let's hear it for women in the arts

Literally IN the arts, in the case of my friend Corwin's small daughter, who got into the fingerpaints when no one was looking. I think a lot of women get into the fingerpaints while no one's looking. I had planned to post this picture with a pithy quote or two from female artists, but these pithy quotes I imagined are surprisingly hard to find. So this is an interactive post. If you're a woman and an artist, or you'd like to say something about a woman artist you know, please post a comment about your art, your process, what drives you, or anything else relevant to your art and craft that you'd like to say. Go to it. (And thanks to Corwin for permission to use Mairead as a small painty figurehead.)

UPDATE: I got some help with this project from the wonderful community members of Etsy; here are some of the things they had to share.

"For sheer excitement you can keep movie premieres and roller-coasters. An empty white canvas waiting to be filled. That's the thing." - Pam Brown

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-things I had no words for." - Georgia O'Keefe (thank you modflo)

"I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands." - Louise Bourgeois (thank you cicadastudio)

"The best ideas come unexpectedly from a conversation or a common activity like watering the garden. These can get lost or slip away if not acted on when they occur." - Ruth Asawa (thank you modflo)

"I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal. i cannot be comprehended except by my permission. i mean....i...can fly..like a bird in the sky." - Nikki Giovanni, "Ego Tripping" (thank you flytie)

"The best thing a man can do for his children is love their mother. The best thing a mother can do for her children is to love herself." (thank you jmacc)

"Understand that the world is art and it is up to artists to expose that beauty." - Aja, sagittariusgallery (thank you sagittariusgallery)

"There is nothing worse than a blank canvas because you have no excuse except perhaps for the fear of failure. Think of the possibilities instead of the ramifications. Even ramifications can be beautiful sometimes..." - Aja, sagittariusgallery (thank you sagittariusgallery)

"True strength is delicate." - Louise Nevelson (thank you cicadastudio)

"It is paint's organic nature that helps me to understand life. For within the act of painting there is a history, a continuum of alchemy through the Ages that lives on in paint." - Lori Agostino (thank you paratu)