Bus Tour of Downtown - and starting to analyse The Dinner Party!

This was day two of our New York trip.  We decided to get the bus tour around DownTown.  This took us round the southern part of Manhattan and through the shopping and business districts.  The bus guide was particularly good at telling us about all the different films that had been shot in specific areas of NY.

We had tickets which also took us on a boat trip around to the Statue of Liberty.  We were set down in time to walk to the pier for the 1130 boat, but took a wrong turn and had an extra half hour walk so we just missed it.  This turned out to be an advantage as we sat on the viewing deck of the pier, and I enjoyed half an hour drawing the Brooklyn Bridge.   We were only allowed to sit in a specific area because there was filming going on that required the Statue of Liberty taking place and we needed to be out of sight and earshot of the cameras.

The ferry ride was wonderful.  Anita and I stood at the front of the ferry for the whole hour's tour.

From the top of the pier, where I sat to draw.

Approaching Lady Liberty

The Statue of Liberty

And again

Looking back at Manhattan Business District

Staten Island Ferry

Brooklyn Bridge

Back where we started.

By this time Anita was cold, so we took refuge in a warm coffee shop before retracing our steps back to the bus pick-up point.  The weather had been so bright and mild on the boat, it seemed strange that all the garden squares still had snow piled up in them.  We completed the bus tour, had a pizza for dinner and returned to the hotel for an early night.

I sat in bed, studying the Judy Chicago book.  As a university art teacher, she said she had learned to "speak in tongues" i.e. to make artwork whose content was indecipherable to most viewers.  This is pertinent to me, as I want my artwork to have a clear and simple message - yet I found her Dinner Party did not give a clear message about why each woman represented was significant.  She states she tried to make the content more accessible and strengthen the imagery so it was more overtly female focussed.

Judy Chicago started as a portrait artist, oil on canvas, then moved to learn airbrushing via auto body school.  She was very keen that the colour and surface should be fused together, and disliked the way oil paint sits on top of canvas.  Then she discovered china painting and spent 2 years learning how the colour was vitrified into the glaze. Chicago was experimenting with multiple firings to get nuanced colour fades, and reflecting on gender differences.  She pushed the technique from the instructions on how to paint a specific motif (e.g. a baby rose) into developing her iconography.  At this stage, Chicago was aiming to paint a series of 100 china plates about 100 women in history, for mounting on a wall.  Then she considered Leonardo's Last Supper - which in contemporary terms would be a dinner party - so the plates needed to be on a table!  She noted there were 13 men at the Last Supper, yet if 13 women are together, it is a witches coven!  She wanted to create an historical representation of Western Civilisation, but from the distaff side, and considered The Dinner Party as "a reinterpretation of the Last Supper from the point of view of those who've done the cooking throughout history".

The first 13 plates were flat, and portrayed the narrative via her china painting technique.  Chicago decided the rest needed to start to become more 3D as a metaphor for women's increasing struggle for liberation.  A new set of skills was required.  A major development in technique was required for dimensional plates, multiple firings and surfaces emulating Japanese ware.

The original idea for the table linen was for a 48 foot long tablecloth with circles of embroidery around each place setting. For ease of working, it changed to a runner for each piece, running from front to back of the table, rather than along it.

Chicago notes how her skills developed along the way, in order to realise the ideas she has.  She developed the china painting technique into a vehicle to express a feminist message.   She did not have the skills to make the 3D plates, so worked with the ceramics department (i.e. she delegated the craft activities, as her skills are Art).   She wanted to use fabric and stitch for its appropriateness to the female agenda, its visual congruence.  Once again Chicago brought in the craft skills and used other people's skills to achieve her feminist message.  She observes she brought her own organisation skills from teaching projects and used them to achieve this project.

Chicago wanted this project to be a permanent exhibit. Many potential venues refused to display it, as it was too controversial. It was originally displayed in San Francisco (very liberal state, positive about many minority groups), then Dr Elizabeth Sackler proposed a Feminist Gallery and (presumably, bought and then) donated The Dinner Party to the Brooklyn Museum, NY. This has greatly increased their footfall.   Chicago notes since the opening of this Feminist Gallery, statistics show an increase in solo shows for women and feminist artists.

And I have not even started reading about the individual pieces yet!