Women’s Work as Artists and Writers

  In this newsletter, our second, Gretchen Butler, an artist living in Sonoma, shares her origins of becoming an artist, going back to her first drawing, 50 years ago, which began her path. In her essay, " Art Roundup 2021”, her art jumps off the page and changes since her children were toddlers to adults and her retirement from special education. I love her conclusion which states that at age 77, she still needs deadlines to figure it all out and evolve as the "witchy self-critic becomes friends with her inner time keeper." Marlene Shigekawa, a writer and documentary film maker, describes in her essay, "Stories and Moving  Pictures," her childhood in Anaheim filled with astonishment over seeing her drawings in her elementary  school classroom hanging with other drawings. Suddenly, "this black-haired girl “appeared on the wall  where many blonde-haired ,blue-eyed classmates could see her." What did it mean for Marlene to  become visible as a Japanese ...

When I was six, I would watch my mother drive our 1949 blue and gray Chevy, observe how she would shift the gears and step on the clutch. I would memorize every movement so that when I grew up, I could drive my car like she did and alone go to a field or the beach and take my easel and paint the surrounding landscape or seascape. I wanted to be an artist. When entering my elementary school cafeteria for lunch, I was surprised to see my drawing made from colored crayons hanging with other drawings. There on the wall was one drawing from each class. I remember drawing myself near the chicken coop where I would be feeding the chickens. Of course, in my creation there was the obligatory elementary school image of a sunburst in the upper right-hand corner, myself dressed in the yellow and brown poke-a-dot dress my mother had made and my black hair in pigtails. My mother always made sure that I was color coordinated. Yellow ribbons were tied to the end of my pigtails. Another time, when driv...

  During my toddlers’ nap time, I glanced around the kitchen and sketched the eggbeater on a whim. My version was askew, which reflected my life. However, the feel of the pencil on paper was pleasing, and the egg- beater metaphor made me smile even though I was in heartbreak mode. That first drawing 50 years ago opened a gate for the can opener, watering can, stove and ironing board. Then, children, fishermen, petunias and chickens danced onto pages. Drawings translated into prints from linoleum blocks warmed in the oven, then clamped onto the kitchen table to be carved. The following decades, small increments of art in the kitchen amidst family hubbub saved my sanity. I especially did not want to take a class. I did not want anyone telling me what to do. Pleasure emerged from allowing shapes to emerge without judgment, without an end product agenda. Well, since I don’t like to waste stuff, the first rough prints became stationery for letters to my parents. I thank my parents for e...