Did you ever see “The Dinner Party”?

I did. And I gotta tell you it had a huge whammo impact on me.

Do you remember "The Dinner Party" – even know what I’m talking about? In the 70s, artist Judy Chicago created and, with the help of dozens of women and a few men, put together an “installation” that honored, celebrated and offered imagery about women in history. It was displayed first in San Francisco in 1979. It’s hard to describe without resorting to words that make me uncomfortable – even “installation” makes me squirm a bit because it hints at weird, participatory art in a big setting where I don’t know what to do or where to look. But then, Christo is like that and while I haven’t ever been at/seen/been to one of Christo’s installations, I like what I see. In some eyes, this ain’t art. But I know that it makes me feel something, makes me look around and I appreciate that at least. Beyond that, I’m not always comfortable.

Chicago’s work was pretty amazing. What you have is a large triangle; on each side are 13 place settings. The table sits on a floor of tiles on which are hundreds and hundreds – in fact 999 – of names of women, real, mythical, historical. Each place setting has the same porcelain cup, flatware and each offers a ceramic plate and a “runner” which it sits on. Each runner has the woman’s name embroidered on it. Beyond that, each is unique.

This all comes to mind because I just read a long new biography of Judy Chicago (BECOMING JUDY CHICAGO by Gail Levin). The artist, after she did The Dinner Party created other projects including The Birth Project, which I admit I have no interest in and The Holocaust Project, which doesn’t work for me (a little too obvious?) But The Dinner Party, which I saw in San Francisco, is a breath-taking experience for many reasons. There’s nothing like it anywhere and there sure in HELL was nothing remotely like it back in 1979, it focuses on women from the mythical and goddess to women who had something to say, show, do, who affected the world.

I went to see it as I recall on the last day that it was in San Francisco; I was there with Debbie Notkin. A better person to go with you simply couldn’t ask for. She’s a great conversationalist – we spent gobs of time with each other over the years I lived in the bay area and never ever ran out of things to talk about. If we didn’t talk, we had great silence together too. She was everything from a Scrabble buddy to a confidante, we shared jokes, recipes and ideas. And because many of us wanted to see this exhibit, we were in line for hours (this being back when I could stand for hours).

The settings are amazing – not always beautiful, certainly not always to my taste, or even “tasteful” (more on that in a sec) but wow. The artistry AND craft (and I’m never sure where one ends and the other begins) is breath-taking. It IS hard to explain in some ways because in 2007, I don’t suppose there’s that much argument that needlework, for example, is not art, but “traditional women’s work” often has not been seen as art. So that quilting and basketry, watercolor work and needlepoint are “craft”, where as big splotchy canvasses are art.

The design of the plates for each woman – well, it’s brilliant stuff, but I admit that “metaphor” aside, I am less interested in the ceramic plates – the major theme of the exhibit – than I am in the runners, and the enormous efforts, the range of skills each shows. Chicago is a feminist artist and her work all comes from that perspective. In 1979 that was not “normal” and may still not be. Her imagery, which began somewhat as “flower/butterfly” imagery employs the image of the vagina in all the plates. After a while I find it tiresome, which makes me feel bad because it’s hugely creative. Each plate is different from the next, each using color had design and something to tell you about the woman. Emily Dickinson’s is brilliantly done with pink lace – ceramic lace, whoee. But I admit to feeling like a wuss when I say I don’t get much of the metaphor. More to the point, as someone says in the bio – once you see it, there’s not much for me to go back to. That’s what drives art for me – what I mean is, looking at a painting, a sculpture, seeing someone dance, reading a poem; there’s something important in it for me if I can go back to it again, see or think something new, see it fresh. Sometimes that just means seeing it and going “oh WOW” again, which I did while reading this bio. I have two books on The Dinner Party – one shows the main work the plates,and lists the 999 in their associated categories; the second is the book about the tapestries, the embroidery and runners in detail. Those are the things that truly make my mouth water.

When I was in college, I learned to crochet; it was a very handy habit as it kept me from doing stupid things. I never took up smoking, which I was tempted to do. I tried not to drink 17 zillion cups of bad coffee every day or eat endlessly. But college and life afterward sometimes led to twitchy fingers. And while my mother, a wonderful knitter, tried to teach me to knit, we never got around or past the left-hand/right-hand dilemma, so I never did knit. However, by the time I had to quit doing such crafts years ago, when my hands and shoulders started telling me “no”, I was a very good crocheter, and did some gorgeous needlepoint and embroidery work. I learned bargello and crocheted everything from afghans to sweaters. I was good at it. There are still some needlepoint pictures around my house – and my sister still has some things I made for her. I later learned basketry and would still – in my next undisabled lifetime – like to learn beading, quilting and weaving. I just love all those things and appreciate how hard they can be and how gorgeous the results. And while the closest I ever came to ceramics was at summer camp (never did learn the wheel) and do yes indeed love pottery and ceramics, from raku to the work from San Ildefonso and Santa Clara pueblos.

Am I squeamish? Um, maybe? I don’t know but I know that the repeated imagery of the plates gets old to me. While I look carefully at each and read all there is to know so I know why it looks the way it does, what the imagery says about the subject (Caroline Herschel, Christine de Pisan, Natalie Barney, Trotula – who are they all?) and love what I learned, I’m not at ease with the folds and the eggs and the openings and the everything. But I’d still go back in a second and spend hours looking at every possible angle at every single thing being shown.

The runners, which show some of the most amazing examples of beadwork, embroidery, ribbonwork, stitching of all kinds, is just well, sensory overload. I’ve had that experience only a few times in my life – I remember it at a quilt show at the Oakland Museum once; every time I thought “I can’t see anything more amazing and beautiful than THAT”, I’d turn around and BLAMMO, be blown away by something completely different. The color, the skill, both the art and knowing just how HARD it is to do some of this stuff, is overload. (I only once in my life ever felt a “religious experience” and that was in a museum. I take this stuff seriously.

But okay, I’m not a big fan of blatantly vaginal images. To add to that, in reading this bio, I was made aware that I am not real comfortable in reading about it. The bio, which was clearly pro-Chicago, while not quite worshipful, found very little fault with the artist, always presenting her in what seems like the light she wished to be presented in – if that garble makes sense. Chicago is a hugely talented woman, no question. She fought to be seen and for her work to be shown, no question there either. But I wasn’t really comfortable in her presence in this book. And I don’t think it’s because it’s no longer the 70s and we aren’t “that way” anymore. I’m proud of being a feminist and I’m fairly (though not enough probably) tolerant of feminist theory and statement. Even if it makes me wince – but it made me wince THEN when we all started talking about how patriarchal the word “woman” was because it was wo-MAN and we became at times wimmin. Or Womyn. I understood but winced on occasion to see someone change her name from oh, say, “Patterson” to “Patterchild” or “Williamson” to “Williamdaughter”. I got it, dammit, and you should too – don’t laugh at this, it does and did and WILL matter til the end of time. Taking a name is a big deal whether it’s a name or a label, whether you use your father’s or mother’s surname as your own. Whether you hyphenate or choose a new one, whether your kids carry your last name, his, hers, both, neither. I understood anyone else’s need to change her name even if I never did. I admire Chicago’s talent and much of her drive and ideas. I just don't have a need to identify as female with a vagina as often as it feels as if Chicago does. This is her focus, her imagery in just about all the work she did up to The Dinner Party, and the bio informs me of that over and over. Enough already, with the butterflies and the "breaking out" images which i admit i just did not get the subtlety of when I was informed of the metaphor. I didn't see it, no matter how long I looked at "Let it All hang out" or "Pasadena Lifesavers", I'm too unskilled to see all circles, spirals, round forms as inherently female and vaginal.

But I don’t get other things either and this bio, once again, reminds me of the difficulties of reading about someone you admire. Chicago’s ambition bugged me; not that she didn’t have the right, of course she did to succeed but the “I’m a genius” I’m going to be famous” I DESERVE fame” stuff always bothers me. I suspect people who MUST accomplish things require that drive, that amibition, but it grated. I dunno – the whole “I’m a genius” thing. So what? What if you are? You didn’t do nuttin’ to get there, exactly – it’s the luck of genetics or whatever. It’s like taking credit for your good skin or your hair – all to a point of course because you can do things to make what you have better. Even if you are a genius, it doesn’t make you a good person. It might. If you are a genius with a particular talent, it would be oh so great for that talent to be recognized and there is no question that women artists have not received their due. But throughout the book as I read where she expected her autobiography to be a best seller, that every review would be a rave, that she would achieve fame. I just can’t be comfortable with that. Clearly she could; I’m not pushing for false modesty, mind you. And maybe you have to be SO DAMN SURE to take the risks she did. SO SURE you are right about everything. I just – well, I’ve met a bunch of brilliant people in my life, a bunch of geniuses, probably, and I know that one can be a genius and be creative and yet, well, I dunno. Chicago seemed shocked to learn things that by the time she knew them, I was aware of them for years. She complains that people didn’t understand who died in the Holocaust and that the 4 to 5 million non-Jews were ignored in history. She seems to expect that because she didn’t know something, it was news to everyone (you know the type? Oy, I do.) And it seemed oh SO important over and over for her to declare herself as a woman and a feminist. No really? I suspect my lack of ambition, my lack of that sort of drive to be famous or whatever makes it hard for me to understand why some things are so damn important to her.

But I came to feminism easily. Nothing was a shock to me. I didn’t need to learn what apparently many other people needed. I never in my life attended a consciousness raising group. I never needed my consciousness raised but rather feel as if I were born and/or raised 100 percent feminist from the day I could think.. Chicago seems to have spent endless time in CR working on the Dinner Project and empowerment. I would have gone gaga if I’d had to sit through discussions like that. One thing I lack is patience for what I consider the obvious. It’s hard to understand what it means to suddenly realize something, to be awakened to your power as a woman, or your identity, I’m sure. I can’t know what it’s like so maybe that “empowerment” that requires/required some women to YELL about it, to discuss it at length and in depth as if they were the first to realize it, maybe that feels necessary or great. I just know that for me constantly discovering that I’m female makes no sense and it reaches the “too much information” stage very quickly. I don’t need to “celebrate” menstrual blood or being the “earth mother”. I’m hugely glad that women out there find value and power in birth and children; I sure don’t nor do I think it’s, well, something to be “proud of”. But I tend to feel that way about any form of “X” pride: you are what you are, and being proud of an accident of birth puzzles me. It gives other people great strength to be proud to be female, irish, Deaf, whatever but I’m puzzled by that. I don’t want to deny or put down someone else’s pride in their identity; I just find it a little….oh god, sorry, loud. And I hate thinking that what I’m saying reflects a belief that strong women like Chicago are ”strident” because I don’ really feel that way and frankly, if they are or were, they needed to be. To be heard at all lots of us needed to be. We were often ignored until we acted up and even then, we were mocked, or the stories were wrong (no one BURNED a damn bra at the Atlantic City action. None, nada.)

In the early years of “Ms.” magazine, which I used to subscribe to, they talked about the “click” that happened when you realized you were female/feminist. When you heard a put-down, a “everyone knows that women….” And you realized that no, dammit, everyone doesn’t know, that it was bullshit, that women could be artists, doctors, sculptors, astronomers, intellectuals. Again, I can’t imagine how that felt; I never heard that click. I was clicking from the time I could think.

I also lack the ability to accept certain words; I even found myself typing “vagina” carefully because it’s not a word I use often and my fingers wanted it to be something else (simply because as a touch typist, put a word with “gin” in front of me, I tend to type “ing”). But throughout the bio, the author and her subject use “cunt” as common language and I couldn’t accept that comfortably. Maybe some will argue, if we used it commonly, it would become common, and lose its weight. And its negativity. But we DON’T use it commonly so it HAS weight and will continue to have weight and hugely negative impact. I don’t recall it ever being a “good” word. I’ve never been at ease with this and I found it a tad too confrontational, too “tough shit if you don’t like it”. At least the biographer might have discussed the politics of choice and language here but she never did; I found it unnecessary and hate being made to feel a prude. But it distinctly felt as if I were being offered the non-choice of “either you’re with us or you’re a failure, either you get it or you’re a traitor to feminism”. Probably over-reaction here, but I think that highly flammable issues should be sprayed with a layer of “context” mist or water in the form of discussion before they’re accepted as standard.

They were different times, and it must be nigh on impossible to understand how it was, how we felt. Whether it was the big hurrah of OUR BODIES, OURSELVES, or Billie Jean King, whether it was realizing you can’t major in sociology because it’s bs ( when the topic last week was presented, without irony, as “women as a social problem” in a school that was formerly “Connecticut College for Women”) or deciding that even if you were gonna marry him, you weren’t gonna be “Mrs” anyone. This was big stuff. It still IS – and I still check the “Ms” box – even when the only other choice offered is “Mrs.” (Mrs. Or Ms – scuze me?) And so much has been lost, fallen off, been taken away, from the rise in the use of “girl” for females over the age of say 15, and the use of scantily dressed women as sales pitch come ons, like the one I got in this week’s mail; it’s for a tanning salon so well, hey, how non-sexist is that, but it’s still a goddam woman in a scanty two-piece bathing suit. Kee-rist.

But The Dinner Party still rocks. There could have/should have (?) been several more triangular tables which offered us all the chance to learn about Asian and African women, other cultures, races, religions. No matter what choices Chicago made, we all have “better” examples (I would have chosen Harriet Tubman over Sojourner Truth.) I would have included Ruth First, Fanie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, or… oh who knows since there’s much I don’t know about women’s history. But what there is is brilliant, and wondrous and I imagine if I saw The Dinner Party today, I’d still stand there with my mouth open as I did almost 30 years ago, reveling in the colors and forms and statements and skill and artistry. Whatever I feel about the artist, the art still stands.