Spiral women: Locating Lesbian activism in New Zealand feminist art, 1975-1992

Journal of the History of Sexuality

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 292-320

  Collard, Judith ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ART; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; EMPLOYMENT; ETHNOLOGY; FEMALE; FEMINISM; GENDER IDENTITY; HISTORY; HUMAN; HUMAN RELATION; LEGAL ASPECT; LESBIAN; NEW ZEALAND; POLICY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; PUBLIC OPINION; PUBLICATION; REVIEW; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS; WRITING;

ART; AUTHORSHIP; CULTURE; EMPLOYMENT; FEMALE; FEMINISM; GENDER IDENTITY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOMOSEXUALITY, FEMALE; HUMANS; INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS; NEW ZEALAND; PUBLIC OPINION; PUBLIC POLICY; PUBLICATIONS; WOMEN; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS; WOMEN, WORKING;

EID: 34248571900     PISSN: 10434070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (154)

1. For discussions of feminist art in New Zealand the following texts are important: Juliet Batten, "Emerging from the Underground: The Women's Art Movement in New Zealand," Spiral 5 (1982): 24-28; Christina Barton, "Ten Years On: Reviewing the Terrain for Women in Art in New Zealand," Art in New Zealand 68 (1993): 50-53; Christina Barton and Deborah Lawler-Dormer, Alter/image: Feminism und Representation in New Zealand Art, 1973-1993 (Wellington, N.Z.: City Gallery, 1993); Christine Dann, Up from Under: Women and Liberation in New Zealand 1970-1985 (Wellington, N.Z.: Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson, 1985), 112-28; Elizabeth Eastmond and Merimeri Penfold, Women and the Arts in New Zealand: Forty Works, 1936-1986 (Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1986); Anne Kirker, "Women and Art," in Public and Private Worlds: Women in Contemporary New Zealand, ed. Shelagh Cox (Wellington, N.Z.: Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson, 1987), 83-102; and Anne Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists: A Survey of 150 Years, 2nd ed. (Tortola, British Virgin Islands: Craftsman House, 1993), 174-203.
2. Barton, "Ten Years On," 50-53.
3. Barton and Lawler-Dormer, Alter/image, 7-21.
4. Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists, 229, 175-76.
5. Batten, "Emerging from the Underground," 26.
6. Anne Kirker and Eric Young, New Zealand's Women Painters (Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland City Art Gallery, 1975), 4.
7. Kirker, "Women and Art," 101.
8. Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists, 276.
9. Kirker, "Women and Art," 98-99.
10. Marian Evans, "Spiral, 1975-" and "The Women's Gallery 1979-," in Women Together: A History of Women's Organisations in New Zealand, ed. Anne Else (Wellington, N.Z.: Daphne Brasell Associates Press/Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1993), 468-69, 472-73.
11. Marian Evans, Bridie Lonie, and Tilly Lloyd, eds., A Women's Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand) (Wellington, N.Z.: Spiral Group/GP Books, 1988).
12. Dann, Up from Under, 112-28.
13. Batten cites, for example, Elsa Honig Fine, Women and Art: A History of Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century (Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld & Scram, 1978);
14. Judy Chicago, Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1977);
15. and Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker, eds., Art and Sexual Politics: Women's Liberation, Women Artists, and Art History (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 24, 28.
16. Batten, "Emerging from the Underground," 25.
17. Ibid., 28.
18. Kate Woodall, "The Importance of Christchurch in the Women's Art Movement in New Zealand," Art New Zealand 68 (1993): 110-11.
19. Evans, "Spiral," 469.
20. Ibid.
21. Marian Evans, "Appendix: The Women's Gallery, December 1979-February 1984," in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 247-54.
22. Donna Awatere, Maori Sovereignty (Auckland, N.Z.: Broadsheet, 1984);
23. Ranganui Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle without End (Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1990).
24. Trevor Richards, Dancing on Our Bones: New Zealand, South Africa, Rugby and Racism (Wellington, N.Z.: Bridget Williams Books, 1999).
25. Alison J. Laune, "The Aotearoa/New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Campaign, 1985-1986," in Queer in Aotearoa New Zealand, ed, Lynne Alice and Lynne Star (Palmerston North, N.Z.: Dunmore, 2004), 13-24;
26. Laurie Guy, Worlds in Collision: The Gay Debate in New Zealand, 1960-1986 (Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, 2002).
27. Dann, Up from Under, 33-34.
28. Michele D. Dominy, "1979: A Cultural Analysis," Women's Studies Journal (New Zealand) 2, no. 2 (1986): 26-27.
29. Sylvia Barnes, "Coming of Age 1973-1994: The United Women's Conventions and Their Influence on the Women's Movement in Aotearoa/New Zealand," Raranga Wahine: The 14th Conference of the Women's Studies Association, 26-28 August, 1994, Conference Papers, Women's Studies Association, Wellington, N.Z., 1994, 11-17;
30. Dann, Up from Under, 22; Dominy, "1979," 25-40 .
31. Michele D. Dominy, "Lesbian-Feminist Gender Conceptions: Separatism in Christchurch, New Zealand," Signs 11 (1986): 280-81.
32. Barnes, "Coming of Age 1973-1994," 11-17; Dann, Up from Under, 22; Dominy, "1979," 25-40. A growing literature is available outlining the different feminist groups and events. These include Barnes, "Coming of Age 1973-1994," 11-17; Dann, Up from Under, Else, Women Together, and Pat Rosier, ed., Broadsheet: Twenty Years of Broadsheet Magazine (Wellington, N.Z.: New Women's Press, 1992).
33. Lesbian Art and Artists," special issue of Heresies 3 (1977).
34. Laura Cottingham, "Notes on Lesbian," Art Journal 55 (1996): 72-77.
35. Elizabeth Ashburn, Lesbian Art: An Encounter with Power (Roseville East, Australia: Craftsman House, 1996).
36. Ibid., 24.
37. Joan Kent, "The Art of Vivienne Binns," Art and Australia 30 (1993): 337-15.
38. Harmony Hammond, Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History (New York: Rizzoli International, 2000).
39. In her article on lesbian separatism, "Lesbian-Feminist Gender Conceptions," Dominy explores the complexities of lesbian-separatist society in Christchurch during the period under discussion. On the Blue House see Ingrid Kate Woodall, "'Dedicated to Women Who Work in Oils, Acrylics, Blood and Obscurity': The Women's Art Movement in Aotearoa and Its First Organisers" (master's thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, N.Z.), 1993, 25.
40. Linda Evans, "SHE 1973-1977," in Else, Women Together, 559-60.
41. "Christchurch News," Broadsheet 43 (1976): 36;
42. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 32;
43. Dann, Up from Under, 17, 128.
44. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 24.
45. Dominy's exploration of lesbian-separatism highlights the importance of such events as women's arts festivals in this women-centered community ("Lesbian-Feminist Gender Conceptions," 276-77).
46. Heather McPherson, "Reclaiming an Absent Joy-Women and the Arts," Research Papers '78: Women's Studies, Papers of Women's Studies Association Inaugural Conference, University of Waikato, 25-27 August 1978 (Hamilton, N.Z.: University of Waikato Press, 1978), 53-56.
47. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, "Dykes and Queers: Facts, Fairytales and Fictions," in Mann Wahine Maori: Selected Writings on Maori Women's Art, Culture and Politics (Auckland, N.Z.: New Women's Press, 1991), 39;
48. Sharon Alston, "Gay Pride," Broadsheet 10 (1973): 4;
49. and Julie Glamuzina, OutFront: Lesbian Political Activity in Aotearoa, 1962-1985 (Hamilton: Lesbian Press, 1993), 17.
50. Donna Suddens, "Sharon Alston," Broadsheet 112 (1983): 24.
51. Jane Zusters, "Allie Eagle: Artist," Art New Zealand 73 (1994-95): 53.
52. A photograph of an abortion demonstration in Auckland from 1977 provides an example of the use of the original image on campaign posters (Dann, Up from Under, 61).
53. "The Poster They Didn't Want You to See," Broadsheet 50 (1977): 9.
54. Heather McPherson, "Review: Allie Eagle, Anna Keir, Jane Zusters, CSA Gallery, 66 Gloucester St, Christchurch, April 17-30th 1974," Broadsheet 61 (1978): 37.
55. Conversation with Allie Eagle, 11 January 2006.
56. Dann, Up from Under, 55-63.
57. Images from the Christchurch demonstrations, including that at the Catholic Cathedral and the "This Woman Died: We Care" placard, were printed in Mary Sinclair, Marianne Doczi, and Vale Cole, "Forum: Abortion Tactics," Broaasheet 57 (1978): 26-27.
58. This photograph, taken by Jane Zusters, is reproduced in Zusters, "Allie Eagle: Artist," 53.
59. Ibid., 54;
60. Mrker, New Zealand Women Artists, 174-75.
61. McPhcrson, "Review," 36-37.
62. Dann, Up from Under, 133.
63. The written accounts of the emergence of the women's art movement in Britain and the United States is particularly rich, including Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, eds., Framing Feminism: Art and the Women's Movement, 1970-85 (London: Pandora Books, 1987); Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds., The Power of Feminist Art: Emergence, Impact and Triumph of the American Feminist Art Movement (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994); Lucy Lippard, "Sexual Politics: Art Style," in From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art (New York: E. R. Dutton, 1976), 28-37; Lucy Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist An (New York: New Press, 1995); and Chicago, Through the Flower. Two useful accounts of Australian feminist material are Janine Burke, Field of Vision: A Decade of Change: Women's Art in the Seventies (Ringwood, Australia: Viking, 1990); and Sandy Kirby, Sight Lines: Women's Art and Feminist Perspectives in Australia (Tortola, British Virgin Islands: Craftsman House, 1992), 9-25.
64. Zonta International is a civic service club for women founded in 1919 in Buffalo, New York, that was introduced into New Zealand in 1965. It takes its name from a Sioux word. Cherry Raymond, "Zonta International (New Zealand) 1965-," in Women Together, 297-98, 231-323.
65. Dann, Up from Under, 112;
66. the issue was Broadsheet 22 (September 1974).
67. A later Broadsheet issue contained an extensive special feature specifically devoted to feminist artists consisting of collected artists' statements. It was compiled by Juliet Batten, "New Zealand Feminist Artists," Broadsheet 110 (1983): 19-32.
68. The photography competition was first announced in Broadsheet 28 (May 1975) in the "Fronting Up" section on the inside front cover. It was won by Gillian Chaplin, and photographs from the competition were published in issues 33 (on pages 19-22) and 34 (on pages 19-21).
69. Advertising for the traveling exhibition appeared in Broadsheet 42 (1976): 13. The show traveled to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
70. Alison Mitchell, "Some Observations on the History of Women Artists," unpublished essay, Robert McDougall Art Gallery Archives, Christchurch, N.Z., 1974;
71. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 28-30;
72. and Alison Mitchell, Retrospective: Olivia Spencer Bower (Christchurch, N.Z.: Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1977).
73. Alison Mitchell, Women Artists: An Exhibition of Six Women Artists, exhibition catalog (Christchurch, N.Z.: Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1975).
74. Dann, Up from Under, 112;
75. Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists, 175.
76. In Wellington the Women's Art Studio was founded in 1975, and the Waikato Art Museum in Hamilton produced an exhibition celebrating women's suffrage in the same year (Dann, Up from Under, 113).
77. "New Group to Stimulate Women Artists," Christchurcf Star, 17 July 1974;
78. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 31-32.
79. Broadsheet 42 (1975): 39-40.
80. Heather McPherson, "Editorial," Spiral 1 (1976): 2.
81. Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 40.
82. Ibid., 36.
83. "Correspondence," Spiral 1 (1976): 50.
84. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 26.
85. Spiral 1 (1976): 9-14.
86. Eagle provided a bibliography consisting of twelve books and journals at the end of her catalog essay, including Off Our Backs, an American feminist newspaper; The New Woman's Survival Catalog (Berkeley, 1973); Anica Vesel Mander and Anne Kent Rush's Feminism as Therapy (New York: Random House, 1974); as well as the newsletter from the Sydney women's art movement and Suzanne Santoro's Per Una Espressione Nuova (Towards a New Expression) (Rome: Rivolta femminile, 1974).
87. Kirby, Sight Lines, 15. Eagle quotes from Nochlin's essay at some length;
88. see Mitchell, Woman's Art, 4.
89. McPherson in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 40.
90. Kirby, Sight Lines, 10-11.
91. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 27.
92. These include her defense of local feminist art in response to Lita Barrie's call for a postmodern approach to art. See Juliet Batten, "The Edmonds Cookbook and the Ivory Tower," Antic 2 (1987): 5-17;
93. Lita Barrie, "Remissions toward a Deconstruction of Phallic Univocality," Antic 1 (1986): 87-103;
94. Lita Barrie, "Further toward a Deconstruction of Phallic Univocality Deferrals," Antic 2 (1987): 18-47.
95. Juliet Batten, "What Is a Feminist Artist?" Broadsheet 110 (1983): 27.
96. Batten in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 52.
97. Allie Eagle, "The Women's Environment at the '77 Women's Convention: The Reality 1, Sprial 3 (1978): 28.
98. Kirker, New Zealand Women Artists, 175.
99. Eagle, "The Women's Environment," 28.
100. Ibid., 33.
101. Evans, "Appendix," 249, 251.
102. Ibid., 249-50.
103. Jane Arbuckle [Jane Zusters], "On Women as Artists," in Mitchell, Women Artists, 8.
104. Batten, "What Is a Feminist Artist?" 20.
105. Batten, "Emerging from the Underground," 25.
106. Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," 43-44.
107. Arbuckle, "On Women as Artists," 8.
108. These are reproduced in Woodall, "Dedicated to Women," figures 1 and 2.
109. Priscilla Pitts, "Jane Zusters: Painting It Over," Art New Zealand 52 (1989); 62-63.
110. Zusters in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 163-64.
111. Jane Zusters, "The Dilemma Implicit in Silence as a Strategy for Survival of the Renegade Artist," in "Lesbians Discuss Heterosexual Visibility in the Visual Arts," special issue of Lesbians' Newsletter, ed. Megan Cook (1990), no pagination. My thanks to the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Huit, N.Z., for sending me a copy of these transcripts.
112. Further images of works by Sharon Alston can be found on the following Web site: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/marian_evans/lesbian-landscapes/sharon.htm.
113. Kathleen Canning, "The Body as Method? Reflections on the Place of the Body in Gender History," Gender and History 11 (1999): 500-501.
114. Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
115. Wendy Larner, "Theorising 'Difference' in Aotearoa/New Zealand [1]," Gender, Place and Culture 2 (1995): 185.
116. Ibid., 177-90; Heather Goodall and Jackie Huggins, "Aboriginal Women Are Everywhere: Contemporary Struggles," in Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation, ed. K. Saunders and R. Evans (Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 398-423; Jackie Huggins, "A Contemporary View of Aboriginal Women's Relationship to the White Women's Movement," in Australian Women: Contemporary Feminist Thought, ed. Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns (Melbourne, 1994), 70-79; and Sitarani Kerin, "An Attitude of Respect": Anna Vroland and Aboriginal Rights 1947-1957 (Clayton, Australia: Monash University Publications in History, 1999), 28.
117. Linda Smith, "Maori Women: Discourses, Projects and Mana Wahine," in Women and Education in Aotearoa, vol. 2, ed. S. Middleton and A. Jones (Wellington, N.Z.: Bridget Williams Books, 1992), 34-35.
118. Tilly Lloyd, "Afterword 2: Some Thoughts on the Publishing of Lesbian Art," in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 240, 241-43.
119. Jill Livestre in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 119, 120-21.
120. Lloyd, "Afterword 2," 243.
121. Ibid., 244.
122. Sharon Alston in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 134-35.
123. Evans, "Afterword," in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 236-38.
124. Alston in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 134.
125. Alston, "Gay Pride," 6.
126. Suddens, "Sharon Alston," 24;
127. Glamuzina, OutFront, 15-17, 24;
128. see also Baynes, "Coming of Age 1973-1994," 11-17.
129. These women believed that "lesbian feminist ideas were not regarded as a viable political presence with heterosexual members of the collective consistently dismissing these ideas as a form of 'cultural' feminism." See Glamuzina, OutFront, 29;
130. Suddens, "Sharon Alston," 23. A more detailed but still guarded account of this incident can be found in Rosier, Broadsheet, 12.
131. Sandi Hall, "A Different Ten Years," Broadsheet 101 (1982),
132. reprinted in Rosier, Broadsheet, 92-97.
133. Alston in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 132.
134. Lloyd, "Afterword 2," 244.
135. Ibid.
136. Heather McPherson, "Editorial," Spiral 7 (1992): 11.
137. Rhona Vickoce, "Willa Birch," Spiral 7 (1992): 213 n. 2.
138. Larner, "Theorising 'Difference,'" 185-86.
139. Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth, The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976, revised 1988), 7-66;
140. C. T. Wood, "The Doctor's Dilemma: Sin, Salvation and the Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought," Speculum 56 (1981): 710-27.
141. The ongoing cultural unease around menstruation has been explored in advertising, literature, and personal reminiscences. See Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant, "Making Girls Modern: Pakeha Women and Menstruation in New Zealand, 1930-1970," Women's History Review 7 (1998): 565-81;
142. Ann Treneman, "Cashing in on the Curse: Advertising and the Menstrual Taboo," in The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture, ed. Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment (London: Women's Press, 1988), 153-65.
143. F. Allan Hanson, "Female Pollution in Polynesia," Journal of Polynesian Studies 91 (1982): 335-81, quotes at 350, 356-57.
144. Ibid., 358-59;
145. see also W. H. Goldie, "Maori Medical Lore," Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 37 (1904): 26.
146. Hanson, "Female Pollution," 358.
147. Bronwen Nicholson, review of "The Menstrual Maze: A Collaborative Art Environment Facilitated by Juliet Batten, at Greer's Factory, Auckland during June," Broadsheet 112 (1983): 46.
148. Chicago, Through the Flower, 135-37;
149. Arlene Raven, "Womanhouse," in The Power of Feminist Art: Emergence, Impact and Triumph of the American Feminist Art Movement, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994), 51, 57, fig. 57.
150. Lisa Tickner, "The Body Politic: Female Sexuality and Women Artists since 1970," Art History 1 (1978): 239, 245.
151. Roszika Parker and Griselda Pollock, "Fifteen Years of Feminist Action: From Practical Strategies to Strategic Practices," in Parker and Pollock, Framing Feminism, 31-32.
152. For example, Jacqueline Fraser never exhibited at the Women's Gallery and never wanted to; she felt frustrated by the lengthy feminist process, which she regarded as unprofessional. Keri Hulme, better known as a writer, was apparently uncertain about the appropriateness of her art work being included with other visual artists. See Evans, "Afterword," 237.
153. Priscilla Pitts, "The Resources of Women's Art: A Review of A Women's Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa (New Zealand)," Art New Zealand 50 (1989): 95, 93.
154. Livestre in Evans, Lonie, and Lloyd, A Women's Picture Book, 120.