Revisiting the Woman's Building with Sheila de Bretteville

The Woman’s Building closed its doors in 1991, but Otis College of Art and Design has tried to keep something of its spirit alive.

Early teachers at the feminist center like Suzanne Lacy have helped to shape the Otis curriculum. And former Woman’s Building project manager Sue Maberry, now the director of library and information services at Otis, helped the college acquire a good part of the Woman’s Building archives a decade ago.

So it wasn’t entirely surprising that Otis decided for Pacific Standard Time to stage a show on the history of this then-scrappy, now-storied institution: “Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building,” which runs through Feb. 26.
 
Click here for an interview with Otis gallery director Meg Linton and Sheila de Bretteville, a co-founder of the Woman’s Building who led the graphic design center.

Click here for the “Doin’ It in Public” website. Produced by Linton and Maberry, who co-curated the show, this is one of the most robust websites to come out of Pacific Standard Time, with a chronology, bibliography and some 40 “herstories” or short video clips that help bring the building to life.

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--Jori Finkel

www.twitter.com/jorifinkel

Image: Photo collage for the Woman's Building Newsletter by Anne Gauldin. Credit: Woman's Building Image Archive, Otis College of Art and Design.