29th Street Women

You can see my artwork in this exhibit here:
https://vashoncenterforthearts.org/2020/04/03/29th-street-women/

Over the last year, the 29th Street Women, a collective of five Oregon artists—Shannon Amidon, Barb Burwell, Pamela Chipman, Kim Lakin, and Kirista Trask—have been meeting in a studio on NW 29th Street in Portland to give one another professional support, critique each other’s work, and build conversations about key issues facing female artists. After reading Ninth Street Women, they were inspired to build a broader conversation about what they’d learned. The book is a social biography of five abstract expressionists—women working in New York in the mid-20th Century: Grace Hartigan, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell. Struck by their predecessors’ stylistic innovations and courage, the five Oregonians decided to pay tribute.

And so the the 29th Street Women show was born—an exhibit that features the collective’s artwork while also honoring the five New York artists whose daring has been so meaningful to its members. Each artist focuses on a single member of the Ninth Street Women, learning about her aesthetics as well as the obstacles she overcame. The collective’s work is not derivative of the pieces created by the earlier artists. Instead, it aims to celebrate their achievements and educate the public about their lives and work. To that end, the exhibit is complemented by informational panels about each of the groundbreaking artists.

The 29th Street Women links the past with the present and the east coast with the west, drawing connections and building awareness about the lives of those women whose break with convention has provided such inspiration to female artists in the 21st century.