For Joan Snyder, feminist art begins with the application of paint to canvas: "The strokes in my paintings speak of my life and experiences." As seen in Snyder's work, abstract imagery and deliberate mark-making have the capacity to register personal and political struggles and decisions. She painted Hard Sweetness the same year she launched the women's exhibition series at Douglass College, Rutgers University. Like many other abstract artists, Snyder later used text and mixed media in painting to create works with more overt feminist subjects. A retrospective of her paintings was shown at The Jewish Museum in 2005.