Artists in Conversation:

WHY IS THAT SO FUNNY?  With She Laughs Back 

Vianne De Santiago February 10th, 2024

    

    The She Laughs Back Artists' talk featured artists, M. Louise Stanley, Lorraine García-Nakata, and Kathy Goodell. They conversed about their careers during the 197os in the Bay Area as they emerged as young artists. These women have been creating art for over half a century and brought intimate stories from their careers to share with the audience for a lively conversation.

         Photos from Zines that were passed out during seating.

    Some highlights from the talk that stuck with me were Lorraine’s young adult years, the vulnerability of Kathy’s work, and the advice from Louise. 

    

Photo from the slideshow of Lorraine's work

    Lorraine discussing her young adult years as a Chicana stuck with me in a personal way. She found herself in the middle of movements and engaged with the revolution of thinking and visionaries. With the rewriting of forgotten history, to the analogies of how white feminism during the time excluded women of color, and Chicano people reclaiming their indigenous identities. Lorraine uses these experiences of her young adult years to create art that explores what made her, her. From the slideshow at the talk, she has artworks exploring the intersectionality of being indigenous and a woman in the US with her work, Peasant Shirt No Shirt, which has commentary on how American culture has made nudity into a taboo subject that indigenous cultures normalized as they go without tops and bras. Another artwork highlighted from Lorraine’s career was her work in the Southside Park Mural featured in Sacramento in 1977. She was the only woman to participate in the creation of this mural. Her artwork featured on the mural is on the pillars with two indigenous women in peasant tops. She expressed how others around her were afraid the mural would get backlash due to the nudity but were proven wrong when people of Chicano culture understood the piece and weren’t phased by the nudity.

    Moving on to Kathy, she attended Sacramento State as an undergraduate but transferred to San Fransico Art Insitute to finish her education. In San Fransico, she was introduced to new forms of creating art like depicting a dead lobster and focusing on what made it once alive. She was given an underground comic bookstore to run with her friends, but it was frequently robbed. She also expressed how during this time women were starting to control their own destinies. One artwork that connected with me from Kathy's line of work was, Stretching the Truth this piece was made from a love letter she was given from an intense partner she had in the past. The intensity and vulnerability of this piece struck me with awe. It was a new way of interpreting love that I hadn't seen before and was truly connected with it. I feel often when we think of past relationships, we try to bury them instead of exploring what really happened and Kathy does an excellent job exploring this concept. By wrapping the letter around the bungee cords to be weighed down by dumbbells, we are given a literal interpretation of "stretching the truth". When I saw this piece, I also interpreted it as a metaphor of how the words from past relationships can weigh down on us.

        Photo from the slideshow of Kathy's work

    Lastly, Louise brought us on a wild ride with her journey of being an artist and emerging during this time. Louise shared stories of interrupting art labs that were on acid trips, getting stoned with her friends to paint "bad art" together in the graveyard, and her advice for being an artist. Louise emphasized numerous times during the talk to create what you feel whether that be towards something or when thinking about a person, the feeling is more powerful than the thing itself. Her work, The Mystic Muse and the Bums that Sleep on the Golf Course behind the Oakland Cemetery became a transformative piece of her and when first viewing it, I could feel the impact of the painting. For me, the painting is almost like a representation of being a creative and artistic woman in this world. While Louise had great stories, the moral of her work for me seemed to not take art so seriously and to create what you want and how you want it. 

Photo from the slideshow of Louise's work

    The She Laughs Back Artist Talk brought laughter, growth, and community into one conversation. Through this show, these women are praised for the work they have done within their careers and the impact they have brought to the art world allowing for more women to be able to pursue their artistic careers.