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[[image: thread design]] May 13, 1980 Lucy Lippard 138 Prince Street New York, NY 10012 Dear Lucy: As you know, I am no longer actively associated with the Feminist Art Institute, but because of my involvement with the Institute over the last three years, I would like to share some of my concerns about its future with you. I think the feminist community is in agreement that there is a need for a women's building in New York City which would eventually embrace all the arts. Although continuing education is an integral aspect of such an institution, providing women with an opportunity to develop art-making skills in a supportive environment, we must not neglect the original plan for a full-time two-year program. Such a form of instruction resembles post-secondary conventional liberal arts education in that it is a long-term program designed to prepare a person for life. Unlike the more traditional approach, we need to reverse early conditioning. While the former prepares one for absorption into mainstream culture, the program I envisioned would provide inspiration for discovery of a new form language and development of the critical awareness necessary for survival as a feminist artist. My educational concern is with mastering the art of survival and self-nurturance. I am equally concerned with a cultivation of one's own esthetic precepts, for which the process of consciousness raising itself is the teacher. As opposed to the conventional, linear, tunnel vision of patriarchal art education, our process is by nature more cyclical and dynamic. There is no a priori expectation of certifiable achievement; rather, achievement is measured in subjective and personal terms similar to the way the artist functions in her studio. Here the traditional notion of student as vessal gives way to a new student-teacher relationship of peerdom and collaboration. Central to this pursuit is the fusion of one's increasing awareness on a political and historical level with the act of art-making. Miriam Schapiro, 393 West Broadway, New York, New York 10012 (212) 966-1694
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