Chicago Corner

Ever since 2011/2012 and Pacific Standard Time (the Getty funded initiative documenting and celebrating southern California art from 1945-1980) in which I was prominently featured, my career has exploded, taking me all over the country and abroad, which has been exciting. And of course, the 2014 nationwide exhibitions and events celebrating my 75th birthday were deeply gratifying. At the same time all this travel has occupied a considerable amount of time which has interrupted my studio work. Even now after fifty years of professional practice, my greatest satisfaction comes from artmaking. Happily, after the birthday events I had five months of uninterrupted studio time.

Arnold Lehman, Elizabeth Sackler, and Judy Chicago at the New York premiere of A Butterfly for Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum in April 2015	Zac Smith, Alan Barker, Joan Churchill, and Judy Chicago filming A Butterfly for Brooklyn

In April of this year, Donald and I went to New York for two events related to my fireworks. The first, on April 9th at the Brooklyn Museum, the premiere of the video of A Butterfly for Brooklyn, was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Glenn Adamson, director of the Museum of Arts and Design and featured (in addition to Donald and me), award winning film editor, Kate Amend who - with Joan Churchill, Alan Barker and Helen Kearns - created the wonderful twenty minute video. The other featured panelist was Chris Souza, sixth generation member of the famous fireworks company Pyro Spectaculars, with whom I've done four pyrotechnic pieces, each one more ambitious than its predecessor. In the second event on April 10th, in a companion program, I participated in a public conversation with Elissa Auther, curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, exploring my history working in fireworks which dates back to 1968.

Judy Chicago and Elissa Auther discuss Judy Chicago: On Fire at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, April 2015

Michael Linver and Rabbi Gaylia Rooks sing Judy Chicago's Merger Poem

From New York we went to Louisville, Kentucky, where I presented a lecture about my work as part of the 120th celebration of the Louisville chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. The night before my talk, there was a Patron's Party where Dr. Michael Linver, my world-renowned radiologist who practices here in Albuquerque (and brother-in-law to our host, Ellen Rosenbloom) did a duet with a local rabbi, singing my Merger poem which had been set to music.

Judy Chicago with officers and supporters of the National Council of Jewish Women Louisville at the Patron's Party celebrating the organization's 120th anniversary	Judy Chicago with Ellen and Philip Rosenbloom. Ellen organized the National Council of Jewish Women Louisville events

While we were in Louisville, there was a visioning charette at the University of Louisville to discuss the future of the International Honor Quilt, which Through the Flower gifted to the Hite Art Institute in 2013. Since that time, the hundreds of commemorative triangular quilts honoring women from around the world have been curated and put up on the Hite's website where these colorful creations and their moving documentation can be seen and appreciated by people all over the world. TTF Board member Patrice Emrie has written a longer description of the charette in another part of this newsletter.

Judy Chicago's Car Hoods (1964/1965) will be reunited in the exhibition The World Goes Pop, opening at the Tate Modern this September

Now I'm back in the studio where I plan to remain until early September when Donald and I head for Europe and a series of exhibitions in London, Milan and Bilbao. All four of my Car Hoods will be included in The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern, a re-examination of that period in art in terms of what artists (other than those associated with the pop art movement) were doing.

In conjunction with the Tate Modern show, Riflemaker, my London gallery, is doing a solo show of my work from the 1960's and 70's. From London we go to Milan where they are holding a World's Fair which we hope to check out. I'm in two exhibitions there: one focused on art and food organized by the legendary curator, Germano Celant, and the other a show titled The Great Mother, curated by Massimiliano Gioni dealing with the iconography and representation of motherhood in 20th and 21st century art. My 32 foot long prismacolor drawing, In the Beginning (which reinterprets Genesis in text and image), will be featured. As I helped to open up the subject of birth and motherhood in the Birth Project, I am extremely interested in seeing what other artists have done with this theme.

Judy Chicago working on the 32-foot long drawing In the Beginning, 1982

Judy Chicago and renowned feminist curator Xabier Arakistain

In early October, the feminist curator Xabier Arakistain (who previously did a marvelous show titled Kiss Kiss Bang Bang followed by an exhibition of the Guerilla Girls) is organizing a major exhibition of my work titled Why Not Judy Chicago?. In addition to being an insightful overview of my career it is also intended as an inquiry into the ongoing resistance of major museums, most of which do not own anything of mine. A few days after the opening, there will be an all-day seminar on my work with a number of art historians who have written about me. The show opens at the Askuna Zentroa in Bilbao, Spain and in March, 2016, it will travel to the contemporary art museum in Bordeaux so we'll be going back to Europe for that.

Judy Chicago at work in her Belen studio painting, 2015

Best wishes for an enjoyable summer.

University of Louisville Charette

by Patrice Emrie, TTF Secretary/Treasurer

Patrice Emrie

In 2013, with the help of Shelly Zegart, Through the Flower gifted the International Honor Quilt (IHQ) to the University of Louisville and its Hite Art Institute. The gift was made with the hope that the hundreds of commemorative triangular quilts from all over the world would be used by the University in creative ways, especially in light of the rich quilt heritage found in Kentucky.

After receiving the gift, in 2014 the Hite Institute catalogued all the quilts, and in April 2015, the Institute hosted a group of scholars, curators and professors at an intensive all-day visioning charette. The charette focused on ways to explore, engage and investigate options to maximize opportunities for the many potential uses that the quilts and their documentation offer. During the charette, broader discussions included opportunities for the IHQ to be a model of art as a catalyst for empowerment, change and social justice issues.

Visioning Charette participants at the University of Louisville

In the collaborative spirit of the IHQ, many individuals at the University were involved in integrating the collection into the Hite collection as well as into the University's research resources and curriculum. John Begley acted as project coordinator, while graduate curatorial assistants, with outside assistance, worked on the processing necessary to complete the registration documentation of the quilts. The entire IHQ collection of 539 triangle quilts with the accompanying historic documentation of each quilt has been digitized by Amy Fordham, Hite Visual Resources curator, and can be viewed, along with the history of the IHQ, on the University website.

The University is already creating interdisciplinary academic programs that highlight the intersection of art, society and social change. Dean Kimberly Kempf-Leonard announced that every freshman enrolled in English 102 will study and explore the IHQ. This concept of broadly studying the IHQ is very exciting and helps realize a time when male students study what women have done in the same way as their female counterparts have studied male achievements.

Update from Penn State

by Karen Keifer-Boyd with contributions by Leslie C. Sotomayor

Karen Keifer-Boyd

From August 2014 to April 2015, once a week, Penn State hosted an open invitation to students, faculty, staff, and community to meet in Penn State Arts Cottage's Feminist Resource Suite with its Judy Chicago and Visiting Scholar office for "Teatime Feminist Conversations." Summaries of the conversations are archived in the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection. Over our cups of tea, topics emerge organically from implementing Chicago's circle pedagogical approach. Many of the themes that arose are similar to those found in the Collection from Chicago's teaching, such as navigating personal and work/student responsibilities, feminist identity, and systemic inequities. The topics that emerged—complex, delicate, and necessary—were rape culture, sexual harassment, and violence on campuses. Our conversation entangled issues of race, gender, social activism, socio-economic structures, and repetitive obstacles. We felt encouraged in our active listening to each other, a brave act in itself as we departed with hope in how our stories are valuable in sharing with others.

Mural Where's the Focus?	Closeup view of Where's the Focus?

From February 16 to April 24, 2015, WTF (Where's the Focus?), a collaboration with The Delta Program High School in State College, Penn State, The Judy Chicago Art Education Collection, and the Jenna Marie Foundation, used the Collection to guide the pedagogy of a project to culminate in the exhibition of a mural, which was in the end censored. The challenges many high school students experience are expressed in the mural with slurs that have marked them resulting in emotional and physical abuse. The unveiling of this mural was set as a collaborative piece and activism for mental health awareness at the Delta school. Our other goal is for the students themselves to take ownership of this and initiate conversations about the piece with their peers throughout this process by discussing, contributing, and use it as a tool of sharing and leadership; this in fact is happening now with the students.

To our surprise, the mural was not allowed to be displayed at the event, but instead, it was housed in the art classroom at the school. However, this was also a teachable moment in terms of The Dinner Party, which was cancelled at some venues due to the content and imagery of the work. At the same time, it's important to remember that even though it took thirty years for Judy Chicago to achieve her goal of permanent housing of The Dinner Party, it is now on exhibition at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where it accounts for 20% of the museum visitorship. The moral of this is NEVER GIVE UP.

Why Is Your Support Important
to Through the Flower?

When we have asked for your support, we have listed many of our long terms goals; creating a lasting historic legacy; partnering with appropriate institutions; and serving as an independent resource center. This time we'd like to point out a few of our ongoing activities that your donations help fund:

• Providing help and information to students and artists worldwide; for example, recent student inquiries from as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Also, artists' projects inspired by The Dinner Party, such as in Zimbabwe, where we provided posters and materials for a group wanting to explore their own history as women
• Expanding Feminist archives – web based; video archives; Schlesinger Library; Penn State; University of Louisville; National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Establishing and expanding the Through the Flower Library By and About Women at UNM- Valencia Campus, which is used around the country via inter-library loan

When you support TTF by joining or renewing your membership, your support has an immediate visible effect as well as contributing to our long term goals.

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