This book presents the work of more than 150 women artists who live or once lived west of the Mississippi River. The first half of the book consists of fifteen interpretive essays examining the work and concerns of 19th and 20th century artists working in a broad range of media (including photography, quiltmaking, painting, printmaking, clay art, sculpture, digital art and more). Concepts of community, identity, spirituality, and locality are explored in interdisciplinary contexts. Histories and critical reappraisals of gendered representations of the American West form the backbone of these essays.
The second half of the book is an alphabetical directory of the artists discussed in the essays, with biographical information, notes on exhibitions and collections, and the artists’ own statements about their work and their visions. Together, these artists represent the full spectrum of ethnicities and cultures that comprise the American West. The text is lavishly illustrated with nearly 300 reproductions, including 60 in color.
With essays by Dorothy R. Zopf, Kate M. O’Neill, Susan R. Ressler, Margaret D. Jacobs, Susan Peterson, Tee A. Corinne, Gail E. Tremblay, Tiska Blankenship, Peter E. Palmquist, Martha A. Sandweiss, Joan M. Jensen, Terri Cohn, Corinne Whitaker and Betty LaDuke, and an afterword by Phoebe Farris.
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