Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Deborah Bright, 2022 June 15-September 7. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview with Deborah Bright conducted 2022 June 15-September 7, by Ann Cvetkovich for the Archives of American Art, at Bright's home and studio in Brooklyn, NY.
Biographical / Historical:
Deborah Bright (1950-) is a Brooklyn-based photographer, educator, and writer known for her intimate portrayals of lesbian domestic life from the 1980s to present. Ann Cvetkovich (1957- ) is the Director of the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa and was previously a Professor at UT Austin; her work investigates the dynamics between affect and queerness.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its Oral History Program interviews available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. Quotation, reproduction and publication of the recording is governed by restrictions. If an interview has been transcribed, researchers must quote from the transcript. If an interview has not been transcribed, researchers must quote from the recording. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Recuerdos Orales: Interviews of the Latino Art Community in Texas Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Graciela Sanchez, 2004 June 25-July 2. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Graciela Sanchez conducted 2004 June 25-July 2, by Cary Cordova, for the Archives of American Art, in San Antonio, Tex.
Sánchez speaks of her family background, her family's move to Chicago, return to San Antonio, and cultural traditions; San Antonio's Chili Queens; activism in the community; high school, attending Yale University; MEChA; Gloria Anzaldúa and This Bridge Called My Back; working for the Southwest Voter Registration Project; MALDEF, Mexican American Legal Defense; the foundation of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center with Susan Guerra and others; going to Cuba to study film; the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center; the values of being "buena gente," "good people"; Ellas, a Latina lesbian organization; working with Amy Kastely, lawyer; Mujer Artes; her film "No Porque lo Diga Fidel Castro"; working for AIDS prevention/education; the newsletter "The Interchange" which became "La Voz de Esperanza"; Stonehaven Ranch, a retreat location; the film screenings "Other America"; the complete de-funding of Esperanza in 1997 and the four year litigation with the city of San Antonio; trying to save the building La Gloria and other endeavors taken on by the Esperanza; the Cuentos Project and recent events sponsored by the Esperanza. Sánchez also recalls Audre Lorde, Luz Calvo, Eduardo Diaz, Liliana Wilson Grez, Cherríe Moraga, Cynthia Perez, Genevieve Vaughn, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Graciela Sanchez (1960- ) is an arts activist and the executive director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, Tex. Cary Cordova (1970- ) is an art historian from Austin, Tex.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound discs. Duration is 5 hr., 30 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- Texas -- San Antonio -- Interviews Search this
This interview is part of the series "Recuerdos Orales: Interviews of the Latino Art Community in Texas," supported by Federal funds for Latino programming, administered by the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives.
The digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
California -- San Francisco -- Description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Catherine Opie, 2012 August 13-27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
California -- San Francisco -- Description and Travel
Date:
2012 August 13-27
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Catherine Opie conducted 2012 August 13-27, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, for the Archives of American Art, at Opie's home and studio in Los Angeles, California.
Opie discusses her childhood in Sandusky, Ohio, moving to California, and introduction to photography; her life in San Francisco and its role in her formulation of sexuality and identity; the importance of identity within her work, especially that of the queer community; the role of architecture and her landscape paintings as metaphor for the queer community and the search for identity; the role of reconceptualization in her work, leading to the ever-changing nature of her works, including comparisons between her portraiture and her landscape photography; her influences and her moniker of the "American photographer" Opie also recalls her partner, painter Julie Burleigh; gallery owners Stuart and Shaun Regen; members of her community and subjects of her portraiture, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Catherine Opie (1961- ) is an artist and professor in Los Angeles, California. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is a writer and art historian in Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 7 digital sound files. Duration is 5 hr., 17 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Photographers -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Joan Snyder, 2010 February 25-26. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Nancy Brooks Brody, 2018 January 12-28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Julie Tolentino, 2018 April 11-12. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The records of the Woman's Building feminist arts organization in Los Angeles measure 33.5 linear feet and date from 1970-1992. Originally founded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levant de Bretteville, and art historian Arlene Raven in 1973, the Woman's Building served as an education center and public gallery space for women artists in southern California. The records document both the educational and exhibition activities and consist of administrative records, financial and legal records, publications, curriculum files, exhibition files, grant funding records and artist's works of arts and prints. A significant portion of the collection documents the Women's Graphic Center, a typesetting, design, and printing service operated by The Woman's Building.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the Woman's Building measure 33.5 linear feet and date from 1970 to 1992. The organization played a key role as an alternative space for women artists energized by the feminist movement in the 1970s. The records document the ways in which feminist theory shaped the Building's founding core mission and goals. During its eighteen year history, the Building served as an education center and a public gallery space for women artists in Los Angeles and southern California; the records reflect both functions of the Building's activities.
The Administrative Files series documents the daily operations of the Building, with particular emphasis on management policies, budget planning, history, cooperative relationships with outside art organizations and galleries, special building-wide programs, and relocation planning. Included in this series are the complete minutes from most Building committees from 1974 through closing, including the Board of Directors and the Advisory Council. The General Publicity and Outreach series is particularly complete, containing publicity notices from most events, exhibits, and programs held at the Woman's Building, including brochures, announcements, programs, invitations, press releases, newspaper clippings, and magazine articles.
The Woman's Building's educational programs centered on courses offered by the Feminist Studio Workshop and the Extension Program. While the Workshop provided a two-year program for women interested in fully developing their artistic talent, the Extension Program offered a broad range of classes, specifically oriented to working women interested in art and art vocations. The records fully document both programs, focusing on the course development and descriptions, teacher contracts, class evaluations, budget planning, and scholarship programs. Although the Archives does not have the entire slide library, there are files concerning the establishment and administration of the library, as well as a few folders of slides.
The Gallery Programs series houses the records of the visual, performing, literary and video arts events held at the Woman's Building. Administrative files detail the daily operation of the gallery spaces. The files in the remaining subseries are primarily arranged by event and contain proposals, announcements, publicity, and artist biographies.
The Women's Graphic Center became a profit-making arm of the Woman's Building in 1981 but the typesetting and design equipment had been used by staff and students since 1975. The records in this series focus on the work produced at the Center, including general projects and artist designs and art prints. Many of the design and printing examples were produced for Woman's Building events and programs.
The Artist's Works of Art series includes artist books, resumes, correspondence, postcards, and samples of art in the form of sketches, drawings, and prints. There is also material related to Woman's Building projects. Especially noteworthy is the "What is Feminist Art?" project where artists gave their responses in various formats and mediums from text to pieces of artwork.
The Printed Materials series contains feminist and art publications not produced by or for the Woman's Building.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series.
Series 1: Administrative Files, circa 1970-1991 (Box 1-9, 32; 9 linear feet)
Series 2: Educational Programs, 1971-1991 (Box 10-14; 4.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Gallery Programs, 1973-1991 (Box 14-20, OV 54; 5.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Women's Graphic Center, circa 1976-1989 (Box 20-23, 32, OV 33-50; 5.6 linear feet)
Series 5: Artists' Works of Art, circa 1972-1990 (Box 24-25, OV 51-53; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Grants, 1974-1992 (Box 25-30; 5.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material (Not Woman's Building), 1970-1983 (Box 30-31; 1.3 linear feet)
Historical Note:
In 1973, artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levant de Bretteville, and art historian Arlene Raven founded the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), one of the first independent schools for women artists. The founders established the workshop as a non-profit alternative education center committed to developing art based on women's experiences. The FSW focused not only on the development of art skills, but also on the development of women's experiences and the incorporation of those experiences into their artwork. Central to this vision was the idea that art should not be separated from other activities related to the developing women's movement. In November of 1973 the founders rented workshop space in a vacated building in downtown Los Angeles and called it The Woman's Building, taking the name from the structure created for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The FSW shared space with other organizations and enterprises including several performance groups, Womanspace Gallery, Sisterhood Bookstore, the National Organization of Women, and the Women's Liberation Union.
When the building they were renting was sold in 1975, the FSW and a few other tenants moved to a three-story brick structure, originally designed to be the administrative offices of the Standard Oil Company in the 1920s. In the 1940s, it had been converted into a warehouse and consisted of three floors of open space, conducive to publically available extension classes and exhibitions offered by the Woman's Building staff and students. By 1977, the majority of the outside tenants had left the Woman's Building, primarily because they were unable to sustain business in the new location. The new building was more expensive to maintain and the FSW staff decided to hire an administrator and to create a board structure to assume the financial, legal, and administrative responsibility for the Building. The funds to operate came from FSW tuition, memberships, fund-raising events, and grant monies.
In 1981, the Feminist Studio Workshop closed, as the demand for alternative education diminished. The education programs of the Building were restructured to better accommodate the needs of working women. The Woman's Building also began to generate its own artistic programming with outside artists, including visual arts exhibits, performance art, readings, and video productions. That same year, the Woman's Building founded the Women's Graphic Center Typesetting and Design, a profit-making enterprises designed to strengthen its financial base. Income generated from the phototypesetting, design, production, and printing services was used to support the educational and art making activities of the Building.
When the graphics business closed in 1988, the Woman's Building suffered a financial crisis from which it never fully recovered. The Building closed its gallery and performance space in 1991.
Related Material:
Among the other resources relating to the Woman's Building in the Archives of American Art is an oral history with Suzanne Lacy on March 16, 1990, March 24, 1990, and September 24, 1990. While not credited as a founding member, Lacy was among the first group of staff of the Woman's Building which she discusses in her interview.
The Getty Research Institute also holds a large collection on the Woman's Building which includes a wide range of material relating to its exhibitions, activities, and projects.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art donated 5 boxes of video tape from the collection to the Long Beach Museum of Art, Video Annex in 1994. According to documentation, this was the desire of Sandra Golvin and the Board of Directors of the Woman's Building.
Provenance:
The Woman's Building records were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1991 by Sandra Golvin, President of the Board of Directors. An small addition of a set of "Cross Pollination" posters was donated in 2019 by by ONE Archives at University of Southern California Libraries via Loni Shibuyama, Archives Librarian.
Woman's Building records, 1970-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and Joyce F. Menschel, Vital Projects Fund, Inc.
Woman's Building (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Container:
Box 11, Folder 35
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
circa 1978-1980
Collection Citation:
Woman's Building records, 1970-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and Joyce F. Menschel, Vital Projects Fund, Inc.
Woman's Building (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Container:
Box 11, Folder 45
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
circa 1977-1978
Collection Citation:
Woman's Building records, 1970-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and Joyce F. Menschel, Vital Projects Fund, Inc.
Woman's Building (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Container:
Box 12, Folder 19
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1975-1981
Collection Citation:
Woman's Building records, 1970-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and Joyce F. Menschel, Vital Projects Fund, Inc.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Use of electronic records requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Zarina Hashmi papers, 1950-2015. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Use of electronic records requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Zarina Hashmi papers, 1950-2015. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Joan Snyder conducted 2010 February 25-26, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Snyder's home and studio in Brooklyn, New York.
Snyder speaks of her childhood and education, growing up in a Jewish household in Brooklyn; education at Douglass College at Rutgers University, New Jersey; work with anti-poverty programs; her involvement in the wave of feminism, WAC (Women Art Collective), and Women Against War; Snyder's work on the magazine "Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics"; relationship with ex-husband, photographer Larry Fink; Snyder's important early showing at Bykert Gallery and Hirschl & Adler; the works Small Symphony for Women (1974), Resurrection (1977), Love's Pale Grapes (1982), Apple Tree Mass (1983), Beanfield with Music for Molly (1984), Savage Dreams, (1981-82), Women in Camps (1988), Morning Requiem for the Children (1987-88), Faces, Journey of the Souls (1993), Cherry Tree (1993), and her work into the 21st century; themes in her work that refer to the AIDS crisis, the treatment of women and female sensibility, lives of children, and religion; recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2007; her teaching experience at Parsons and School of Visual Art (SVA). Snyder also recalls Ulfred Wilke, Lucy Lippard, and various individuals associated with the Feminist/women's movement, daughter Molly Snyder-Fink, and partner Maggie Cammer.
Biographical / Historical:
Joan Snyder (1940- ) is an abstract artist in Brooklyn, New York. Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 18 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
