Graphic artist Minna Resnick shows personal pieces at Ulysses library 

Minna Resnick, a multitalented graphic artist whose work has been featured in museums all over the United States and in several countries in Europe, has been pondering through the decades: what does it mean to be a woman both in public and with the self? 

A new art exhibit at Ulysses Philomathic Library, running through April 26, seeks to explore that question through personal pieces that tackle societal expectations, reality and the tensions between the two in the ideal and the quotidian. For this, Resnick selected about 20 pieces of her work. 

“Since a library serves as an information center for both current and historical knowledge, I thought this would be the perfect setting to view ‘my personal history’ on these walls, and my continuous dialogue between past and present,” Resnick says in her artist statement. 

With about five decades of active studio practice experience, Resnick has had time to develop these themes in her art. She likes to include imagery incorporating information both inspired and provoked by text and images found in early and mid-20th century publications on themes such as home management and decoration, health, education, home repair and fashion. 

“I think a lot about the content of my work, and it takes a long time to draw, so I’m slow and steady,” Resnick said. “Over the course of 50 years, obviously my work has changed, and my concerns have modified over the years as I’ve gotten older and generations change. But I thought that the work was still consistent enough to have a brief overview.”

Resnick’s consistency developed almost as soon as she started working as a graphic artist. 

“I needed to find my voice, and I am a woman, and so from the very beginning, my focus has always been on the personal and the societal debates that go on when women have to confront themselves in society,” Resnick said. 

That focus has allowed Resnick to be able to observe and note societal changes and adapt those observations to her work. 

“I grew up differently than my mom, who grew up during The Great Depression. I grew up in the heyday of the 1960s and the women’s empowerment movement,” she said. “Obviously what I really wanted to talk about, which I have always felt is just a big internal wheel for me, is that you’re born, and you grow up a product of your gender and the time you live in.”

Something she learned growing up in America, she said, is the importance of her own internal voice. 

“Growing up a woman in the United States, you have your own internal voice, but you have all these [societal] expectations about how you should behave, how you should speak, what kind of work you should do, and I felt those were pretty artificial and insufficient,” Resnick said. “I wanted to talk about that so that the viewer would be aware that there’s always a conflict between, at least in my world, how I felt as a woman and how I was supposed to act outside of that feeling, and so that’s always really what propelled my work, even now.”

Resnick said she has found that there has been a change in how women feel about this internal interplay of expectation versus reality as they age.

“Most women I know my age are more vocal now than they’ve ever been in their lives,” she said. “And I think that’s fun for me. I think we’ve put up with decades of being polite. As a woman, you’re really brought up to try to smooth things out. I don’t think men grow up like that. I think finally, enough women I know at my stage in life have been there, done that, and they’re being more vocal about setting boundaries that are more comfortable for them.”

Ulysses Connection appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @ezvelazquez.

In brief:

New York’s burn ban is now in effect. It will run until May 14. Open burning is prohibited in New York state during this time except for:

• Camp fires or any other outdoor fires less than 3 feet in height and 4 feet in length, width or diameter.
  
• Small cooking fires.
  
• Ceremonial or celebratory bonfires and disposal of flags or religious items in a small-sized fire is allowed, if it is not otherwise prohibited by law or regulation.
  
• Only charcoal or dry, clean, untreated or unpainted wood can be burned. Fires cannot be left unattended and must be fully extinguished. 

For more information, interested parties can visit https://dec.ny.gov/environmental-protection/air-quality/open-burning.