When I was in school at SFAI a teacher, I won’t mention his name because I like him very much, but he said things like:

“Marin housewives making monoprints, just smeared paint” with a gesture with his hand and an expression on his face that contained every sexist feeling held by white artist men of his generation and before. 

I didn’t say anything, I knew I wasn’t part of the group of monoprinting smearers, that I had expertise when it came to printmaking and my subject matter was far from the subject of pretty colors. 

Yesterday I didn’t have time to work in my studio. It was Sunday, I overslept. I spent the day with my husband and babies hiking, cooking food, reading books, giving baths and changing diapers. 

At snack time when the babies woke from their naps, and I was playing in my books coloring and staining and the babies were coloring and eating crayons I heard my teacher and his disdain for “marin housewives” I heard the writing spoken     “She’s just a bored housewife” and I got mad and insecure at the same time. 

Feeling art done in the kitchen is somehow lesser than art done in the studio. That art done by a woman in the kitchen while her children are present is not serious art. 

It’s left me pondering, it’s left me feeling more political. 

  
I can’t do anything about racism, sexism, terrorism, hate, and violence. 

I can paint and write. I can wake up at 4:00am in the morning and work in my studio.