The Feminist Artist 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.

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.

I’ve never had children. I could never have had the career I wanted if I’d had children. Also, I’ve never had the urge. I’m not a caregiving sort of person, except for my cats. I do take care of myself. I exercise every day. I have a gym in my house. I drink very sparingly.

I’m not stopping work, but I am planning to slow down. My husband says I’ll probably go on even if I’m in bed. He’ll give me a sketch pad and pencils.

One of the things about “Judy Chicago: Herstory” at the New Museum last winter was the feeling that my work is finally understood. That’s been great. But what’s important is that I’m close to achieving my goals.

I don’t think it’s good to have an adversarial relationship with either aging or death. In 2012, when I started “The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction” (the pieces were ceramic, glass and bronze), I wanted to come to grips with my mortality, which I’ve been very aware of since childhood. When I was growing up, people used to die all the time. My father died when I was 6, my first husband died when I was 23. I never imagined that I would live this long.

What I make will change. It’s changing now. I have a new book, a modern illuminated manuscript based on a mythological manuscript that I wrote in the early 1970s, as I was developing the concept for “The Dinner Party.” I never thought I would see it published. But if you live long enough, you never know what’s going to happen.

Recent and upcoming projects: “Judy Chicago: Herstory,” a survey of the artist’s work that included paintings, sculptures, stained glass pieces and printmaking and textiles, at the New Museum in New York through March 3 and now at the LUMA Foundation in Arles, France, through Sept. 29; “Revelations,” drawings that chronicle the lives of accomplished women throughout history, at Serpentine North in London through Sept. 1. The exhibition coincides with the publication of an illuminated manuscript published by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.