|
|
Lesbian Artists
|
|
 The
Red Rose Girls : An Uncommon Story of Art and Love by
Alice A. Carter
Alice Carter's The Red Rose Girls traces
the lives of three talented artists: Jessie Willcox Smith,
Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley. After studying
together under the sympathetic guidance of Howard Pyle in
Philadelphia, the three (all youngest siblings) decided that they
could work best away from the distractions of the city. In 1900,
they established their home and studios in a rambling country
house called the Red Rose Inn, leading Pyle to dub them the
"Red Rose Girls." Strengthened by the emotional support
and artistic inspiration that each gave the others, their careers
blossomed. Green was a successful illustrator, especially for Harper's
Magazine; Smith produced charming portraits of children; and
Oakley was famous for huge murals commissioned to decorate state
buildings. With their friend Henrietta Cozens acting as
"housewife," their unconventional living arrangement
attracted much interest, not all of it positive. Carter, a
professor at San Jose State University, claims that it freed them
from the domestic responsibilities and isolation that could
cripple an artist, especially a female artist in pre-emancipated
society. For eight years the four led an almost idyllic existence
of genteel lifestyle and artistic productivity, but eventually the
group disintegrated, with Green's marriage causing an especially
painful break. Carter's sympathetic, easy prose perfectly
complements the women's idealized art and their uncomplicated
belief in the goodness of life. Combining delightful photographs
of their domestic lives with examples of their work, The Red
Rose Girls re-creates a vanished world of optimism and grace. --John
Stevenson
|
|
Painting, Lesbian Art.
Dawn Brayford is a Lesbian artist who graduated
from Liverpool Polytechnic in 1990, now known as Liverpool John
Moores University. Dawn continues to live and work in
Liverpool.
Examples of Brayford's work, including
paintings, sketches and watercolors can be seen online at her
award winning website. Click
HERE.
|
|
Imagine yourself in a room surrounded by almost
a century of lesbian artwork, manuscripts, books, records,
newspapers, magazines, photographs, games, organizational papers,
tapes, letters, scrapbooks, clothing, and flyers; sharing with
other lesbians the excitement of rediscovering the lives and
struggles of the women who have come before us; perhaps even
catching glimpses of pieces of your own past. You have just
imagined yourself at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.
|
|
The Arts, Lesbians, Ceramics Ama
Menec is a British lesbian Sculptor, celebrating the beauty and
grace of fat women in her lifesize works. Unique work seldom seen
outside of India.
"My aim in producing the work
I do is to celebrate the beauty of fat women, demonstrating that
we can be active, dynamic, joyful, sexy, and energetic. I take
inspiration from observing my friends, women out shopping, belly
dancers, women at discos and the swimming pool, and from my own
body. I hope my sculptures will delight the eye while at the same
time infusing the mind of the viewer with the luscious potential
in fat women." -- Ama Menec
|
|
Wild Hearts Ranch is continuing the
legacy of Elsa Gidlow's Druid Heights Artists Retreat. This
property is located three miles outside of Taos, New Mexico
on the Rio de Pueblo. The Rio de Pueblo is a small river full of
trout and runs from the Sacred Blue Lake of the Taos Indians thru
the Taos Pueblo and continues until it joins the Rio Grande about
six miles from the Wild Hearts Ranch. In 1993, Marcelina Martin
and Oralani Fuller bought a hundred year old farm that two
sisters, Lizzie and Jennie Anderson, had run at the turn of the
century as a mill and egg ranch. Marcelina's dream had been to
create a retreat to continue where Druid Heights Artists Retreat
had ended. Wild Hearts is the flowering of that seed. Oralani is
now hosting retreats for women artists and their muses.
|
|
Dawn Brayford - Lesbian Art
Ama
Menec
