"Mimi was particularly interested in the potential of consciousness-raising for reaching subject matter for artmaking. We had tried a few sessions early in the year, and they proved valuable. Three of the women were working together in the kitchen and not having too much success. Three of the women were working together in the kitchen and not having much success. Mimi suggested that we try a consciousness-raising session on kitchens. As we we went around the circle, women talked about their memories of the kitchens in their homes. It became clear that the kitchen was often the battlefield in the house. The giving and taking of food, what kind of food was fixed, who made food, and when it could and could not be eaten provided the means of a power struggle between mother and father, mother and children. The association of women with the kitchen and with the giving of food led to the idea of the nurturant kitchen, in which the walls, floors, and objects were covered with a flesh covered skin, and plastic eggs transmuting into breasts cascading down from the ceiling onto the walls. Room after room took shape until the house became a total environment, a repository of female experience and womanly dreams."
-Judy Chicago, Through the Flower: my struggle as a woman artist
top two images via hippy kitchens
