September, 2013 - Judy Chicago - Bourbonnaise

Judy Chicago

     Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces which examine the role of women in history and culture. Born in Chicago as Judith Cohen, she changed her name after the death of her father and her first husband, choosing to disconnect from the idea of male dominated naming conventions. Her father came from a twenty-three generation lineage of rabbis.  Unlike his family predecessors, he would become a labor organizer and a Marxist. Arthur's health declined, and he died in 1953.  Their mother did not allow Judy and her brother to attend the funeral. Chicago would not reflect on his death until she was an adult, and in the early 1960s she would be hospitalized for almost a month with a bleeding ulcer attributed to unresolved grief. In June 1959, she met and fell in love with Jerry Gerowitz.  The couple hitch hiked to New York in 1959 and lived in Greenwich Village for a time, before returning in 1960 to Los Angeles so she could finish her degree. Gerowitz died in a car crash in 1963, devastating Chicago and causing her to suffer from an identity crisis until later that decade. While in grad school, Chicago created a series that was abstract, yet easily recognized as male and female sexual organs. These early works were called Bigamy, and represented the death of her husband. One depicted an abstract penis which was "stopped in flight" before it could unite with a vaginal form. Her professors, who were mainly men, were dismayed over these works. Despite the use of sexual organs in her work, Chicago refrained from using gender politics or identity as themes. In 1968, Chicago was asked why she did not participate in the "California Women in the Arts" exhibition, to which she answered "I won't show in any group defined as Woman, Jewish, or California. Someday when we all grow up there will be no labels."  Chicago also began exploring her own sexuality in her work. She created the Pasadena Lifesavers, which was a series of abstract paintings that placed acrylic paint on Plexiglas. The works blended colors to create an illusion that the shapes "turn, dissolve, open, close, vibrate, gesture, wiggle," representing her own discovery that "I was multi-orgasmic." Chicago credited Pasadena Lifesavers, as being the major turning point in her work in relation to women's sexuality and representation.

     By the 1970s, Chicago had coined the term "feminist art" and had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Chicago's work incorporates skills stereotypically placed upon women artistically, such as needlework, counteracted with stereotypical male skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's masterpiece work is The Dinner Party, which is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

the drink:

Bourbonnaise

1 1/2 oz bourbon

1/2 oz dry vermouth

1/2 oz creme de cassis

1 dash fresh lemon juice

Drinkability: 2
Drunkability: 4.5
Taxic Diversity: 3.5
Accessibility: 4
Priority for Conservation: 3

Comments:  "lemony manhattan," "every breath is flames."

From "American Women Artists of the 20th C." hosted by FluffyRuffle