Conversation with Vanalyne Green, Chicago, 2003

Vanalyne Green reflects on her experiences as an art student, feminist, and teacher, beginning with her time at Fresno State College in the late 1960s. She studied with Judy Chicago, whose feminist approach challenged her views on gender, creativity, and self-expression. Green recounts Chicago’s radical teaching style, which emphasized personal accountability and pushing boundaries. This often felt like a blend of inspiration and cult-like manipulation, as students were divided into "winners" and "losers." Green recalls, "She [Chicago] called the program, you know, personality reconstruction... It took me at least five years to recover from that."

Transitioning to the feminist art program at CalArts, Green found a new role model in Sheila de Bretteville, who was more tolerant and less dogmatic. This experience allowed Green to explore feminism in a less totalizing way. She expresses a preference for a version of feminism that embraces messiness and personal experiences, referencing feminist thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva. Green began making work, primarily performances, that addressed relationships, family dynamics, sexuality, and gender struggles. She explains, “I asked myself the question, what's needed in the larger public sphere? So, I did a piece about my parents’ alcoholism, but it was also about women’s eating disorders. It tried to trace addiction both as a problem of the nuclear family in America and as a problem for young women.” Another performance addressed the world of baseball in order to reclaim a traditionally male-dominated sphere. Green has since moved into different forms of media, including video, and is currently working on a large-scale documentary on the separation of church and state in the U.S. Green’s involvement in the feminist art collective Fuel Tank and its offshoot Public Feelings reflects her ongoing interest in the intersection of emotions, politics, and public life.

As a teacher, Green tries to meet her students where they are. She explains, “More and more, I'm finding women students who want a teacher to articulate something about gender politics. They don't have the language for it because feminism has been declared dead in America every 18 months.” She continues, “So I ask myself, how, as a teacher, can I listen to that crisis and not impose second-wave feminist rhetoric, but really listen and have a response come through that listening?”