Marion Glass: Senior Portfolio: Artist: Mary Cassatt

In our first meeting, Tom suggested that I take a closer look at Mary Cassatt's work. I knew that her name was familiar from an art history course I took freshman or sophomore year, but I only vaguely remembered who she was. So, I finally got around to taking Tom's advice this week.

Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker, though she spent most of her adult life in France where she was friends with Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. The subject matter in a lot of her work involves the private lives of women - particularly their relationships with their children. The content of her work appeals to me and applies to my work for obvious reasons, but a less obvious reason that I am able to relate to her and her work is that Cassatt identified herself with the Impressionists - a group of artists that were considered to be radical and outside of the norm, much as single mothers are viewed in some circles to this day. Of the Impressionists, Cassatt once said "We are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces" (Nancy Mowll Matthews, Mary Cassatt: A Life, 1998). That quote reminds me of the feelings I have at the times when I feel completely alone, which are the times that make me want to create this work, to figure out the ways in which I am not alone, to pull together all my forces, and to carry on. See some of Cassatt's work below.