Females in art

Have you ever been to a museum and wondered “where are all the females?”

No that is wrong … let me express myself differently.

Because let’s be honest, museums are full of women of all kind. A lot of the times naked, or with not that many clothes on and most of the times painted or sculpted (or whatever) by a man.

Let me try again.

Have you ever been to a museum and wondered “where are all the female artists?”

To be honest ….. I haven’t.
Because the things you see often become normal …. they become the norm.
And I never thought much of all those, mostly, male artists in museums.

Until recently.

“I am a feminist, I owe it to my daughter”

As some of you might know, I am a feminist.

For years I have been saying I wasn’t. Feminists, to me, were angry women who burn their bras, grow their armpit hair, and most of all, hate men!
I did not relate to that …. not at all! So yeah, I was convinced I wasn’t a feminist.
Then I met Jan, who is a feminist.
One day we talked about feminism. I explained to him what feminism means te me and why I don’t relate to that. I didn’t want to hate men, and I thought that people should decide for themselves if they want to grow their armpit hair. Live and let live! Everybody should do whatever the fuck they want.
I think Jan was a bit surprised by my definition of feminism. He might even have tried to explain to me, that to him, feminism is something else. I think I stopped listening …

And then I got pregnant and found out we were expecting a girl. I started to think about what it means to be a girl in our current world. I also started to examine my own younger years. I don’t want to talk too much about my younger years. A time where skinny was the norm. Where boys thought they had the right to judge you because your ass was bigger (it still is) than that of the prettiest (skinniest) girls in school. That’s a story for another time.

I came to the conclusion that men and women aren’t equal … at all. Let alone the people that don’t identify as man or woman.
I delved into feminism and discovered a whole new world.
I had to admit … I was totally wrong about the definition of feminism. I had to admit to myself that I too was a feminist. Not the angry one, that hates men, but the loving one that wants equality, for all groups … for all creatures on this earth. The one that thinks you should be able to do whatever makes you happy.
This is what I want to teach my daughter, I owe it to her.

Once you delve into a subject that is close to your heart, you start to find out more and more. New things. Things you didn’t realize were a thing.
Thanks to Damn Honey, a Dutch podcast about feminism, I learned a lot of new stuff! These two amazing women opened my eyes!

It was a podcast about art, and the absence of female artists in museums, that triggered me.
It’s so normal to learn about all the amazing male artists of the world. A lot of great art is made by men. And as a kid, learning about art, I never wondered why there were more male than female artists in museums. Maybe I didn’t even realized most art in museum was made by men.
I also never realized there were actually also a lot of female artists. I knew a few, but I knew a lot more male artists.

This is not a blog against male artists! Not at all! Like I said, a lot of the art I like is made by male artists.
This is about researching how we can change the norm.
A post about awarenesses.
And about my own search for awesome female artists, or other artists that are not men.

Artists that I would like to share with you in this series of blogs.

When I talked about this subject on my Instagram stories a few weeks back, I got so many great messages from people telling me they loved the idea, people suggesting books and artists and people that want to contribute! Thanks!!
From all the book suggestions, I picked two books that I bought.

A big important art book – now with women! By Danielle Krysa*

This book is full of awesome female artists in various disciplines from all over the world.
This books also contains cool projects for you to try

The other book is:
A big important artist: a womanual, by Danielle Krysa*

This second book is full of creative projects and great female artists. It has empty pages for you to fill with your projects. But to be honest, I think this book is too pretty to work in.
The book contains 30 inspiring projects, like how to “push your palette” (with some fun questions to help you pick new colors for a new palette), “change a tchotchke” (just googling images with this word is already inspiring!), “create extraordinary from ordinary”, “establish a creative ritual”, etc.

Another book on my wishlist is “Women in Art” by Rachel Ignotofsky.

For the people living in the Netherlands, Museum Voorlinden is exhibiting a collection of Louise Bourgeois’ art. According to the website it has been almost thirty years since the art of Louise Bourgeois has been shown on such a broad scale in the Netherlands

The next challenge is to pick the first artist to start with! Once you dive into this subject one awesome female artist after the other “appears”.

* these links are affiliation links, I will earn a small commission if you use these links and buy something. You will pay nothing extra!