Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

During a time of Nazism and Stalinism in Europe, McCarthyism in the USA, and Jim Crow laws in the South, Black Mountain College of North Carolina (1933-1957) encouraged educational and artistic experimentation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and the fostering of individuality. The content of its arts curriculum was a study of the elements of form, its method, one of discovery and invention, with a goal of seeing and perceiving. Students and faculty were becoming thoughtful, curious, questioning individuals, who were not afraid to fail. They were a part of the experiment, a shared journey to create a more caring and inclusive world, regardless of sex, religion, or ethnicity. The practice of the arts was a way of life. Within this college, many increasingly acclaimed women artists were given the opportunity to explore and revolutionize their craft in a manner unconventional for the restrictive, often misogynistic attitudes towards women of the time. Women like Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, M.C. Richards, Hazel Larsen Archer, Karen Karnes, Susann Weil, Elaine De Kooning and Alma Stone Williams were given a space to create, educate, and learn. From Anni Albers’ constant evolution of weaving from craft to fine art to M.C. Richard’s synthesis of poetry and pottery, this paper investigates the submerged history of women not just as artists, but as educators, revolutionaries of their craft, social activists, vital to any study of Art history and a liberal arts education.

Presenters

Siu Challons-Lipton
Executive Director and Professor of Art History, Department of Art, Design and Music, Queens Univeristy of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States