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Feminist Studio Workshop starts

The Feminist Studio Workshop starts October 15th

The Feminist Studio Workshop is a women's support community committed to discovering, exploring, creating, and sharing women's culture with the public. Members of the Feminist Studio Workshop Collective are designer Sheila de Bretteville, art historian Ruth Iskin, performance artist Susanne Lacy, novelist and poet Deena Metzger, art historian Arlene Raven, and graphic artist Helen Roth.

During the past three years, over one hundred women from all over the United States, Canada, and Europe have come to Los Angeles to study in the intensive two year Feminist Studio Workshop program in art-, environmental-, and language-related fields. The purpose of our learning situation is to create community; develop the unique situation of mutual support and responsible mutual criticism; and make strong, articulate individual and collective work. Through consciousness-raising, study and work, women learn to connect with, draw upon, and validate their own personal experiences and to understand their experiences in a historical and political context. It is this individual, group and class information that becomes the raw material for our creative efforts.

By working together in feminist community, we have not only created from present realizations of past experience, but we have had new and unique interactions, thus changing the content of our art. We have re-defined the function of art as raising consciousness, inviting dialogue, and transforming culture-a definition which reflects our awareness of social nature of art and our commitment to the public.

We now feel that our broad understanding of art encompasses historical research, design, printing, creative writing, community organizing, dance, administration, and a range of other activities carried in our community. The Feminist Studio Workshop is not only committed to the development of the talents of each woman and and the growth of the Workshop group. We ask members of the Feminist Studio Workshop to actively participate in the maintenance and development of the Woman's Building, to extend themselves to the larger Feminist community and general public, and to commit their energies to changing the values of our culture.

Last year FSW women had the experience of working with Los Angeles artists Faith Wilding and Bess Robinson, creating work for exhibition in our Community Galleries. This year, during March and April, Kate Millet will work with Feminist Studio Workshop students in the creation of Naked Ladies, a giant female sculpture installation, opening May 14th on our third floor gallery. Depending on the receipt of special funding for additional visiting artists, the FSW women will also be able to work with New York painters Joan Snyder and Louise Fishman and Chicago environmental/video artists Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield.

The Feminist Studio Workshop has chosen to remain a non-accredited program. Recognizing the value that a degree may hold for women in the FSW program, we are affiliated with several degree-granting institutions whose programs can be taken concurrently with the FSW program. BA, MA, MFA, and PhD degrees are available. Tuition and residency vary with each institution. The FSW program begins October 15, 1976. Tuition is $1200, the first payment of $600 is due in October. To apply, send a brief description of your education and personal background, examples of your work (if appropriate), and a statement as to why you choose to join the FSW. $100 non-refundable deposit applied to tuition must accompany application. An open house for women interested in working in this year's FSW will take place on Sunday, September 12th, 2-5 p.m.

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