b. 1935. Antin began writing poetry. Her first effort, "Painter Poems," was published by John Ashbery in Art and Literature. Antin began to paint Dada paintings she describes as hard-edged valentines. She spent years making collages from scraps from magazines and books. She considers her first mature work to be "Blood of a Poet's Box," which she worked on for three years from 1965 to 1968. The piece involves blood samples taken from the fingers of 100 poets filed in a green slide box.

Antin had moved from New York to California in the late 60s. She had her first show at Long Island University, back in New York, at that time and was teaching full-time. She began ordering items from the Sears catalogue, turning them into tableaux groups of groups of objects that became portraits: "California Lives" and "Portraits of Eight New York Women," both exhibited in New York City.