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.