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Thirty-two women artists scattered over 200,000 square miles introduce a powerhouse of three-dimensional art in Women Artists of the Great Basin. A wave of women’s art has begun to paint the land with a giant brush, and nowhere have the winds of change been more evident than in the Great Basin, where a sense of freedom and rugged individualism has swept across the playas and through cities and towns. This book is a stunning visual rendering of a wide range of visionary women artists of all ages and backgrounds, and readers will discover their dynamic works and get to know them on a personal level. Sculptors, painters, fabric artists, glassblowers, marble and stone workers, and even a renowned Twinkie artist are represented here, all producing artwork that is jam-packed with originality.
 
Fulkerson and Mantle, longtime artists and residents of the Great Basin themselves, offer a behind-the-scenes intimate glimpse into these women’s lives and artwork—showing not only what they create, but why they create it. Too often overlooked, the women covered here prove there is much richness, life, and creativity in what has often been dismissed as a barren desert. Their stories of overcoming great obstacles unfold right alongside images of their art. Many circle outside the conventional world of galleries, museums, and art publications and have created varied paths to their success. They are indeed true originals, rooted in a land of unique geography, a stew of cultures, and stories like no other.

Women’s Camera Work explores how photographs have been and are used to construct versions of history and examines how photographic representations of otherness often tell stories about the self. In the process, Judith Fryer Davidov focuses on the lives and work of a particular network of artists linked by time, interaction, influence, and friendship—one that included Gertrude Käsebier, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, and Laura Gilpin.

Women’s Camera Work ranges from American women’s photographic practices during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a study of landscape photography. Using contemporary cultural studies discourse to critique influential male-centered historiography and the male-dominated art world, Davidov exhibits the work of these women; tells their absorbing stories; and discusses representations of North American Indians, African Americans, Asian Americans, and the migrant poor. Evaluating these photographers’ distinct contributions to constructions of Americanness and otherness, she helps us to discover the power of reading images closely, and to learn to see through these women’s eyes.

In presenting one of the most important strands of American photography, this richly illustrated book will interest students of American visual culture, women’s studies, and general readers alike.