THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Gilah Yelin Hirsch

“I went to UC Berkeley at the time of the greatest revolution, revelation, revealing. Everything was opened up in a way that it never had been before. And I was a fantastic sponge, pulling it all in and trying to make sense of all this new information. I was there from ’64 to ’67, which was the time to be there, and it absolutely opened my world up.“

Multidisciplinary artist, writer, filmmaker and Professor of Art at California State University, Dominguez Hills (Los Angeles) since 1973, Emerita 2020. An internationally exhibiting artist since 1968, she was one of the founders of the world’s first women artist organizations, Los Angeles Council of Women Artists, (LACWA 1972), the “mother” organization of many subsequent feminist art organizations. Named and facilitated the Joan of Art Seminars, (originated by June Wayne), teaching artists the business aspects of their professional careers. Since then, (1972), this has become common practice and a regular component of art school curricula.

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, July 2026