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a note from Deena Metzger

January 25, 1979

Dear Friend,

I was thinking about the WOMAN'S BUILDING this evening and feeling grateful that there is a place where I can come to know women's culture in all its diversity. I was thinking that the BUILDING is not simply the site of a lecture or a course or a performance; it is an institution which belongs to women, whose purpose is to help us know who we are and what kind of society we want to build in accordance with our own forms, images, and values. I realized that the WOMAN'S BUILDING has to continue to exist if we are serious about having the world reflect our lives and our dreams and aspirations.

I remembered many of the things which had happened at the WOMAN'S BUILDING. The conference- Women in Design, Woman's Words, Women and Film, Women and Performance Art - were some of the very first in the country to bring women together around their work. I remembered the exhibit, "Works on Paper," and the wonderful "Women and American Architecture Show." Then there was the Eileen Gray exhibit, the Chicana muralists, and the Chilean tapestries.

The WOMAN'S BUILDING was the first cultural center to recognize and honor Grandma Prisbry; when we celebrated her 80th birthday she herself directed the installation. And then I remembered the times Adrienne Rich read, and Diane di Prima, Alice Walker, Meridel LeSueur, Audre Lorde, Mary Daly. I can remember when Angela Davis spoke, and Maria Barrego of the Three Marias, and Charlotte Bunch, Jill Johnston, and Rita Mae Brown. I remember when Not as Sleepwalkers premiered, and the performance "Three Weeks in May," which made Los Angeles more aware of rape and crimes against women. The BUILDING sponsored "Ariadne: A Social Art Project" in a performance at L.A. City Hall, which mourned the deaths of women victims of the Hillside Strangler and demonstrated the unity of women.

I had the opportunity to learn to design and print at the Graphics Center; to take self-defense and auto mechanics, to work at being a poet, to keep a journal, explore woman's spirituality and her history. I recall the times we danced, the music, Holly Near, Margie Adam, Meg Christian.... the Lesbian Art Project,  the Feminist Educators Workshop, the exhibit on the old WOMAN'S BUILDING at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which showed us our heritage.