New Haven Journal Courier, May 12, 1983
by Kathleen Mary Katella
staff reporter
Women get out your dust rags.
"Spring cleaning" is the title of the feminist art exhibit opening today at 817 Chapel Street.
On Sunday, a two-foot-high cake that looks like a big Comet can, baked by Hamden artist Beverly Richey, will be among the highlights at a reception from 2-5p.m. (Yes, you can eat it.) Susan Orange of New Haven will use a scrub brush and lemon-scented cleaner to wash down her old canvases, virtually throwing away artwork she produced when she was a younger artist.
This is the first exhibit in New Haven sponsored by the new local chapter of the Women's Caucus for the Arts, a national organization for women, according to member Betsy Haynes. It will run Thursday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m. until May 28th, in a second-floor room owned by the feminist Theater Light and Shadow.
The show will include local contributions to an art genre Ms. Haynes said achieved popularity in the 1960s. "Feminist art is basically art done by women," she said, adding that women artists have never achieved as much notoriety as men for their work. She said the genre includes everything from women's paintings to the way women decorate their houses. "Just about anything, I say a woman makes is a woman's type of art."
This exhibit's title signifies the need for women to get back to the basic reasons for the feminist movement, Ms. Haynes said. "The women's movement needs to get back to its roots," with a basic concern for "maximum personal freedom as people. Art has been a way of expression," she said.
Artists at this exhibit pursue spring cleaning on an intellectual level. Ms. Haynes, a 33-year-old photographer, is including in the exhibit a collage of photo [sic] of women from around the world. Ann Langdon, who organized the artists in the exhibit complimented her pieces with this definition of spring cleaning:
"Discarding what is no longer useful or relevant... Readjusting clutter so that it fits into containers... Getting rid of a functional superstructure in order to see and appreciate an introspective structure...)
Simply, getting in touch with what she considers personally vital for women.
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES ABOUT RICHEY'S ART/LIFE
