I think the art world is one of the last bastions of this kind of sexism where there is a mythology about a woman not being able to be both and artist and a mother: that some very important creative crystal inside a woman would be shattered by the idea of having a child.
I think that still, for the most part, even in 2010, the vast majority of museum shows and gallery shows and gallerists are pretty much dominated by men. So having a sense of what women are up to, for me, frankly, is very, very important.
Historically, the women who have been the great painters of the canon have very often have been the wives or daughters of supportive men. Like Artemisia, whose father was a very established painter. I will say that the two current contemporary artists I admire the most are women: Kara Walker and Swoon.
Women fail, very simply, if they have no guidance and friendships in art, if they are not perceived as, or permitted to be, artists, and if they have no institutional access.
I've written songs about women since I've been involved with women, but I do know a few gay female artists who, back in the day, would write songs about men.
One of the things I liked so much about the women artists I saw in Nashville was that they were appreciated for their music and their talent, not because they were wearing skimpy outfits and showing a lot of skin.
I own works by women artists; it is hard for me to see, literally to see, how women and men differ in the quality of their work. Why are women artists less known and less admired?
Claude Cahun is a fascinating artist - one of the few women to be part of the surrealist movement, she and her partner Suzanne Malherbe took on men's names and made artworks that investigated female identity long before 'The Second Sex' or Cindy Sherman.
It's just disgusting that in this society, the majority of students in art school are women, but they amount to less than 30% of what is shown in museums. That has not changed radically.
Most of my favourite artists are women.
A bit of a theory, more a corner of the eye noticing than an airtight argument: in the course of long artistic careers, women are more likely than men to change form and style, Proteus-like.
With almost no exceptions, art by men is much more expensive than art by women. Even great women artists, like Louise Bourgeois and Lee Krasner, are only fully embraced very late in their career.
Women artists are still treated differently from men.
Two powerful women making art together is always really cool.
But then as I got older, I got to know all these amazing artists like Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry, all these women who are really the creators behind who they are.
Dealers claim that women artists are not as salable as men, that they are a poor investment. We know that there are few women art collectors, a fact which may have an impact on the market.
I want[ed] to make a show of really big pictures, because you see male artists doing it all the time. It just seemed like such a big egotistical thing. I thought, 'I don't know that many women that really do that.... Damn it, I'm gonna do that-make this really big picture.'
In art, women could never get training. They couldn't get their work out into the world even when they could get training.
Women artists, no matter how well recognized they are, are seldom given solo exhibitions or featured in significant group shows. They are never top-ranked in auction choices.
There's no question that many more women artists are showing worldwide now than they were when I was a young woman, and that's really great.
I find that there are few reviews that extol women as wonderful artists.
I don't feel there are enough women artists out there who are saying anything of tremendous relevance.
For women who have children, the economic difficulty of sustaining a life as an artist maybe makes it impossible. There's no maternity leave, there's no pension.
I would go to radio stations and they were supposed to be interviewing me and playing my record and they would say, We're playing too many women right now, we can't play your record.
Because it's difficult to have a career as an artist, and in every situation where it's difficult to have a career, it's even harder for women, for all the other reasons that it's harder in other fiercely contested fields.
