Plates to eat from...

I was TOTALLY impressed by Judy Chicago's work. Of course I do not speak of only her ceramic plates in the Dinner Party series which were exquisite & an enlargement of Georgia O'Keefe's discreet ventures into the vulva but about the whole feminist movement of those years and the struggle of women to 'break' into the forefront of art made by women who until that time took pretty much second place or were almost completely invisible though many were by far superior to men's art. Well, this is true of art going way back in art history. So, I shall not quote & rehash what can be found through any Internet Search engine.I will say though, that it is thanks to Judy Chicago's work, that I began my own endeavors in the ceramics and specifically that I used the ceramic plate as my 'canvas' for several years. Naturally, my plates as well as much of my work have to do with Woman & therefore sex, life & death and its related metaphysical metaphors. To this day I eat from my sensual plates & periodically create a Kitchen Goddess & by now I am pretty sure I am quite leaded eating from my plates besides getting high on vaginas! But I tell you, it is quite a pleasure to pick the food away from the images & discover underneath those nice pinkish folds, labyrinthine recesses hiding luscious pearls & male extensions gaping at your wide-open mouth. It is a purely succulent affair & a whole body orgasm, gastronomically speaking of course for our guests & us.In my opinion her work, specifically her Dinner Party, will be a classic representative of the women's liberation movement of the 1970's that I wholeheartedly supported as well as my activist wife who guided a male friend to form the first Men against Rape organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now she is paying the price for my liberal mind.I consider Judy Chicago's work neither artsy crafty nor kitsch but as important as the Installation Art movement. In fact much of the Dinner Party series is in effect Installation Art as it involves 3-D set-up including textiles and kitchen paraphernalia.

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Alex Nodopaka

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