Joyce Aiken (born 1931) is an American feminist art historian, artist, and educator. Aiken taught the subject for over 20 years at

California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bache ...

, and assisted her students in opening a feminist art gallery. This helped put

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

on the map as a key place for the

feminist art movement The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce feminist art, art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of co ...

. Most recently, she served as the director of the Fresno Arts Council.

Life and work

Joyce Aiken earned both her bachelors and master's of art from

. Aiken started teaching

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

in 1973 at California State University, Fresno, taking over from fellow artist

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

, who had started the class in 1970. She taught the class until her retirement in 1992. In 1974, her students founded an alternative art gallery for women in

called Gallery 25. The gallery, along with Aiken's class, helped put Fresno on the map as a center for the feminist art movement, and continues to be one of the longest running

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

galleries in the United States. Aiken was elected as president to the Coalition of Women's Art in 1978, and moved to

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for a year during her tenure. The organization actively lobbied for the rights of women artists. Her work with the Coalition led to her being picked as one of the "80 Women to Watch in the 80's" by ''

Ms. Ms. (American English) or Ms (British English; normally , but also , or when unstressed)''Oxford English Dictionary'' online, Ms, ''n.2''. Etymology: "An orthographic and phonetic blend of Mrs ''n.1'' and miss ''n.2'' Compare mizz ''n.'' The pr ...

'' magazine. In 1986, she curated a year-long exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum that honored women artists of California active between 1945 and 1965. The exhibit was the first of its kind in the United States. She was co-chair, in 2004, of the Council of 100, an organization within the Fresno Art Museum that continues to honor a woman artist every year with an exhibition, a special luncheon, and a catalog. That year, she also became the director of the Fresno Arts Council, before retiring in 2010.

Collections and exhibitions

*Mosaic benches, with Jean Ray Laury;

Fulton Mall Fulton Street is a long east–west street in northern Brooklyn, New York City. This street begins at the intersection of Adams Street and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights, and runs eastward to East New York and Cypress Hills. At the borde ...

, Fresno, California.

Exhibitions

A few of exhibitions are: * 2010 - Group exhibition: "39NOW";

Pacific Design Center The Pacific Design Center, or PDC, is a multi-use facility for the design community located in West Hollywood, California. One of the buildings is often described as the ''Blue Whale'' because of its large size relative to surrounding buildings a ...

, Los Angeles, California. * 2012 - Two Person exhibition: "Seeing Through It and Seeing It Through"; Oakopolis Gallery, Oakland, California.

Published works

The following are books that Joyce Aiken co-wrote with Jean Ray Laury: * ''Creating Body Coverings.'' New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold (1974). * ''Handmade Rugs for Practically Anything.'' Clearwater: Countryside Press (1971). * ''The Total Tote Bag Book.'' New York: Taplinger Publishing Company (1977).

References

External links

Joyce Aiken on the
Fresno Arts website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aiken, Joyce 1931 births California State University, Fresno alumni California State University, Fresno faculty American feminists Writers from Fresno, California Living people Feminist artists