Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex

erotic-as-power

• To participate in the art and sex marketplaces is to be at once both women, and the baby too — called to sacrifice yourself or that which you hold dearest.

  WG-007

• It was the first time I realized how much more a stranger's affection bothers me than their lust. Affection is more particular and precious than sex.

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work-as-meaning

• The first person who bought my art was a client of mine. I wanted him to buy it, knowing that to have been sold would make my work more salable writ large.

  WG-005

• My father believed selling art would sell one's soul; he turned to construction instead. His work was largely devoid of meaning for him. He built homes for wealthy people.

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self-and-identity

• She suggested I treat my work as a series of studies — preparation, attempts to understand further — without forcing finality or ultimate certainty in any part.

  WG-010

• I feared I wouldn't have the capacity to differentiate between different kinds of sex in different contexts — I had been told this, by movies and concerned friends, over and over.

  WG-004