#womentalkingabout

[womentalking]

"You have to be very focused and work very hard, but it is not about working hard without knowing what your aim is! you really have to have a goal. the goal posts might shift, but you should have a goal. know what it is that you are trying to find out." -Architect Zaha Hadid's advice to young people http://www.designboom.com/architecture/zaha-hadid-interview-quotes-dies-aged-65-03-31-2016/

[womentalking]

Sculptor Ruth Asawa on craft, process, and capturing a singular moment in her work. Craft: “I think the craft is important to a concept… There are many steps between the concept and the project. And I think that one should experience that. I think that that’s important.”

Craft vs. Art: “It doesn’t bother me. Whether it’s a craft or whether it’s art. That is a definition that people put on things. And what I like is the material is irrelevant. It’s just that that happens to be material that I use. And I think that is important. That you take an ordinary material like wire and you make it, you give it a new definition. That’s all.”

Process: “Well, if you take material you like and you know how far you can take it from what is traditional to do. Like a piece of paper, you like to take it another step. And if it teaches you some geometry and not just for writing something and you find that you can go from two dimension to three dimension, that interests me. And it can be any material. It doesn’t have to be wire. It just has to be able to do that. I think that that’s an important thing.”

Capturing a moment in time: “Then I like the idea of it lasting. So when I cast a face I know I’m just capturing a minute of a person. Or if I cast a foot of a baby I know that baby’s foot will grow and grow and grow. But at the moment I like that. That moment that I caught in a way is what I like about casting faces. I don’t care about making that a technique. But I like the idea of stopping the moment of a time. And it’s going to disappear. I know it’s going to go away but I like that, I like that moment.”

Oral history interview, Archives of American Art, 2002

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-ruth-asawa-and-albert-lanier-12222

[womentalking]

“I was just imitating my mother in expecting that I could do anything.” -Norma Kamali, fashion designer

[womentalking]

“Stand-up requires you putting your body out there, constantly, at night. Twitter doesn’t require your body to go out deep into Brooklyn on the train for 45 minutes to get paid nothing.” -Comedian Ali Wong on the particular challenge women face as stand-up comedians

[womentalking]

“Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams — fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them — it’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change. So… ditch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer.” -Shonda Rhimes, Dartmouth Commencement Address, 2014

[womentalking]

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.”- Katherine Johnson, pIoneering NASA mathematician and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient