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Judy Chicago on Coming to Grips With Mortality

The Unstoppables is a series about people whose ambition is undimmed by time. Below, Judy Chicago explains, in her own words, what continues to motivate her.

My father — he was a labor organizer — taught me that the purpose of life was to make a contribution to a better world. I wanted to fulfill my father’s mandate. And I wanted to become a part of art history.

From the time I was a little girl, my goals were very clear. I started to draw before I started to talk. When I was 4 years old, my nursery schoolteacher told my mother that I was talented. So my mother borrowed a friend’s membership to the Art Institute in Chicago, where I grew up. By the time I was 5, I was crossing the street from our house to get on the 53 bus to the Art Institute. I would do that every Saturday until I was 15.

I’ve had to be very persistent, that’s for sure. I’ve had doubts, like when the critics came after me when I showed “The Dinner Party.” I’ve been the target of so much vitriol. It hurt — of course it hurt. But in my family, we had a saying: Give up or get up. One of the things I’ve learned in life is that persistence pays.

Judy Chicago at an installation of “The Dinner Party” in Frankfurt in 1987.Credit…Kai-Uwe Wärner/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images
Ms. Chicago in her gallery and studio in New Mexico in September 2023.Credit…Gabriela Campos for The New York Times

The things that motivate me now motivated me when I was a young woman. I’ve always been very focused, and I continue to be focused. I basically had to go into seclusion in our small house in Belen, N.M., to work on text and images for one of my more recent projects. When I work, I require complete silence and concentration.

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