Censorship and My Artwork
This article first appeared in the Central Wisconsin Women's Caucus
for Art Quarterly Newsletter in January, 1994.
Censorship for me is a life-long issue.
As a young girl, I learned to censor myself so that I fit in. During adolescence I gave up my comfortable underclothes for stiff bras and tight girdles. I stopped beating the boys in races or anything else. In my 30's, I finally began to rediscover who I really was behind the masks of becoming a proper daughter, woman, wife, and mother.
Once I began this new journey if allowing my true beliefs, visions, horrors,
pain, and ecstacy become externalized in the "real" world, I faced a new
problem: censorship by others.
I was rejected from a local watercoloring society (in Wisconsin).
They asked me not to even
apply for membership (something which, I heard from current members, has never
been done before) I believe that this had nothing to do with the quality of
my work, but with the content. Visionary expressions of my own inner world
did not fit in with their more conventional paintings of landscapes and floral
arrangements.
In the fall of 1993 I was given permission to display my artwork
in the Public
Art Space in Madison, Wisconsin. This is located in the lobby of the
Metropolitan Building, a downtown city building which houses a post office and
several other city offices. I made a special group of
dolls for the
exhibit, and was delighted to have my own solo show. However within minutes
of arranging the display case these two events occurred:
- A man in green fatigues with a child under his arm looked at my and
said, "I have a rifle at home for people like you...this is evil and you are
evil!" He stalked away with a very angry scowl. My friends and I were
shocked.
- Then the administrator of the exhibit space insisted that I remove one piece:
" on the Cross". I was told this piece was inappropriate because it was
too close to Christmas and might be offensive to the public. I was
disappointed but complied. I then wrote to a local newspaper, the Isthmus,
which wrote an article about this blatant censorship. The Capital Times, a
state-wide newspaper, also covered the show with a large article in their
"Showcase" section, including two photos of the show.
It was satisfying to be able to state my case
in the newspapers, which gave me
a chance to reach a larger audience with my message about censorship and the
subject of the exhibit, which was:
"The Doll has become icon on
the level of religious icons such as Christ and the Pope".
So, censoring my art show was a double-edged sword:
it put me in danger, made
it difficult to freely execute and display my art, while at the same time it
made it easier for me to get public notice of my displays.
The Dolls have since been on display
in a nationally juried show at the
University of Oregon in Eugene. The show in Eugene was called "The Censored
Art Show" and was on display as part of the American Civil Liberties Union
Convention taking place on campus. By the way, this show was censored also:
the curator was required to drape black cloth in front of all artwork so that
only those curious enough to go behind the curtains would be able to view the
art. Civil Liberties, indeed!
End of Article.
As a final note to my story, I have been asked (upon threat of a law suit, which I cannot afford to defend against) to remove my exhibit from the web, which I have done.