Margaret Kilgallen: Heroines | "Exclusive" | Art21

Episode #175: Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women. Three of Kilgallen's heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival video, images, and audio recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley.

Margaret Kilgallen's work reflects her encyclopedic knowledge of signs drawn from American folk tradition, printmaking, and letterpress. Kilgallen has a love of "things that show the evidence of the human hand." Painting directly on the wall, Kilgallen creates room-size murals that recall a time when personal craft and handmade signs were the dominant aesthetic.

Learn more about the artist at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/margaret-kilgallen

CREDITS | Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day & Doug Dunderdale. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Margaret Kilgallen. Archival Media Courtesy: Berea College, Alice Gerrard, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Australia, The National Museum of Australia, North Carolina Folklife Program, NC Arts Council, Mike Seeger, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Lightnin' Wells & Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photography: Mary Ann McDonald. Special Thanks: Fanny Durack, Algia Mae Hinton, Barry McGee & Matokie Slaughter. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Barry, do you think we should do something on here?
I think I might want to do a tag back over there.

BARRY MCGEE: Okay.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

KILGALLEN: We're nervous. [LAUGHS]

Ok, you guys can look at something else for a while. [LAUGHS]

Give her a stick.

KILGALLEN: You want me to go up there?
MCGEE: Okay.

KILGALLEN: There are random women who write on trains, but there's one-offs that I might see.

But, there's a woman who writes 'Judi Wynn' and I think I know where she works.

There's a woman who writes 'Batwoman' and I think she's from Oregon somewhere.

Yeah, there's not that many women who do it, at all.
It's definitely mostly men.

MCGEE: Do you want to go look at the trains?

[SOUND OF A TRAIN APPROACHING]

KILGALLEN: Oh shit, Barry, we should be...
They're going to see us then, no?

MCGEE: It's alright.
KILGALLEN: Alright, let's go walk out then.

MCGEE: Let's wave to them.

KILGALLEN: Oh, because these trucks aren't even running.

[SOUND OF TRAIN HORN]

KILGALLEN: I do have a lot of heroines,
As well as a lot of heroes too, but...

I like to paint images of women who I find inspiring,

And I don't like to choose people that everybody knows.

I like to choose people that just do small things, and yet somehow hit me in my heart.

[SOUND OF A VIOLIN, ACOUSTIC GUITAR, AND BANJO GETTING READY TO PLAY]

I got interested in "old-time" music, particularly the banjo, and

In the beginning I would hear somebody playing music on a record,

And then I wouldn't know what they look like at all but I would imagine what they look like, and draw it.

[SOUND OF BANJO STRUMMING]

The records I would buy would have no women on them, ever. And Matokie Slaughter, for instance,

She was the first woman I ever saw on a record, on an old-time record.

You know, I couldn't believe I had found a woman on there, and I didn't know it was a woman for a while,

Because the name 'Matokie', I didn't know what gender that was.

[SOUND OF BANJO STRUMMING CONTINUES]

Algia Mae Hinton, she plays kind of bluesy guitar.

[SOUND OF ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYING A BLUES RIFF WITH FEET TAPPING ON A STAGE]

I saw her on a tape all about flat-footing and buck dancing.

She would do the flat-footing, and then she would turn around and put her guitar on her back,

And play the guitar, and dance, and it was pretty incredible.

[SOUND OF ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYING A BLUES RIFF WITH FEET TAPPING ON A STAGE CONTINUES]

She's a single mother and supports her children by playing her music.

[SOUND OF ACOUSTIC GUITAR AND FEMALE VOCALIST SINGING 'LOS CORONES']

Or, I used to read a lot about the history of swimming, and...

The first woman to win the Olympics in 1912 was a woman named Fanny Durack.

And she was from Australia, and she wore a full wool suit.

And the reason she won is because she swam the Australian crawl

And the other women weren't swimming that way.

[SOUND OF ACOUSTIC GUITAR AND FEMALE VOCALIST CONTINUES]

When I get down and don't feel like doing art, and I feel like giving it up,

Then the thing that keeps me going is the fact that
Maybe somebody will learn from what I'm doing.

When you put your work out there and somebody comes up to you and thanks you for doing it,

And especially when young people come up and thank me, that is why I do work.

And I especially hope, you know, to inspire young women.

Because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are,

and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are.

I'd like to change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman