Women's Studio Workshop: Redefining Feminism

Founded in 1974 by Barbara Leoff Burge, Ann Kalmbach, Tatana Kellner, and Anita Wetzel, Women's Studio Workshop is a collaborative studio workshop focused on women's art. Located in Rosendale, NY, Women's Studio Workshop has remained integral to the Hudson Valley community for almost 50 years, hosting annual events like the Chili Bowl Fest as well as Summer Art Institute programming. In addition to their extensive community engagement, Women's Studio Workshop has also built a collection of over 230 artists books since 1979. This In The Spotlight exhibition was also an extension of Vassar's own relationship with the Women's Studio Workshop. Vassar Archives and Special Collections is a repository for all the artists books produced by Women's Studio Workshop, meaning that any guest of the Thompson Memorial Library, through an appointment with Archives and Special Collections, can view any of the artists books.

The collection of artists books produced through Women's Studio Workshop quietly engages intersectional feminism, a phrase that acknowledges the self as multitudinal and that all aspects of social identity overlap and transform one another. While a majority of the books are designed by woman-identifying artists, they are not solely representations of the artists' womanhood. Rather, their womanhood exists alongside all other facets of their identity, all of which are engaged in their book. Looking toward the future, the team at Women's Studio Workshop seeks to further engage intersectional feminism, coming to a new understanding of what a "women's" studio workshop means.

-Carissa Kolcun, class of '25, Ford Scholar/Pindyck Summer Fellow

Support for In the Spotlight is provided by Mary Ellen Weisl Rudolph ’61, P ’98 and James N. Rudolph P ’98. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.