Tapping into the magical zeitgeist can be an under-the-radar activity for many artist/alchemists. And then there are these blips on the radar when they get seen or heard.
I went to a talk at the Brooklyn Museum Sackler Center called “Fashioning Personae: Collage, Gender, and Feminism.”
One of the presenters was the performance artist Colette, who is sensitive and lovely, like all visionary healers. Her strong work wasn’t received as positively as the work of other women artists of her time. Not that she is marginal, but she hasn’t been canonized or refashioned by the feminist artist literature. She suspects this is because she is so girly, frilly and feminine. She was lamenting her situation to the audience.
In a Brooklyn Museum elevator after the event I overheard two young women talking about Colette. ‘She was so insecure,’ they both agreed, ‘Why was she talking about other artists being more famous than she is and using her ideas?’
Because Colette didn’t have her voice stolen, she had her visions stolen. But she can still sign her name:
And who else? Women artists who’ve had visions stolen or echos silenced?