The Story of Art Without Men-Katy Hessel

In 1989 a portion of my family, my Grandparents my Aunt and Uncle and cousins I was particularly close with, moved from Wadsworth, Ohio down to Fort Mill, South Carolina. It was from this little slice of heaven south of the Mason-Dixon line that golden memories were sewn into my brain forever. Nothing beat waking up to the honey-suckle scented golden rays of a Carolina sun filtering in through cloth blinds in my Grandparents' basement. Because we were kids, we didn't mind the sleeping arrangements of a mere sleeping bag and pillow atop thin Berber as our only barriers over hard concrete. Oftentimes we would stay up late playing video games or watching movies until we drifted off to sleep and woke up ignorant to the sleeping pains that old people whined about. Sometimes, when I would wake up earlier than my cousins, and, not wishing to disturb the tranquility of the room, I would gaze at two pictures that hung from the wall. One was called America's Star-United States Marshal's Service: 1789-1989 which is a beautiful rendering of dedication to the U.S. Marshal branch of the United States Government. Don Crowley paints Lady Justice proudly on the U.S. Marshals Dockett Book surrounded by pistols, faded photographs of the men riding along the frontier on horseback while in service and draped in a weary thread of Old Glory. The other painting that hung right next to Don Crowley's is probably my favorite in the entire world. It is called Season Of The Eagle by a woman with a remarkable talent for capturing beautiful images of America's southwest named Bev Doolittle.

In Season of The Eagle, a band of Indians on horseback march in cadence along the lower face of a mountain. To their left is the rock base—in what imagination is led to believe—of a massive range. On their immediate right is the surface of a mountain lake with unpolluted waters so clear that one almost has to strain their eyes to detect what is there, and what is a reflection. From the scattered snowdrifts that have collected within the various cavities of the rocks, Bev Doolittle skillfully uses this reflection of the lake to cloak the traveling warriors under the protective wings of an eagle with one wing spread upon the rocks and the other scattered across the still waters of the lake. Breathtaking. "In the life of the Indian, every new day, every encounter with bird or beast, and everything he owned or wore related to his religious belief that all creatures were the creation of the same great power, and therefore were brothers. Because of the special reverence that Indians have for the eagle, I was particularly happy to find that hopeful message in the snow."-Bev Doolittle Admittedly, before I cracked Katy Hessel's book, my knowledge of art, both by men and women, was, to stretch the liberty of euphemism to its maximum, extremely novice. In my youth, I found field trips to the art museum extremely cold and boring and never took the time to appreciate what was being shown to me. In later years though, the various veins of artistry began to reveal themselves and grow clearer, plucking slightly at first, then stronger at my heartstrings. Without realizing it, by the time I had arrived in my teens, women artists had played a significant role in my life. Now, mind you, I do not restrict my interpretation of art strictly to easels, canvases, and paintbrushes. No. My interpretation of art—which I believe many aficionados would agree with—includes a multitude of realms. Be it music, writing, filmmaking, photography, performance, or painting. There are many different avenues worth venturing to satiate the palate of what interests you. The first rated R features I had ever seen had two of the strongest female leads that have stood the test of time against their male counterparts, that of Sigourney Weaver's Ltnt. Ripley and Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. The first concert I had ever gone to, Lollapalooza 1995, featured two female-centered headliners that were my favorite at the time, Hole and Sonic Youth. The first time I had ever crowd-surfed and moshed was at an L7 concert in 1997. Some of my favorite movies were directed by strong women filmmakers, Suburbia by Penelope Spheeris and Point Break by Kathryn Bigelow. I listened to Queen Latifah's Just Another Day and felt the lyrics while head-nodding to the melancholy beat and cheered on Laurie Strode as she did battle with Michael Myers. These are just a few appreciative nods to the women of my youth who brought more to the plate of passion than I had ever taken the time, until I was an adult, to even realize. In later years this would grow to include many others whom I love and revere very much including Ayn Rand, Alice Glass, Margaret Mitchell, Haim, Awkwafina, Teresa Hsiao, and Aimee Mann (to name a few). And Tulsi Gabbard is the only politician that I have complete faith in, whom, eventually, I do hope becomes the first woman president of the United States. Needless to say in this second latter-half of my life, I have come to appreciate what women have contributed to the various realms of artistry. The hard work and exquisite beauty which are beyond what is simply skin-deep and directly correlated to their skill sets. Unfortunately, as is thrown under the microscope and examined in Katy Hessel's book, such reflective appreciation is an anomaly. Men not only have time and again failed to appreciate what women have contributed, but, more often than not, absorbed this work as their own, and robbed the architect of its recognition and just due acclaim. Now, not to get it twisted, as anyone who knows me knows that I am far removed from the feminist movement and find those emasculated cucks who falsely champion women's rights to get laid as some of the most despicable parasites around. [Ladies, I implore you, please keep an eye out for these dirtbag con-boys, for they are the douchiest of bags]. But that is not to say I do not respect the plight of women's hardships over the years. And this despite the evil looks and nasty remarks I received from bitter old lesbians when I held the door open for them out of courtesy when the film Women Talking let out. *You try maintaining your well-founded respect for women's rights after being stabbed with murderous eyes and hissed at through gritted teeth "I can get it myself, thank you very much."* Katy's book, I found, despite occasional salubrious dipping into the waters of embitterment, was delightfully insightful. This was well-written, arduously researched, and well-fortified with the most respectable of foundations: Passion. It was within this book that I became acquainted with forms like Dada, surrealism, and experimental performance art. For instance, I had no idea of the lengths that Yoko Ono went to in her "cutting" exhibition. And, based on her affiliation and influence with mega-celebrities and satanic-flavored stroke, I was aware of who Marina Abramovic was, but not of the lengths she would go to achieve the intended end of her art—where various weaponry was placed upon a table on a stage and the audience was welcome to do whatever they wished to her body with whatever instrument they liked. Which, to the novice, may seem absurd and extreme. But, if I am to lay all of my cards face up on the table, I and a collective of friends used to wrestle in barbed wire and smash lightbulbs and fish tanks over each other's heads simply for the video-aesthetic. And to criticize Marina's method with a high-fallutin air of superiority would be downright hypocritical of me. So who am I to judge? Katy's book is very easy to read and the writing is solid as well. But I must warn those who open the pages with a conservative eye that Katy's prose is drenched with leftist sentimentality and overtly biased against right-leaning politics. Yet, if you are familiar with the arts community, it is practically a pre-requisite (despite the suffocating proof of its benefits operating contrary to the intention) to despise capitalism and hold reverence for Marxism. So, that being said, if you can manage to sludge your way through the new-speak gibberish of pro-nouns, this is not a bad read. So far as to answer for the absence of one of the most apropos artists that fit the bill of such a book as Margaret Keane, and monumental greats like Bev Doolittle, I must pull a quote from Katy's unofficial epilogue "Despite my efforts to create a linear narrative for the purpose of clarity, the 'story of art' is not straightforward and narrow, and certainly not limited. And this is just a fraction of non-male artists who have contributed to this story. History is constantly being, and will continue to be, rewritten day by day." I can only further deduce their exclusion from Katy's book by the reasoning of being out of sync with the tether that bound together the artists represented. These women were freedom fighters who spoke out despite every effort being implemented to silence them, efforts, more often than not, which proved to be successful. That is until now. Through the medium of Katy's passion, these forgotten women live and breathe again in a new (and deservedly) appreciative light.

Good read. Educational. Highly recommended for the open-minded conservative wishing to break free from an echo chamber.

Grade: B

Verdict: Read