More about Miriam Schapiro
Works by Miriam Schapiro
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No, Miriam Schapiro is not your cute, innocent senior who knits and paints flowers, no matter what a Google image search tries to tell you.
"Mimi Appleseed," as she was called by friends and family, was famous for being “the welder of the sisterhood." She is a central figure in American feminist art. Also, she collected handkerchiefs and painted digital vaginas.
“Be independent, not an appendix," that’s what little Mimi was told by her parents. Besides being really good with words, they actually encouraged their daughter to become an artist. At the tender age of 14 she was already painting nudes at the MoMA. The Schapiro family was no stranger to art. Mimi’s maternal grandfather was the guy responsible for many, many sleepless nights. He invented the movable doll eyes that have been haunting your dreams since forever. Thanks for that. Her uncle was the first one to give her paint and her dad mentored her by giving her drawing lessons from the age of 4. Mister Schapiro himself was a busy bee as well. He studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York, all while impregnating Mimi’s mother on the side.
After graduating, Mimi struggled to make money just like you and me. Aside from her job as a children’s art teacher she also worked as a real estate secretary and bookshop assistant in New York. Eventually she did become a successful, full-time artist. I feel the superb supportive parenting of the parents Schapiro made it almost impossible for Mimi not to become one of the most bitchin’ feminist artists ever. Parents nowadays can learn a lesson or two from them, if you ask me. (Yes my dear aspiring artists friends, you may quote me on that.)
Mimi married fellow artist Paul Brach, basically because he was the first man she met who was genuinely interested in her as a person. Apparently men those days weren't all that fond of women who had something to say, let alone one who had the urge to create something other than babies. We still have a long way to go, dear Mimi.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Miriam Schapiro
Miriam Schapiro (also known as Mimi) (November 15, 1923 – June 20, 2015) was a Canadian-born artist based in the United States. She was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a pioneer of feminist art. She was also considered a leader of the Pattern and Decoration art movement. Schapiro's artwork blurs the line between fine art and craft. She incorporated craft elements into her paintings due to their association with women and femininity. Schapiro's work touches on the issue of feminism and art: especially in the aspect of feminism in relation to abstract art. Schapiro honed in her domesticated craft work and was able to create work that stood amongst the rest of the high art. These works represent Schapiro's identity as an artist working in the center of contemporary abstraction and simultaneously as a feminist being challenged to represent women's "consciousness" through imagery. She often used icons that are associated with women, such as hearts, floral decorations, geometric patterns, and the color pink. In the 1970s she made the hand fan, a typically small woman's object, heroic by painting it six feet by twelve feet. "The fan-shaped canvas, a powerful icon, gave Schapiro the opportunity to experiment … Out of this emerged a surface of textured coloristic complexity and opulence that formed the basis of her new personal style. The kimono, fans, houses, and hearts were the form into which she repeatedly poured her feelings and desires, her anxieties, and hopes".
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