Clare’s Favorite Artworks

This was a picture that was a huge influence on me when I was a young woman. I lived next door to a Catholic Worker House. This is Jesus in the Bread Line by Fritz Eichenberg. I think art is at it’s best transforming, and this picture did that for me. When I cooked or handed out meals, I really thought that any one of those people in front of me could be Jesus. Might be.

Thomas Hart Benton

I love the way he glorifies common work. I like the roundness of everything. He was a muralist, and because a lot of his work was murals, that meant that everyone had access to it. I think art should be for everyone.

Frida Kahlo

She is so brave, so honest, so brutally real. And a mystic. I am madly in love with her, can you tell? Good thing she is dead or I would be throwing myself at her feet!

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago was the first artist I understood, whose work I saw and thought, “yes, I get this.” She glorifies the experience of women. I saw her on tv when I was like 20. She said that she realized that being a woman and not knowing how to use power tools (because girls didn’t take shop class) meant that she couldn’t do things with her art that men could do. So she bought an old derelict house in Chicago and invited women to come and transform it and learn how to use power tools along the way. This was the first time I realized that I could think about the conditions surrounding art to understand it.

And a bonus.