Carolee Schneemann (American, 1939-2019) Interior Scroll, 1974/1975 Color pencil on paper Collection of Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell
This image of a figure retrieving something from
within her body was drawn with a quick hand on the
back of a three-hole punched manuscript page.
Schneemann has scrawled “the message,” alluding
to the knowledge and creativity generated by a
distinctly female body. Produced after seeing this
image in a dream, Schneemann’s drawing was the
first step in planning and developing Interior Scroll.
“This image seemed to have to do with the power
and possession of naming—the movement from
interior thought to external signification,” she
wrote. On the verso, the typewritten text decries
sexism in mainstream films. This drawing gives
physical form to the artist’s dream image on the
material surface of feminist writing on film.