Rosemary Mayer began her career in the late 1960s, experimenting with conceptual art. In 1971, she began to focus on the use of fabric as a primary medium for sculpture, to more actively pursue opportunities to exhibit her work, and to participate in a feminist consciousness-raising group. This was a pivotal period in Mayer’s life and career, and she documented it in remarkable detail in her 1971 journal.

With deep self-awareness and honesty, Mayer reveals herself, at age 28, in the process of committing more fully to life as an artist. In her journal, she records her ambitions and insecurities about her work, as well as her opinions about the art around her. She also chronicles how being an artist was interwoven into all aspects of her daily life, from concerns about money, to hanging out with friends, to being in love. The result is a striking document of the entanglement of art and life and an intimate view into the New York art scene of the 1970s, which, for Mayer, included Vito Acconci, Donna Dennis, Bernadette Mayer, Adrian Piper, and Hannah Weiner, among many others.

In 1965, Jay DeFeo (1929–89) was evicted from her San Francisco apartment, along with The Rose, the two-thousand-pound painting that would make her legendary. The morning after her front window was sawed open to make way for the colossus, DeFeo attempted to salvage Estocada, a large-scale painting on paper stapled directly to her hallway wall. Unfinished and never documented, the little-known piece was ripped down in chunks, saved, and reanimated years later in the studio through photography, photocopy, collage, and relief.

Rip Tales traces Estocada’s material history, woven into this narrative are other Bay Area stories that likewise privilege transformation, multiplicity, intuition, and absence. Drawing on interviews and personal experience, curator Jordan Stein explores these themes in the work and lives of artists Zarouhie Abdalian, April Dawn Alison, Ruth Asawa, Lutz Bacher, Bruce Conner, Dewey Crumpler, Trisha Donnelly, and Vincent Fecteau.

A talk with Jordan Stein and Hilton Als about the book here.

Rosemary Mayer (1943–2014) was a prolific artist, writer, and critic, who became known both for her large-scale fabric sculptures—inspired by the lives of historical women—and her involvement in the feminist art movement.

In 1977, she began to create ephemeral outdoor installations using materials such as balloons, snow, paper, and fabric. Mayer called these projects “temporary monuments,”. This publication is the first comprehensive presentation of this body of work and includes Mayer’s documentation of these impermanent artworks.

A talk by Nick Mauss and Kathy Halbreich about Rosemary Mayer’s work is here.