Women and Still Life

Because I am working on a couple of freelance things right now, and because I also do the social media and web stuff for my partner, Rob, which doesn’t seem like a lot but still, it’s a thing, and because I also work half time at the library, and I’m trying to revise some pieces, and then of course there’s this lovely space, this blog: I have a lot of stuff going on in my study, on my desk right now. So this is why, intermittently, I move my “real” writing to the kitchen table. Yes, I probably won’t get a lot done in the upcoming week on the essay I’m planning on writing about women and still life, but the material accumulates, and so it seems possible. Inevitable even.

The essay has staked out some territory.

And it seems appropriate to write about women artists from my kitchen because even now, we are always fitting things in, in spite of. Also, it’s March, which is Women’s History Month, and you might remember the #5WomenArtists challenge.

While I imagine that all of you reading this blog can name #5WomenArtists, it might be trickier to name 5 women who are still life artists. You might think of Clara Peeters. You might think of Rachel Ruysch:

Giovanna Garzoni:

Mary Pratt:

More, in no particular order:

Audrey Flack
Jennifer Annesley
Louise Moillon
Anne Vallayer-Coster
etc.

And I haven’t even really started thinking yet about still life photography by women.

Kimberly Witham, for example.
Vanessa Colareta
Laura Letinsky

There’s a catalogue from an exhibition on women’s still life photography I’d love to get my hands on but haven’t yet. But in short, the thing is, there are tons of women artists out there practicing still life assemblage. And so it is in all the arts these days, becoming “known” is so weird and hard and splintered, anyway. The least we can do is share those artists whose work we love. And to seek them out ourselves – because they’re out there, they’re working, producing some pretty wonderful work.

Feel free to share some of your favourites in the comments.