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8/9/2019 12:50:30 PM

Women In Art, Where Are They? Still...

Joyce Wynes / Comment on this

This is an article about the inequality of women in the fine arts field- gender inequality. Gender inequality is worse in the fine art career fields than in most other career fields. Shocking isn't it?  Come on people, where is the outrage?

 


I think it is important for everyone in the "fine art business" to read the article Where Are All The Women Artists? by Erin Spencer, Contributor for ForbesWomen because it shows how long this gender inequality has been going on for women artists. And has gotten worse since 1985 when I created my painting, Women in Art, Where Are They?

 

 

  
Yes, only 13.7% of living artists represented in galleries in North America and Europe are women!

 

 

But these statistics are also important for those people looking to purchase art and art collectors/lovers. You are missing out on a huge segment of creative, unseen art from the female artist sector that records the history of art from another perspective!

 

 

FACT: When over 51% of the fine art created is hidden from view, you miss out on a huge sector of artistic talent. And those who control the fine art businessess & the marketing/critiqueing of fine art are doing that to us.

 

 

As someone who has an avid interest in viewing art that gives you pleasure and insight, and myself, as a creative, female artist with contemporary paintings that are competitive in the fine art world, we need to change this immediately.

 

 
The staggering statistics below are why female artists are always searching for answers why their art isn't "good enough" and taking so many marketing courses.

 

 

I know that was my reasoning. I felt it had to do with something I was doing wrong! Well, I don't think that way anymore. I am a statistic of the "masters in control of deciding who gets noticed in the art world".

 

 

Just to show you how aware I was of this problem since graduating from college in 1985, and how long I have been following this gender inequality issue, my 1st painting after graduating was named "Women in Art, Where are They?"

 

 
And it won 1st place in a juried 13 county show at the Cayuga Museum of Art & Science in NYS! Quilting was the only art form for many women since the beginning of time so I used that female art form and some famous male paintings to make my point!

 

 

One of the male viewer's at the opening night exhibition came up to me and said, "You know what would be great? If you actually made the quilt!"

 

 

OMG, OMG, I had just won 1st place and that wasn't good enough! Females always have to do more and even that isn't always enough! What he was doing was sending me back to quilting as a form of art as if the painting wasn't enough. If I was a male who created this painting, would he have told me to create the quilt?

 

 

 

Women In Art, Where Are They? - Acrylic - Canvas - 44 x 37 x 7/8 - Available - See More Info
 

 

 

The saddest fact is that the statistics have gotten even worse since 1985 for women artists since I created this painting!

 

 
An enlightened article for you to read: Where Are All The Women Artists? by Erin Spencer for ForbesWomen. I have copied the statistics paragraph here but please go online to Forbes to read the entire article. The 3rd paragraph from the article, that I put copied below, gives some startling statistics!

 

 

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According to the National Endowment for the Arts, 51% of living visual artists in the US today are women and, on average, those women earn 81 cents for every dollar made by their male contemporaries.

 

A recent study by the Public Library of Science found that of the permanent collections of 18 prominent art museums in the US, 87% of the represented works were completed by men.

 

Most recently, a joint study conducted in 2017, by artnet Analytics and Maastricht University in 2017 found that just 13.7% of living artists represented in galleries in Europe and North America are women.

 

 

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Unbelievable statistics in this article... I for one, as a long-time feminist and artist, am outraged.

 

First, I can't understand why all females, at birth, aren't designated feminists who stand up for their equal treatment and gender equality in this world. We all come out of the birth canal kicking and screaming up a storm no matter what our gender.

 

 

And second, as a fine artist, that my art is being neglected with many other wonderful, creative female artists because the "fine art controllers" feel we aren't worthy enough to be shown. How dare that we allow them to do this to us.

 

 

Again, art lovers and artists, where is the outrage? And women artists, we are the majority (51% of fine artists) so let's make sure we demand we get our fair due process. 

 

 

On a more postive note: I thank NMWA for starting the #5WomenArtists campaign. But it needs to be brought up more often on social platforms than just during Women's History Month! Let's agree to start #'ing it on every post. OK? Are you with me on this?

 

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8/6/2019 3:06:57 PM

Diversity: Do You Treat All People Equally?

Joyce Wynes / Comment on this

And is that even a possible goal in today's climate?

 

As a female, I know that I am NOT treated equally in many different areas of my life. Let me count the ways:

 

1.  When I worked for a corporation I was not looked at for advancement as the many men I had worked with even though I did most of the research for their projects.

 

2. As a female artist, it is more difficult for me to get into galleries and museums with my work. Here are the statistics to back this up that were reported in a Forbes article from various sources:

 

* A recent data survey of the permanent collections of 18 prominent art museums in the U.S. found that out of over 10,000 artists, 87% are male, and 85% are white. (Public Library of Science)

 

* Only 13.7% of living artists represented by galleries in Europe and North America are women. (artnet News) This is SHAMEFUL!

 

3. During meetings, and I have attended many, unless women become very vocal, I notice they are overlooked for the male views.

 

4.  And look at our federal government! They had a Women's Health Conference meeting and the only legislators around the table were men. OMG we really need to pick our legislators better. And younger with more modern views.

 

I could go on and on but it depresses me so much to think backwards.

 

 


 

What about racial biases?

 

I grew up in a racist environment.

 

My father was born in the South even though he had settled in NYS once he was married to my mother. And he was a racist. I was not and had black friends in school. One of the last conversations I had with him before he passed away was about race. And it is something I will never forget!

 

And some of the siblings in my family are racist. How does that happen? And the bickering to change my views are so tiring. I feel sorry for people who give so much weight to the color of someone's skin. It is just a color, not a determination of who they are.

 

As an artist, I look at color as a positive thing, something that gives me the opportunity to have a unique look and variety in my paintings.

 

I saw a big change in the last several years in acceptance of men and women of color, some good but a lot of bad too.

 

I thought things were getting better when I noticed more people of color on news shows giving commentary & our choice of a black president voted into office for 2 terms. Some things had changed but in the last several years race bias is rampant again.

 

The tone comes from the top to the bottom and the tone from the top has many racist overtones. So sad that people are condemned for the color of their skin. I just can't and won't tolerate it in my close environment anymore.

 

We are all the same and the color of our skin is just that, color and nothing more. When you think about it, how silly it is to be cruel to people because of the color of their skin. It makes no sense to me.

 

 

I think it is possible for women's equality to become stronger but I don't know if I will ever see gender or color bias go away completely.

 

I have fought for equality all my life as a female in all of my pursuits. It is tiresome and limits the potential of going as far as you can with your talents, whatever they may be.

 

Have you ever heard of the "Other" syndrome. I learned about it in my philosophy classes in college that it is human nature for people to want to have someone to look down upon. They do this to make themselves feel more powerful, better. Change takes a long time to propagate. I just heard a quote by Ivan Illich that I put below that makes so much sense to all of this nonsense for me...

 

"Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a more powerful tale, one so persausive that it sweeps away the old myths & becomes the preferred story." ~Ivan Illich

 

 

As a society, this could take forever and as an individual, that is a tall task for one person.
But, just maybe, if each person could come up with a more powerful tale for the equality and untrue beliefs that he/she carries around with them about gender and race, what a wonderful world it would be. Just take one powerful belief that you carry around that is weighing another person down. Then try to change that by coming up with a different story to create harmony in the world. I am going to try it.

 

My new belief for other female artists:
Female artists are just as good, and sometimes better, than male artists and can achieve whatever success they strive for. And I am going to share this belief with every person in the art field who persists and continues to ignore female artists who have some great work that is being neglected.

 

My new belief for racial bias:
Color is just that, a color. It does not determine who that person is as a human being.

 

Can you come up with a new, persausive belief that will create less weight for another person and repeat it over and over? Please share it below in the comments. And if you can't talk about this in a positive way, don't leave any comments.

 

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8/3/2019 7:44:42 PM

Turbulent Weather, Turbulent Times • New Painting

Joyce Wynes / Comment on this

If you are a follower of my paintings, you know that my artwork touches on the social issues of our day.

One of those issues that come out in my artwork is our environment.

 

 Our social issues and our weather patterns have been so erratic that life just feels like I am on a constantly moving roller coaster. From day-to-day, I get up in the morning not knowing what chaos will prevail that day. But I am sure it will be something that I will have to control my reactions to until the next event happens.

 

 As an artist, painting calms my world.

It allows me to fully engage within myself so that I don't make contact with the space outside of my painting area. My easel, my table of mediums, my brushes and anything else in that space I have carved out for myself that helps me create what I am feeling at the moment. That is my sacred space and I need to be alone while occupying it. There are many artists who listen to music or the radio or talk to others while creating or teaching their art.

 

 I am not one of them.

The amount of focusing and the multi-tasking that it takes for me to create my paintings is all I can handle at the time. Those other things distract me from the conversation I am having with my inner voice that leads me to the completion of my painting.

 

 Multi-tasking you ask?

I don't plan out my paintings beforehand other than choosing my color palette. So while I am creating a painting my mind is always asking me many questions. And believe me, it is a chatterbox!

 

 For example: what mixed media and texture could I put in this spot to make it stand out, should I place a large splotch of color here, what shapes and symbols can I add that make sense to my message, and what is it that I am trying to say through this painting because I really don't know what my message is until I am in the throes of the paint, am I finished or should I let it sit and talk to me tomorrow.

 

 Most times I let the painting sit for a day or two.

Then it speaks to me again and I change a little here. Then I let it sit again for a day or two and go back to look at it. I ask myself, "Is there anything I can add or take away to make the message more visible?"  Sometimes I work through this process for a couple of weeks.

 

 Then, one day, I go into my studio and I say... "Wow, this painting is finished and it has my visual voice.

 

 How I define my own visual voice?

Well, through my abstract paintings, I find a resolution to the issue that is plaguing me. That is why most people say upon viewing my paintings that they are visually stimulating in a happy way.  Resolving my inner voice makes me happy and that is reflected in my painting.

 

 There rests the duality of my paintings...a painting that visually stimulates good feelings for you / a painting about a serious issue that can stimulate a positive dialogue if you want it to with yourself or others.

 

 You don't have to like the dialogue about an issue to love the painting.

If it stimulates a good feeling when viewing it, that is all that matters to me as an artist. The dialogue that you might have as a result of it is just a side benefit to that which stimulates me to create it.

 

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8/3/2019 11:15:18 AM

New Mixed Media Paintings Update Which Leads to a New Service For You...

Comment on this

These 2 new paintings have a story behind their birth!

 

I had finished a painting a while back called, "Spacing Out", 30" X 24" X 1.5", Acrylic/Mixed Media on Canvas. Because I am always reinventing my home and office spaces by moving furniture and accessories around, I found that this painting tied everything together in my family room.

 

And I often hang my paintings around my house. One problem: I needed 1 or 2 more similar paintings for the other walls in the room but they needed to be a size I have never used before. So I got busy and created 2 new paintings in the size I needed-approximately 15" tall X 30" wide.

 

I especially need one for the wall that was only 43" wide. And it had to be hung above a lamp so it needed to be no taller then 15".

 

 

But when I get my creative juices going, it is difficult for me to stop. So along came another one that was an extension of Spacing Out 2, same size, same color palette, similar in message/style.

 

 

 

Below is a photo of the painting I wanted to create similar theme images for:

 

 

 

And this exercise for myself gave me a great idea for a new service for YOU!

 

NEW SERVICE:

 

If you find a painting(s) on my website that you love but you also need some smaller (or larger) paintings to fit in the spaces in the room that have a similar feel and look, I will create more paintings for you.

 

Just to let you know, these 3 paintings are for sale too. (just click the image to go to its page).

 

And there is another painting, Spacing Out Again, that was created as a 2-painting series with Spacing Out that can also be yours also. Take a look: Spacing Out Again • Acrylic/MM on Canvas • 30" X 24"

 


This series of 4 paintings would make a great addition to any room to give it a cohesive look.

 

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1. Please comment on my blog post. Let me know if this post was helpful to you or if you have questions

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