Some Women
This project is a catalogue called “Some Women: 100 Ink Drawings of Women as Subject or Artist,” which features quill pen and ink drawings that I’ve created based upon images of women depicted throughout art history and images of work by women artists.
On November 8, 2019 I gave myself an assignment to make ink drawings.
I have been teaching for 15 years and have never applied this medium in my own practice. In my drawing classes, I ask my students to buy ink and a quill pen set. I am completely seduced by the line quality of the quill pen. It never fails me. There is nothing like it.
I was already working on two long-term projects in my studio, but I wanted to start on a new project — something more immediate. That’s when I began making quick ink drawings. They didn’t need to mean anything special. They could be simple and small and live in a box. I wanted something I could work on at my kitchen table – something to do if I couldn’t make it to the studio. I posted the first drawing on Instagram on November 8, 2019 and asked people to send me postcards with images of women depicted throughout art history and images of work by women artists. About a dozen people sent me postcards or digital images. I had also started looking through a book given to me decades ago by my grandmother’s friend, a Time Life Library of Art book called American Painting 1900–1970. This book was a good example of what I was taught in school. It mentions only three women artists. With the drawings I made from this book I started to examine how women are depicted in art made by men. The images I selected to redraw focused on the female body. I began to notice what the women were doing, how they were sexualized, and what the narrative revealed. I thought about what I had been taught in Art History—what I knew, what I didn’t know, and also what I didn’t know how to find for myself as a white lesbian. Why were there so many men showing me what the women were doing? Where were all the women artists?
This collection of drawings is not all inclusive—however, I knew I wanted to start with images of women portrayed by male artists, and include work by queer artists and artists of color. I am not an art historian, I make pictures—through looking, remaking, questioning, and repositioning images to understand the world around me. The creative process often raises more questions than answers. I used some of the images that were sent to me, and I also researched to find others. I finished the last drawing on March 28, 2020. I made a total of 160 drawings and tore up five. This project was exactly what I wanted—the drawings filled up a box, which in turn filled me up. This project introduced a new medium into my practice and made me aware of new artists. It made me slow down and look at every little part of these pictures of art from the past. I saw women doing housework, dealing with motherhood, being angry and violent, being strong, protesting, and being sexual. After completing about 90 drawings, I realized I needed to archive them in a catalog. At the very least, this is a short art history lesson. I wish for you to experience three things with this collection of drawings: 1) You see what is going on, 2) You cry and then laugh, 3) You move forward with strength.
Truly,
Libby Black
Artemisia Gentileschi
Alice Neel
Catherine Opie
Correggio
Ana Mendieta
Emma Amos
Dorthea Lange
Gordon Parks
Graciela Iturbide
Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec
Paz Errazuriz
Yuki Ogura
Wangechi Mutu
Thomas Eakins
Laura Aguilar
Lili Elbe
Guerrilla Girls
Picasso