Sooo, Why Is It So Funny??

 

My View of the Feminist Wit In 1970s Bay Area Art: She Laughs Back Artists in Conversation

I attended the Artists in Conversation: Why's That So Funny? from the She Laugh's Back exhibition that was curated by Elaine O'Brian and made by 19 female artists. The artists in conversation were M. Louise Stanely, Lorraine Garcia-Nakata, and Kathy Goodell. Lorraine Garcia-Nakata is an SF resident and is known for her large-scale drawings/paintings. She produced 7 large-scale murals and is one of the 7 mural artists in Sacramento. Kathy Goodell is a professor in painting/drawings and has been in many galleries and magazines/articles. M. Louise Stanely is a lifetime adjunct and instructor.

Each of them had the opportunity to show us their artworks and discuss their upbringing in the arts. They started off with having Lorraine go first in the discussion and started talking about her childhood. At about 5 years old, she knew about her passion for the arts. At the age of 13, she would go hiking with her friend in SF and she discovered her awareness of the arts and politics going around at that time. Around this time, many moments opened her mind and her navigation through her own artistic vision within all the interactions, discussions, music, and movements she's observed. The Chicano movement changed how she saw the world as a person of color and as a female. 

Lorraine painted the Southside Park Mural in 1977. She drew nude females (indigenous females) and she was told to draw a peasant shirt on her, but she refused because she made a statement saying "No" since that imagery is colonial and the female was indigenous. She found that there is a difference between something funny and humor.  I found this to be very interesting because I was confused as to what that difference was. I thought about it for longer and realized being funny or creating something funny is an external characteristic and provides fun for others. However, humor is different from that because it is more of an internal characteristic in the ability to find something funny, and make yourself laugh, hence the title "She Laughs Back". 

Kathy Goodell, "Stretching the Truth", 1976/2024, bungee cords, weights, torn and wrapped paper

Kathy Goodell's discussion was next and she mentioned that she was involved with SDS and she saw that women were not appreciated there, so she withdrew from that, but she did have a positive time at Sacramento State. She was encouraged to go to SF where there were poets, cartoonists, and musicians grouping together. She met women that controlled their own destiny and she felt that changed her life. She didn't feel this way before going to SF and now that she expanded into a city full of the arts, the atmosphere was different. She mentioned a relationship she had and that her ex wrote a huge letter to her, however, she didn't read it. When their relationship fell apart she used the "letter" (not the original) and cut it up and stretched it which created "Stretching the Truth". For the show, she ended up remaking the piece. 

W.E.B, West East Coast Bag, June 1972

 M. Louise Stanley had her discussion last and I thought it was the funniest discussion. She was a part of W.E.B, which is an acronym for West East Coast Bag.  It is an International Liason Network of Women Artists, June 1972. Small weekly groups were getting together to talk about all types of topics and would have rules to follow within those discussions. These artists would have shows and conferences together. 

Judith Linhares & M. Louise Stanley, early 1970s (upper left),
Duck, 1970, ceramic, 5" high (lower middle),
Two Muffs and Rottle, 1969 (upper right)
Knick Knack, 1969, ceramic, 5 x 3" (lower right)

Louise Stanley came from a family of artists and discovered arts and crafts from her sister. She came to love landscapes, still lifes, and nudes. Then discovered other mediums of art like ceramics. Her discussion was very engaging because she stated a few things that I felt were important to know as an artist. She says, "You don't draw what you see. you draw how you feel about it." This is what she did, she drew many things on how she felt about a certain thing or situation. She also said, "How a person feels after they leave, not how they look like." So she would make symbols of how she feels. Around this time, she started teaching at Humbolt College in 1973. 

  

Louise Stanley, The Mystic Muse and the Bums that Sleep on the Golf Course behind the Oakland Cemetary. 1970, Louise Stanley, 1970 (upper right)

 She would get stoned with her friends in a graveyard and would make bad art. I thought this was very interesting because I was thinking, "Bad art?" and I realized that artists need to make bad art so that it can support the good art that they make. Some "bad art" can technically be "good art" to some people too. To create bad art is to free yourself from many rules that abide within the realm of art.  She made "The Mystic Muse and the Bums that Sleep on the Golf Course behind the Oakland Cemetary" in a graveyard. She mentioned how this painting had been hard for her to do. On the PowerPoint slide, it states a quote saying, "The Mystic Muse levitates above a shallow fountain not caring what the gawking audience of men think, she's her own person! A year later I realized this was my proclamation painting." The female figure's pose suggests her freedom and the feeling of being in her own world and this is something Stanley wanted to share with her audience to be able to rebel against the strict ruling of painting and Abstract Expressionism.

All three of these female artists were so engaging in their discussions that had humor but also a lot of power and inspiration. I became very inspired by these artists because of their stories and the behind-the-scenes of their own work. I enjoyed listening to how they figured themselves out in such a patriarchal society and some of them as people of color discovering themselves through movements of history. Their artworks are so different yet go back to the theme of gender and sexual stereotypes that employ wit and humor at the same time. I learned many things as a POC female artist myself, it was very liberating to hear their experiences through finding their identity and freedom against those stereotypes.