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The Breakthrough Review
the arts • books • dance • film • music
artist Roberta Harris:
It's all about sharing../'
By Anita Davidson
To enter the home of Roberta Harris is to
step immediately into the world of a
working artist. The foyer opens onto a
large, well-windowed studio, once the
living room of the house that Harris and
her ten-year old daughter ("my soul-
mate") recently moved into. A tremendous worktable in the center of the
studio is laden with the artist's tools,
paints, brushes, books, clippings, objects
and oddities that naturally accumulate in
the midst of creative activity. Wall-to-wall
shelves, bench-high and filled with books,
underscore the framed and unframed
collages, Harris' latest completed works,
that line the walls. Sculptures, drawings,
paintings and collages by Harris are displayed throughout her home, along with
works by friends. The garage has been
converted into a second studio where
some experimental explorings are going
on now. Harris does not, however, expend all of her creative energies on the
making of art; she is also Houston's
pioneer instructor of women studies
courses in art.
"I wasn't sure what I was getting into
when I started. I accepted the offer to
about my own work-look at the great
things I'm doing'-that's not what it's
about" Harris explains, "it's about sharing. The classes are made up of women
who are working at their art; some are
just starting and some have been making
art for a long time. Their ages, experiences and lifestyles all vary greatly. We
have a lot to share, we need each other."
"...To learn that there have been
others...that their work was important."
This is how Kathleen Williamson expresses her reasons for taking a Women In
Art course. "The standard art history
texts are like reading swashbuckling adventure stories as a child; sooner or later
you realize that you are growing up to be
a woman and, therefore, can never be a
hero; that all the adventure and excitement are not for you. Women In Art
helps us regain a sense of possibility. We
are doing things; we are part of something important."
The first Women In Art course divided
time between slides and lectures and discussions with local or visiting artists, filmmakers and writers. As the course progressed and lectures expanded, a second
"It's not about competition —it's about
sharing; women sharing ideas, skills, dreams,
fantiasies, fears, hopes, needs and trust."
— Roberta Harris
tition-it's about sharing; women sharing
ideas, skills, dreams, fantasies, fears,
hopes, needs and trust. Trust is perhaps
the key. The sharing and trust coupled
with an expanded feeling of community
is extremely freedom giving."
In the late 60s and early 70s, Judy
Chicago and Miriam Schapiro initiated
programs and workshops aimed at giving
women artists the legitimacy of men
artists. "The flow of information, books
and articles from those activities created
an exciting energy that has continued
since then," says Harris, "both of them
started very publicly to talk about
women's art-$upportively. One of the
main ways women can be supportive is to
allow other women to come into their
studios and to talk—openly talk—about
their work, and that is a goddamn supportive thing to do!"
Harris says that whenever the class
goes to the studio or home of a painter-
or a weaver, or a poet-these women talk
not only about their achievements but
about their frustrations as well. "There
has definitely been a genuine warmth, a
communion, at each of these meetings,"
says Harris, "They have been like celebration!" i .
Harris' own current works, canvases of
swirling pigment, have a celebratory air
about them and a lyrical quality that relates to her tall (7 or 8 feet) totems with
their multi-hued stacks of layered pigment mixed with sand and roplex. The
totems will be shown at the Witte
Museum in San Antonio in an exhibit
opening May 15.
More recent than the totems are the
collages. "They really have everything in
them," Harris explains, "You see the
stick forms that go back to much earlier
work, the magic sticks that led to the
totems; the binding together of materials
I have been using for ten years with
dreams, visions, experiences, known and
unknown spaces...it's like life itself; a
multitude of associations, all different,
yet all related somehow."
This exploration of the associations
and relationships that make up our personal experiences is the main current
flowing through Harris' courses. "I don't
tell them 'write this down, it's important,' and I don't tell them to do this or
that project, to produce. We are all doing
what we have to do as artists, and we are
sharing it with each other-and with
others."
Women In Art students are learning
not only from women artists of the past,
but from each other; a learning process
that builds bridges between women artists
who often work in physical and/or intellectual isolation. Roberta Harris emphasizes the importance of sharing ideas and
experiences, pointing out that if this
information were being taught in standard courses, there would be no need for
women studies courses.
"This is not about separatism, it is
about meshing-coming together. It's
about the stuff of which our lives are
made. I believe this is a time for a very
big exchange of information. I don't
know if this is true everywhere; but this is
what I feel is going on around me."
r *
teach the course as a challenge. With the
exception of contemporary women working in the United States, my own exposure to women in art historically was the
same as everyone else's-about zero. I
read every book I could find that seemed
related to the subject, and decided that in
order to provide a clear understanding of
women in art now, it is necessary to go
far back into history and talk about not
only the art that women made, but also
the way in which their lives were formed
by biology, sociology, politics, religion...I
chose the 15th century as a starting place
for my lecture series."
Roberta Harris smiles warmly, generously. A quiet confidence underlies her
infectious enthusiasm as she talks about
^er classes. In the two and a half years
ce the Director of Houston's Museum
Fine Arts School, Ken Jewesson, asked
her to teach a course about women in art,
the course has expanded to include Women In Art II, and Harris has also initiated the course at the University of
Houston.
A lack of preconceived ideas, combined with a willingness to be openly self-
exploratory, created a situation in which
Harris is more a part of the class than
strictly the instructor. She is also learning
—seeking answers.
"I'm not up there beating my chest
course was needed. In Women In Art II
the students are primarily concerned with
relating to women artists in the community. The class has visited Houston artists
from a wide variety of disciplines;
painters, Dorothy Hood and the Baroness
Tamara de Lempicka, who appears in the
April issue of Viva; photographer, Totsie;
bookstore owner, Mary Ross Rhyne, who
talked about women in literature; gallery
owners, Patty Johnson and Katy Nail
Rodriguez; welder-sculptor, Gertrude
Barnstone, who has recently completed
an outdoor piece for St. Thomas University; ceramist, Carol Crow; and Rochella
Cooper, who works with fiber.
A social structure that demands from
the female full responsibility for the
home and family imposes an isolation
upon women that leaves their needs for
communion largely unmet. "She has not
been drinking with her friends, socializing
and communicating like men have always
done even if they had families," Harris
says "but that is changing some, I think.
Women are getting together more and
talking more."
Harris does not see the bonding of
women artists as a competitive act against
"men artists" but as a positive force for
improving the working climate of women
in the field of art. "It's not about compe- o
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