Walking Woman: Why I Avoided the Female Figure for 40 Years
At my July 25, 2026, ArtTalk in Hermann, I discussed my 2021 decision to begin introducing a stylized female figure — after 40 years of avoiding anything but the most abstracted, non-gendered figures in my studio work.
Cleaning out some old stuff in my studio was hard enough. Then I found HER — that naked hitchhiker piece I made in '79 — and I had a meltdown.
For 40 years, I had avoided that figure and anything but the most abstracted, non-gendered figures in my studio work. Not because it was bad, but because I remembered exactly why I'd buried her in the first place:
I had picked up a hitchhiker who turned creepy fast. I pulled over, made him get out, telling him exactly what I'd do to him if he touched me. Later that year, there was a story about a hitchhiker arrested for attacking women on the road. Was it him? I'll never know. But I believed it for a long time — and that belief is part of why the female figure stayed in a box for four decades.
Above: “Driving Along, Looking Around,” 1979. “That” infamous female figure.
Even before my partner and I were dating, we talked about all sorts of things, including mutilation (!). Not for shock value, but to discuss how to incorporate it without alienating viewers of my art.
I thought a lot about Philip Guston's feet and legs, then, drew some piles of arms, copied some classic Venus sculptures — sans heads and parts — and threw away lots of attempts that didn't work.
Finally, I took a razor to a sheet of cardboard, cut out that 30-inch impossible Woman, and began silhouetting her into the overburdened landscape "American Bonsais" I'd been building for years.
Above: Our friend Philip Guston, whose chopped-off feet and legs helped me reconcile the Walking Woman’s chopped-off arms.
Crazy how much work there is to get the look and poise you're searching for!
Walking Woman is still walking. And she’s still evolving, giving me so many ways to make a statement about being Woman and being In The World. See the series >
