Sallie Bingham

  • Events
  • Blog
    • Doris Duke
    • Best of 2024
    • My Favorites
    • Full Archives
    • Writing
    • Women
    • Philanthropy
    • My Family
    • Politics
    • Kentucky
    • New Mexico
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Theater
    • Religion
  • Books & Plays
    • Doris Duke
    • Fiction
    • Nonfiction
    • Plays
    • Poetry
    • Anthologies
  • Writing
    • Short Stories
    • Poems
    • Plays
    • Translations
  • Resources
    • Audio
    • Video
    • Print
    • Biography
  • About
    • Contact
 
You are here: Home / Art / Womanhouse

Womanhouse

March 16th, 2018 by Sallie Bingham in Women, Art 3 Comments

Laurie Simmons, Walking House, 1989; Collection of Dr. Dana Beth Ardi

Laurie Simmons, Walking House, 1989; Collection of Dr. Dana Beth Ardi; Photo courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York

Judy Chicago, the renowned, ground-breaking feminist artist is finally get the recognition she has long deserved. An article by Alix Strauss in the March 12th “Art & Design” section of The New York Times traces her extraordinary career. Among many other accomplishments, she raised craft, as created by revolutionary women, to the level of the so-called “Fine Arts.” Her “Dinner Party” after decades in storage has found a permanent home in the Brooklyn Museum. But calling The Times‘ section containing this article “Art & Design” seems to blur that accomplishment, as did The Times‘ review of Marilynne Robinson’s latest book of essays. The reviewer referred to the writing as being somehow like knitting.

Progress is always halting, as Chicago would be the first to mention. But she has, it seems, never given up, from the time when, at thirty, she started a women’s art program, at the time unknown, at California State University at Fresno. A few years later, when she was teaching at CalArts, she and Miriam Shapiro with their students created Womanhouse, which will be displayed this spring at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington. Unfortunately, the museum is retitling it Women House, which raises a host of questions.

We women very rarely own our houses due to the generations-long economic injustices we suffer. Women still earn, countrywide, seventy-one cents versus the dollar men earn at the same jobs. Banks have been historically reluctant to make down payment loans to women seeking to buy a house without a cosigner, expected to be a wage-earning man. Santa Fe is a sterling exception since a larger proportion of women here own their own houses outright than in any other town or city in this country.

Chicago and Shapiro’s original title, Womanhouse, seemed to acknowledge this fact: a house owned by a woman is a rarity in reality but as a symbol, it has great potency. Can a woman “own” a house she doesn’t in fact own? Can she freely create the mixed-media installations, hang the radical art, and offer the performances which in the original occupied bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bathrooms in an abandoned house in Hollywood—even if she wanted to and could afford it?

Whether we dare, or do not dare, with our work and our voices and our actions to make trouble, we are living in the midst of trouble, nationally and globally, trouble that no amount of soothing the waters is going to solve.

It seems unlikely. The other name on the deed might deter her.

But then how many of us would have the sheer gumption to describe ourselves as “troublemakers,” as Chicago does in The Times interview, comfortably and without hesitation.

Change, it seems to me, at any level and in any place, only comes with troublemaking and troublemakers. Yet we, as women at this moment in time, are so often expected to help to make things work: soothe troubled waters and troubled psyches and get the job—whatever it is, from washing a floor to running a government—to work.

As a woman remarked after the recent election of a mayor here in Santa Fe, “He knows how to work with everybody, he doesn’t make trouble.”

Yet whether we dare, or do not dare, with our work and our voices and our actions to make trouble, we are living in the midst of trouble, nationally and globally, trouble that no amount of soothing the waters is going to solve.

Anne Sexton, an unjustly forgotten poet of the 1960’s, described the old way of women and houses—the way Chicago and Shapiro and many others have fought to change. Sexton’s poem “Housewife” goes

Some women marry houses.
It’s another kind of skin; it has a heart,
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day,
faithfully washing herself down…

I plan to go to Washington to see Womanhouse before it closes on May 28th.

Share
Tweet
Share
Buffer8
8 Shares

In Women, Art National Museum of Women in the Arts Judy Chicago

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. James R. Voyles says

    March 16th, 2018 at 7:16 am

    Yes, Sallie, I had the same reaction to the Times’ rather dismissive tone toward the work of Robinson and Chicago, respectively, and, sadly, it seems that tone appears more often when the reviewer is another woman. I love your reference to “knitting,” which resonates from the long ago “troublemaking” here, Louisville! You are unfailingly apt in your remarks about the troubles in our current world that no amount of “soothing” will solve. “But, she persisted….”

    I fondly recall your generous gift of Chicago’s “Hot Flash Fan,” and your founding support of the Women’s Museum in Washington, DC.

    Reply
  2. Carol M. Johnson says

    March 16th, 2018 at 9:46 am

    Your continuing positive comments regarding Santa Fe’s feminine presence has triggered a desire for me to travel west. I’m taking a Road Scholar trip in May to learn more about Santa Fe, Taos, and the aura of the area, thanks to your enthusiasm.

    Reply
  3. Bonnie Lee Black on Facebook says

    March 16th, 2018 at 11:47 am

    Thank you, Sallie! Shared.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

You might also like

  • Judy Chicago - Tasting The Mortal Coil
    Judy Chicago, Again and Not Again
    One of the many things I’ve always admired about Judy Chicago is that she constantly reinvents herself....
  • Judy Chicago
    Harvest of Genius
    The rage expressed by some of the female faces, tongues extended, foreheads contorted, is still unacceptable by many who may unconsciously expect or hope to be soothed or lulled by art. One of the notes left for the artist by a visitor expr...
  • Photo of Sweet Briar College
    Women, Power and Money
    When you have learned to use your money, and your power, you will arrive at an appreciation of your womanhood unlike anything you have ever imagined....
  • Photo of Anne-Marie McDermott
    Some Remarkable Women
    I give you several women who have been seen as remarkable; they stand for a multitude of others who through timing, luck or geography are never given the accolades they deserve....
 

Subscribe

 

Latest Comments

  • Martha White on The Fruits of the Past Five Years: “Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings: “And suddenly a light is thrown back, as when your train makes a curve, showing…” July 6th, 11:14 am
  • Nenita on The Fruits of the Past Five Years: “I like your writings, I can relate to you. If I had been persevering and seriously aware of my interests…” July 6th, 11:13 am
  • Sallie Bingham on Whose Eyes: “Thank you, James – you are correct!” June 29th, 11:19 am
  • Martha White on Feeding the Fish: “Blinkying Report:: Our neighborhood rabbits have been observed leaping into the air three or four feet off the ground. It…” June 29th, 8:10 am
  • Martha White on Whose Eyes: “Subtle. The “b” stays silent—subtle, even.” June 24th, 12:59 pm

Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

Listen To Sallie

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

November 8th, 2024
This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

September 1st, 2024
This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

Upcoming Events

Jul 25
July 25th - July 27th

The 9th Annual Taos Writers Conference

SOMOS Salon & Bookshop
Taos MO
Sep 23
All day

How Daddy Lost His Ear – Garcia Street Books

Garcia Street Books
Santa Fe NM
Sep 30
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm MDT

How Daddy Lost His Ear – The Church of the Holy Faith

The Church of the Holy Faith
Santa Fe NM
View all of Sallie's events

Latest Tweets

salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
20h 1942957873966792785

It's important not to be ploughed under by the chaos and intemperance in #WashingtonDC. We don't live in that swamp, and we don't need to allow our hopes and dreams to be drowned out by the noise. "Reasons to Hope": https://buff.ly/Z8lH33D

Image for the Tweet beginning: It's important not to be Twitter feed image.
salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
1 Jul 1940081262770708499

Years ago a man I was in love with persuaded me to have a large fish pond dug near my studio. I think it was his attempt to be part of my necessarily solitary life there; like other such attempts it failed—and now I'm left with the fish pond! https://buff.ly/fGgnN39 #Koi #KoiPond

Image for the Tweet beginning: Years ago a man I Twitter feed image.
Load More

Recent Press

Sallie Bingham's latest is a captivating account of ancestor's ordeal
Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

“I felt she was with me” during the process of writing the book, Bingham says. “I felt I wasn’t writing anything that would have seemed to her false or unreal.”

Copyright © 2025 Sallie Bingham. All Rights Reserved.

Press Materials   —   Contact Sallie

Privacy Policy

Menu
  • Events
  • Blog
    • Doris Duke
    • Best of 2024
    • My Favorites
    • Full Archives
    • Writing
    • Women
    • Philanthropy
    • My Family
    • Politics
    • Kentucky
    • New Mexico
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Theater
    • Religion
  • Books & Plays
    • Doris Duke
    • Fiction
    • Nonfiction
    • Plays
    • Poetry
    • Anthologies
  • Writing
    • Short Stories
    • Poems
    • Plays
    • Translations
  • Resources
    • Audio
    • Video
    • Print
    • Biography
  • About
    • Contact