Rape Is. (1972)
Lacy tackled the subject of rape and the cultural attitudes that promote it in her first artist’s book, produced in the Women’s Design Program at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. The title riffs on the Happiness Is book genre. Her mentor Sheila Levrant de Bretteville suggested that it open down the middle, the flaps joined with a sticker seal, to make the reader consciously aware of invading a private experience. Another of her teachers, the writer Deena Metzger, supported the development of the text. Two editions.
(Excerpt from Suzanne Lacy: We Are Here)