Nancy Youdelman


Nancy Youdelman is a mixed media sculptor who lives and works in Clovis, California. She also taught art at California State University, Fresno from 1999 until her retirement in 2013. "Since the early 1970s Youdelman has been transforming clothing into sculpture, combining women's and girl's dresses, hats, gloves, shoes, and undergarments with a variety of organic materials and common household objects.
Marina La Palma writes in The magazine, "Youdelman studied costume design at Fresno State University and was drawn into the Feminist Art program founded by Judy Chicago in 1970. She went on to the Cal Arts program that followed a short time after this. Youdelman participated in the 1972 Womanhouse, in which artists created elaborate installations in the various rooms of an old Hollywood mansion. Womanhouse evolved to become "the influential and long-lived Los Angeles Woman's Building project, and inspired similar undertakings in other cities."

Education

Nancy Youdelman was one of the first students to participate in the Feminist Art Program, which Judy Chicago started in 1970 at Fresno State College. She participated in the Feminist Art Program from 1971—1973, including during the 1972 Womanhouse exhibit. Nancy recalls why she signed up for Chicago's class advertised as a sculpture class for women only: