Studio Arts, Women in

The start of gender discrimination cannot be pinpointed, but the unequal application of resources and opportunities between men and women seemingly has permeated human society from the time the sexes were defined. Women were considered the weaker of the two sexes, and it was once widely thought that women were less capable than men of producing intelligent-let alone brilliant-works of art. Even when women were sparingly admitted to arts fellowships, the idea of the “woman artist” was somewhat oxymoronic. Women were presumed to be better in domestic arts, and studio arts were deemed the realm of men.

A studio is an artist's workroom. An atelier (French for “studio”) today refers to a collective in which artists learn and improve under the guidance of a teacher who mentors them to higher levels of skill. (Sometimes the term is used to describe a house of fashion design. Earlier connotations of the word referred to an artist and his assistants, who together produced art under the chief artist's name.) Studio art, then, is work produced in studios or ateliers-drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, film, digital images, texts and performance, glass and metal works, and sound. The term excludes artistic works created in other settings, such as classrooms or factories.

Most colleges and universities that offer degrees in studio arts offer the studio experience (a place where you work alone and daily on your art), guidance in preparing a portfolio, attention to exposing one's work to juries and other reviewers, and often some art history, but academic art departments expect that majors sample several of the art forms named above, seldom allowing a concentration in just one. The atelier experience does not offer a degree but, instead, allows the student to concentrate on developing skills in a single art form.