I was supposed to go to a panel discussion tonight on the use of the feminine in art. I didn't go. My excuse was exhaustion. But really, I didn't go because I didn't like the subject. Even though I am a woman and a metal sculptor living in Santa Fe, I have never been able to identify myself as a "woman" artist. Point of fact, I have never made a vessel that is a metaphor for the womb. Getting involved in the issues surrounding women in the arts seemed a convenient refuge for not being able to effectively compete in the real art world. Yet because I am a woman, people question the fact that I do my own fabrication. They offer to help me lift the works that I lift easily on my own. They ask to feel my hands and inspect them carefully when I let them. Direct metal sculpture is apparently something not a lot of women do.
I was thinking about this dichotomy as I cleaned up the kitchen, took the trash out, fed the horses and switched the laundry. How could I not embrace the feminine in art? It occured to me that perhaps I was thinking about the subject all wrong and suddenly it seemed that the use of the feminine in art is exactly what contemporary art has been missing.
There are qualities inherent in the feminine that can balance and enhance the language of ideas. The feminine brings sensuality, fluidity, openness, and ultimately beauty to concepts which, by themselves, are stark, rigid, and merely confrontational. And it is precisely this balance which makes a work of art whole, interesting and relevant. Consequently, I realized that not only should we be discussing this subject, we must be discussing it. Because art without beauty or balance is as static and informative as white noise.