We were lucky to catch up with Merrilyn Duzy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Merrilyn, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My father was a Real Estate Broker. I learned early the value of owning property. He was successful when we were young children, but he was an alcoholic, slowly losing all that he had, our home, among so many other things. I was a teenager then, and we faced deep poverty. Many years later, when I was engaged and ready to settle in one place, I knew I needed to buy a house, no matter what. Buying a home was difficult without any money for a down payment. My future husband and I were able to find a place using a Cal Vet loan. We rented it until I could obtain the necessary funds, which took me seven months. I worked freelance art jobs and did whatever I could to earn money. One lucky addition to my savings was winning a $1200 Kino card with an 80-cent investment. That first house became our safety net. A zoning change prompted the sale of it, and I now live in the 2nd house we bought. Without its growing equity, I would be in a very precarious situation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My determination to be an artist was sustained by three gifts I was born with — tenacity, passion, and perseverance. I was already identified as ‘the artist’ in elementary school, which provided an early awareness of my visual acuity. I remember thinking that was true. This early knowledge of who and what I was had served me well during my stormy and dysfunctional childhood. My environment did not lend itself to living ‘the creative life’ — or even dreaming of one. There was always work to be done, as since the age of five, I was the caregiver for my younger siblings.
For a brief time, only my oldest sister, Sandie and I were the only children. My first creative endeavor was when our mother took us to a dance class. Dressed in black leotards with red tutus, Sandie was five, and I was three. I was so excited to go on stage, but they told me I was too little! I remember thinking how unfair it was that I wanted to perform and my older sister did not.

When I was four, our younger sister Kitty was born, and after that, another child came along almost every year until there were eight of us. From that moment on, with little or no time, any creative pursuits would have to be from my own initiative. I regret the absence of encouragement, nurturing, or exposure to the arts — having to wait until High School for lessons. From then on to the present, learning about and creating art has been the focus of my life. Though with life’s many struggles, there was very little time to be creative. I was twenty-five when the last of my siblings left my care. It was only then that I could finally live an independent life as an artist. In the ensuing years, I earned my BA and MFA degrees. I attended endless workshops, classes, and conferences. Subsequently, while joining and serving on many arts organizations, I continue to paint, curate, lecture/teach, organize arts events, and advocate for artists.

Our failures are how we learn, and I am learning every day — sometimes, I go backward, stay static, or reach a plateau — and then I go forward again. As the artist Myra Shiras said, “…we create as much by what we can’t do as by what we can.” Now, I feel the pull of time, anxious that I won’t finish everything I need to do or want to say with my art. That we all die learning and striving is perhaps for the best. To paraphrase Robert Browning, our “…reach should always exceed our grasp.” With my three gifts — tenacity, passion, and perseverance, my life as an artist has been fully realized.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My Catholic upbringing sparked my spiritual self. It was also the stimulus for my erotic art. I discovered religious literature during puberty with images of the saints in bondage and ecstasy. They became entangled with changes in my body and my awakening sexuality. From then on, I was fascinated with the erotic.

By the early 70s, the Feminist Art Movement came onto the social, political, and cultural stage. I was working with erotic themes and reading about other women doing likewise. Yet none of the current books on erotic art included any women artists. My conclusion: “I’ll have to publish one myself.” Working with photographer Lois Constantine and writer Grace Powell, we began interviewing women who were tapping into their own sexuality, gender roles, and body image. Our book, “The New Art: Female Eroticism,” introduced me to many remarkable women who became life-long friends, including Norma Jean Squires, Dona Geib, and Louise Bourgeois. Though the book was never published, the artists I met while I worked on it led to my curating several exhibitions on women’s erotic art. “Erotic Visions,” co-curated with Sandra McKee at the George Sand Gallery, Westwood, was the first such exhibit on the West Coast. “The Dirty Dozen,” at the David Stuart Gallery in Los Angeles and “Erotica ‘88” in Santa Monica, included several artists we interviewed for our book.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Since college, I have advocated for women artists. I joined the National Women’s Caucus for Art after its creation in 1974. The following year, we had chapters nationwide. I joined the Southern California Chapter in 1976 and became President in 1980. Our National Convention was held in San Francisco that year. Our chapter created a performance titled “Women Artists Past & Present” and presented it to the conference participants at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Our aim was to showcase the work of women artists, to illustrate their art, and to highlight the absence of women artists in the history texts. We performed our ‘Women Artists’ at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater in Los Angeles the following year. Learning about these artists greatly inspired me, and I wanted to capture on canvas what I saw and experienced on stage. I began my “Women Artists in History” series of contemporary women artists portrayed in the costumes and settings of their historical counterparts in 1982. Later that year, I moved to the Tampa Bay area of Florida. I joined local art groups and founded the Florida West Coast chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art. I wanted to share the knowledge I gained in California with the artists and larger communities of Florida. My illustrated lecture, “Walking Through History: Women Artists Past & Present,” was my solution. Since those early years, I’ve presented my lecture in many cities on both coasts and Denmark, France, Israel, and the Philippines.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.merrilynduzy.com
• Instagram: merrilynduzyart
• Facebook: Merrilyn Duzy
• Linkedin: Merrilyn Duzy

Image Credits
Patti Akesson and Ursula Pastuszka