This painting is new, starting out as one thing and ending up as something entirely different. That’s not unusual for how I work and can lead to some strange surprises. Now that it’s done, I’ve named it “Sacrifice”. It’s not meant to be literal. The wolf represents American culture, and the woman represents being a woman in America. If you want to be considered a “normal” American woman, you have to give up certain elements of who you are, and pretend to be a certain way, and act a certain way, and accept things (like lower wages and being taken less seriously than a man) and live according to society’s requirements. As an American woman who is a feminist, this makes sense to me, but I admit many people won’t get it, which is fine. (I don’t really care if people understand my paintings, which is why I usually tell people to just get out of them whatever meaning they want.)

I’ve written about gender and art here in the past, and now I’ve just joined WARM, a group of Minnesota female artists based in St. Paul. I found the following article linked to on their website: Why Have There Been No Great Woman Artists? The obvious answer is: There have been a lot of great female artists, what are you talking about? But maybe that answer is from my own personal perspective, as a female artist. I equate all artists as equally worthy and judge their work, if I judge it at all, without regard for their gender. But I’m not sure the general public does that, and according to this article, they don’t. Here is a small excerpt:

“Why have there been no great women artists?” The question tolls reproachfully in the background of most discussions of the so-called woman problem. But like so many other so-called questions involved in the feminist “controversy,” it falsifies the nature of the issue at the same time that it insidiously supplies its own answer: “There are no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness.” . . . .