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17

Since her arrival, in her own time, at that further point, it has been [[strikethrough]] sometimes [[/strikethrough]] asked why Krasner didn't make [[strikethrough]] it [[/strikethrough]] the transition earlier. The answer may go to the heart of the issue of women as artists. There may be a personal emotional reason, and from that, a [[strikethrough]] philosophical [[/strikethrough]] deeper more general one.

It seems there was a burden of feeling accumulated during those years of the late '30s and early '40s that Krasner's reports of her WPA activities and [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] her work with Hofmann do not [[strikethrough]] extenuate [[/strikethrough]] fully explain. [[strikethrough]] something she does not identify. [[/strikethrough]] The message was somehow implicit in [[strikethrough]] these [[/strikethrough]] four lines of poetry by Rimbaud she [[strikethrough]] wrote [[/strikethrough]] lettered in black paint on her studio wall.

To whom shall I hire myself out? What beast must I adore?
What holy image is attacked: what hearts shall I break? 
What lie must I maintain? In what blood tread?

Translator Louise Varese--also a member of the New York art world in those days and wife of the avant-garde composer--wrote in her introduction to Rimbaud: "Noone who has read UNE SAISON EN ENFER will, I am sure, deny that it is a mea culpa--a heartbreaking confession not of faith but of failure." When Tennessee Williams visited Krasner's studio and [[strikethrough]] tried to ask her [[/strikethrough]] argued with her about the lines, she [[strikethrough]] put him out. [[/strikethrough]] asked him to leave. When I suggested they were peculiar lines for a woman believing in her own worth to take as touchstones, Krasner disagreed emphatically.

[[strikethrough]] He [[/strikethrough]] They expresses an honesty which is blinding (she said). I believe those lines. I experienced it. I identified with it. I knew what he was talking about. How much more reality do you want for Christ's sake? Those lines have to do with reality...not lies.

She is not about to go back and expose those feelings now. But

Transcription Notes:
unable to read written word near end of 2nd paragraph