s birth. “It was a three-part piece,” Judy Chicago remarks: ing the more {Inthe fist port, sx women stood in « line, legs spread, bodies dase together, arms around each others waists. Slouly, they be- {gan to push down with ther legs, making them into a birth ‘passage, through which the last woman in line was pushed, propelled by the thrusting legs ofthe other women. After three “babies” had been born, the three women playing “babies ly down on the floor while the three other women sat down back to back. Then, the “abies slowly crawled tothe “mother” fg- tres, who embraced them, rocked them, comforted them, and ‘nurtured them, The third part was called “Wailing.” All ix ‘women knelt on the flor, heads together and arms around ‘ach other forming a kind of dome shape with ther bodies. ‘One of the women began to hum, a slow, haunting melody The ether women joined in, and the humming became louder ‘and louder, moe and more rhythmic. The sound was like the danger ery made by Algerian and Tunisian women, and as it ‘ached a higher and higher intensity, became the sound of geen, of labor, of joy, of ecstany.'* ‘The ritual diagram of Birth Trilogy was almost identical to ‘ancien wiecan initiation ceremonies. The consciousness-raisng ‘ide among feats art performers was historically significant ‘nt only as “speaking bitternes,” a practice of modern Chinese ‘ure, but also because it derived from an ancient Western ‘tadiion dramatic ceremonies performed by witches covens at ‘red sites, In the wiecan initiation ceremony, coven members id one behind the other with legs spread apart, forming a ‘birth canal The initiates line up to pass through the canal, but ach is ist by a.coven member who places a knife af ‘her breast, saying, “It is better for you to rush upon my blade | ‘than to eater with fear in your heart.” The initiate responds, “I ‘er the circle in perfect love and trust." In Birth Trilogy, the | ‘irele was recast before an audience, from the private to the Public realm and from a secret ceremony to an art performance. "On the first night that Womanhouse was open,” Judy 0 writes, performed only for women. The response was ovraheln- Jing. The actress could hardy get through the Lines of the ‘Cock and Cunt play (a comedy), the laughter and applause ‘was so loud. During the Three Women piece, women cried, laughed, and empathzed, and the Waiting play cused a pro- ound silence everyone was deeply moved. After the perfor- ‘mance, the acting group was ecstatic, and our estary lasted ‘until our next performance the following week, which was for @ aised audience. Through the evening, there was inappropriate silence, embarrased laughter or muffled applasse.'7 Womanhouse turned the house inside out, thereby making the private public. The anger that many women had felt in iso- lation in the single nuclearfamily suburban American dwelling ‘was flung out atthe 10,000 people who came to see the environ- ‘ment and performances. The audience for Womanhouse became, after the fact, much larger than the sum of its eye wit- nesses Johanna Demetrakas, who made a 40-minute color feature film about Womanhouse, provided those who were not at the site a dramatic view of the rooms and many of the perfor- ‘mances, including the strong, spontaneous reactions of the audiences present. The hundreds of thousands of readers of Time magazine in 1972 got a sense of Womanhouses startling, ‘effects in the magazines lively report on the projec.'* 1 would be impossible to overstate the impact of Woman- house om its artists and audience. Those who did not see the installations or witness the performances including this author) ‘experienced Womanhouse through its visual and verbal docu- mentation, and through its kinship with the work of female artists working in the early 1970s. Looking back on Womanhouse more than two decades later, we can see this extraordinary student project as more than a mirror ofthe tone and concerns ofthe womens movement of ‘that time. Womanhouse held the raw, explicit expression of ant incipient feminist sensibility that has, to this day, provided a source and reference fora tradition of innovative and socially concerned contemporary art made by women. ‘The heritage and legacy of Womanhouse is a work-in- progress ofits own, As the lives and works of female artists of the past are retrieved and incorporated into the canons of femi- nist art and so-called high ar, the installations and performances produced for Womanhouse will be seen to rest on a broader, ‘much richer base. And as Womanhouse is writen into current history and criticism, its influence will be more fully The Kinip web scong womseinde ote ne ce braces Louise Bourgeois, for instance, whose series of works in the mid-1940s called Femme-Maison (Woman House) merged the female form and the house form (page 20), to Miriam ‘Schapiro, who extended the subject of home and the personal ‘experience of community in Womanhouse when she created a ‘group of paintings in the 1980s using collage elements and shaped canvases. A vintage embroidery that says “Welcome to Our House” is glued to the center of Shapiro's monumental canvas, Wonderland (page 84). Schapiro, always respectful of the so-alled traditional female arts of sewing, quit making, and embroidery, symbolically linked her contemporary collage- paintings with the handiwork of other women by incorporating the design, color, or even, as in Wonderland, the piecework itself, in her artFares wang.mensional constucton and mined media, 48% 41 <8", Created for Womantowse, 1972, Calecton Miran ‘Schapro. The Daltousejataposes the beauty, charm, ane relative safety ofthe tradtena hane wh the Lrspeakable ters that actualy exist there “beauty” Eleanor Antin’s one hundred black boots “stood infor the artist in 1971 as they became a character in a hybrid perfor mance work of hers. Anna Homler’s Birthing Shoe is an actual ‘womans high-heeled shoe containing numerous tiny plastic babies. Homer made a womb house of the shoe, withthe proverbial old woman in the shoe or the modern working giel her implied but absent subject. Nancy Kay Turner's Rubbing Her ‘The Wrong Way. a handmade one-of-a-kind artist’s book, uses pictures of spike-heeled shoes culled from Japanese comic books, newspapers, magazines, 19305-60s “how to" self-help books, and dream fragments, to retrace her steps and thus re- fiect on herself as an artist and woman. Los Angeles artist ‘Carole Caroompas “shoe-walks’ through time in a work tiled Remembrance of Things Past. From Womanhouse’ repetitive washing and ironing, Mierle Laderman Ukeles took scrubbing into the Wadsworth Atheneurn in Hartford, Connecticut, in July 1978, when she performed Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Maintenance Art Activity I. Ukeles would wash several areas of the museum where visitors were sure to walk. She would then wait for spectators to soil the floor with their shoes. Then she would rewash the space, doing so in this fashion until the museum closed. The rags that she used were piled on the site, and the area was stamped with a ‘Maintenance Art stamp as an artistic self documentation. (64 SEEDS OF O-ANGE:FEMNIST ART AND EDUCATION N THE EARLY SEVENTESS iii ie Ukeless Maintenance, broadly interpreted and applied to» ‘pal, national, and global sites and issues, became the ce: concern of her art from that time. In 1993, as I write this essay about Womanheuse, Ron Roland Shearer has placed eight colored nine-foo bronze statues of women vacuuming, caring for children, and clean the toilet atthe foot of an imposing equestrian statue of Ge Washington in New York City’s Union Square Park. “I watt George to get off his high horse,” Shearer told me, echoins sentiments of the Womanhouse performer SHE, “and help » the dishes” “If men had babies, there would be thousands of 2° the crowning.” Judy Chicago insisted on the logo of het T Birth Project. The Womanhouse dining room and kite been expressed and expanded in a 1979 multimedia ins The Dinner Party. The Birth Project, which merged fe 3° the traditionally female craft of needlework, was inspired by The Birth Trilogy and and executed in the early 1980" ‘women in their homes across the United States ‘The outermost historical and conceptual perimeter great and complex tapestry of women's art, thought. and he ‘that draw from the threads first spun by Womanhouse © spinning off. And the axial lineage of Womanhouse. bak forward in time, is not yet whole cloth.