WCA Boston — Programs

Programs
Exhibition Opportunities
Exhibitions
Other Opportunities
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We had a small and very productive meeting. Those present: Heather Stewart, Sherry Autor, Carol Daynard, Laura Morrison, Linda Klein, Tia Cross, Kathy Halamka, Cynthia Fowler, and Karen Frostig. We covered a lot of ground, trying to make a smooth transition to a new leadership team. This small group of women, along with Betty Ann Libby who was not present at this meeting, have been working non-stop to reach out, find new leadership and in that process, bring many new people into the chapter. In fact, I receive letters all the time from members expressing regret that they cannot come to a meeting. Now a new chapter may develop in Rhode Island, growing directly out of our burst of energy to find new leadership. Although you may have heard this before, these are very auspicious times for the Boston WCA.

Beth Neville will come on board as the Boston chapter’s next president! Beth has an exceptional background as a visual artist, art educator, critic, arts administrator, museum director, and board member for the Milton Art Museum. We are very grateful for her leadership and enthusiastically welcome Beth as our next President, and Ruth Feldman as our next Vice President!

I have been a member of WCA since 1982 when I was a member of the New York City chapter and I have maintained my memberships ever since. I hold degrees from Smith College, BA and Master of Arts in Education from Harvard University. My work as an art-educator began when I was 14 and has continued for 6 decades. Currently I am the owner of Neville Art Enterprises, and serve on the Board of Trustees of the Milton Art Museum, an institution where I also have been Director, and also teach adult and teen classes. I am listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Education, and Who's Who in the Word. I have written art criticism for Art New England for many years, and am a long standing member of the New England Museum Association. I have exhibited with WCA in many venues, attended National meetings, participated in the National meetings when they were held in Boston. Last week, I won a First Place award at the ARTSWorcester Biennial exhibition at the Aurora Gallery in Worcester. My web site wwwNevilleArt.com exhibits my art work and also duplicates a resume of my career as an artist, art educator, critic and administrator. Last month my art work was placed in the Boston Childrens' Hospital in the IC ward. If you need other biographical information or notices I will be happy to provide them. My goal for Womens' Caucus for Art in Boston is simple: Exhibitions, Exhibitions, Exhibitions!! I believe this is what the membership wants. Venues to exhibit their work.

The list of officers for next year is just about complete. We expect to have a large, talented and experienced steering committee comprised of: the President, the past President[s], the Vice President, current chairs of committees, past chairs, treasurer, secretary/clerk, membership chair, web designers, anyone who is in a position to support the president, and new steering committee appointees made at the discretion of the President. Our roster of offices includes:

Membership Liaison (2008-2010) Sherry Autor, sends out meeting updates to members

Secretary/clerk (2008-10), to take notes at meetings and send them to web designers; and to sign off on forms that need to be registered with the state—we need a secretary/clerk and a back up secretary/clerk one to come to each meeting. Laura Morrison will serve as backup secretary/clerk

E-Newsletter Editor (2008-10), Tia Cross (tentative, will confirm at next meeting) Solicits material from a large spectrum of writers (not necessarily chapter members) E-newsletters will go out quarterly and be posted on the web site

Chapter Rep, National post (2009-12), Cynthia Fowler will take this on when Karen Frostig steps down in February (chapter reports taken to national are written by the chapter president)

Public Relations coordinator (2008-10), sending out promotional material (Kathy Halamka will provide the web designers with a list of contacts for promoting WCA events—to be posted on steering committee web pages). Post may be filled by someone who was considering the presidency

Web Designers (2008-10), Heather Stewart and Laura Morrison (2008-2010) web designers post content, not create content. Content can come from a variety of sources, but must be sent to and approved by the President before being published on the web site.

o Curatorial Competition, so far we have received about 8 inquires. Submission deadline, May 1st. Exhibition committee will select winning proposal and help facilitate and support the curator’s process

o By-Laws, discovered to be somewhat in disarray, incomplete. The steering committee pledged to redo the by-laws this summer (see plan below)

Heather and Laura interviewed 2 designers and will interview 2 more before deciding which designer to hire. Approved budget $2000 plus $500 additional funds yearly for updates with designer. Additional funds can be allotted if needed, once an adequate rationale is presented to steering committee for a vote. Plan is to design a template and use a web content management system. Heather and Laura will make periodic presentations to membership to gain members’ input. Web site will host a members’ gallery--one image, plus name and contact info (web site URL or email) per person. Writers/art historians/critics will be able to post publications in the online library. There will be steering committee page/pages, restricted by an access code, that will contain all the pertinent information for chapter continuity (tax ID and exempt #’s, 501(c)3 info, web hosting info, etc.). Estimated timeline is next fall. This is a huge undertaking and we thank Heather and Laura for their willingness to take this project on.

o Revisit and perhaps modify the earlier Mentor Program Proposal; Introduce a portfolio review for emerging artists; design a web-based matching system for mentors and mentorees or between peer members.

o Those present voted to purchase a copy of BLAZE for the chapter. The book will be passed around—in the form of a lending library--to various members and be made available as an ongoing resource

o Karen will send names of new officers to National to the attention of Marilyn Hayes and Karin Luner

· Reading Group, initiated by Cynthia Fowler. She will suggest a book for summer reading.

· CyberArts “Night Vision 2009” will be sponsored by Lesley University (Karen Frostig liaison) next May. WCA members expressed outspoken interest to participate again in 2009. With advanced planning, the program will likely be even stronger than the 2007 version, which consisted of two panels, two performances, projections, and multiple videos. Karen will explore reserving the same space (Lesley University’s elegant Prospect Hall, the old white church in Porter Square on Mass Ave) and equipment for the first weekend in May 2009. Stay tuned!

It has been my honor to be a part of leadership in our Chapter for the past four years, and I am proud of what we all have accomplished together. There are many new and exciting possibilities to come if you become involved. I want to welcome each and every one of you to be an integral part of the team for incoming president, Beth Neville, and incoming vice president, Ruth Feldman. Be active, be feminist, be successful and well.

I joined the WCA in 1988 in an era when women were finding their voices as leaders within the feminist art movement. I would sit unobtrusively in the back, watching how women like Patricia Hills, Susan Schwalb, Patricia Johnston, Alicia Faxon, Mela Lyman, Leslie Sills, Prilla Bracket, Faith Wilding, May Stevens and many others, would conduct business while considering the troubling issues of those times, the frustrations burning in many women’s lives. Women would speak frankly and boldly. The room, in what felt like the “basement” of BU’s Fine Arts Building, was riddled with the power of women’s voices. Participation felt momentous, history was being made as people spoke.

I volunteered to chair the program committee in 1989 and witnessed a changing of the guard. The art historians, and this was a phenomenon that seemed to be happening across the country, were securing tenure-track positions, leaving the WCA in droves. The WCA was soon to be dominated by women artists’ voices.

That was then. Today, there are many artists’ groups to choose from. Some prestigious museums and universities are even sponsoring feminist art colloquia! No longer on the sidelines--witness the whirl of feminist activity surrounding the 35th anniversary year of the feminist art movement—feminism is gaining momentum. With that said there remains a great deal of ambivalence and confusion around what it means to be a feminist. (These issues are discussed at length in BLAZE: Discourse on Art, Women and Feminism).

Maintaining my membership for all the intervening years, I came back to the WCA in a leadership role in 2004—literally drafted to co-chair the conference, and chair the panel committee for Boston’s 2006 WCA Annual conference. Attending the Atlanta WCA conference in 2004, I was duly impressed, and returned ready to create a strong conference. After securing three exhibition sites for JWAN, we discovered that we still needed a site for the national show. Brandeis WSRC quickly shifted gears to host the national exhibition. Inspired by Coco Fusco at CAA, I invited her, on the spot, to be our keynote speaker. I then focused on creating a panel program--that grew to the size of 16 panels and 70 speakers--aimed at recapturing the history of the feminist art movement and encompassing the many different strands of second-wave and third-wave feminisms. I also worked with Simmons College bookstore to develop a very large publications table, representing current and former members’ publications. This table returned a sense of balance to the WCA. And because most of the panelists were invited speakers, we did not/could not charge the standard membership and conference entry fees. As a result, the conference felt like feminists were coming ”home” to speak about their lives on the road.

Feeling responsible for lost revenues, I asked my son’s camp counselor, who was a professional videographer, to do all the audio-visual set up and recording at a bargain rate. This meant that not only were we spared the ghastly hotel conference fees for audio equipment (estimated at $10,000), we were actually able to create a permanent tape of the conference “for posterity” with little overhead. In addition, thanks to Kathy’s magnificent advertising campaign, the conference was well attended, sustaining a modest profit for the chapter!

The panels led to the book and the book now stands as a tribute to the WCA, as well as a text that makes a broader contribution to feminist discourse in the arts. Mapping 14 new feminist histories, Blaze also addresses the quality of interaction and reciprocity between feminist leadership, scholarship and activism. I created a new web site www.blazediscourse.com so that the author’s bios and abstracts would be available for anyone interested in learning more about BLAZE.

I was dizzy with delight following the conference and signed on as co-president for a term, while working with Kathy to complete Blaze. I thought the work would “flow,” we were all so primed after the conference. However, people seemed reticent to jump into a new round of energy expenditure. Building a strong steering committee and finding the next round of leadership turned into real work. The process also produced unexpected friendships. Feelings of camaraderie developed as we worked to grow a new vision for the WCA.

Revitalized and further stabilized by this process, the Boston chapter seems poised to embark on a new round of adventure. Most all of the offices are filled. There is a healthy mix of seasoned members mentoring new leadership. The structural issues, such as the by-laws, the 501(c)3 and the web site, finally the web site, are being tended to with a great deal of care. The word legacy is being used, reminding us all that we have a responsibility to support the next generation of women coming of age. People are smiling at the WCA. We’ve worked hard and we can now anticipate this next phase with a genuine sense of what it means to work together “for change.”

Boston Conference 2006 Highlights Disk is available for purchase! $10 plus shipping - click on DVD Order Form for purchase information, and look for the information on our website and National WCA shortly. Relive the Best of the Conference, or see it for the first time if you were unable to attend.

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Articles and submissions wanted for our chapter newsletter. Show reviews and other topics of interest are just a taste of what we hope to receive from you talented folks. Please send show announcements also with a note that you wish it to be forwarded to the WCA Boston.

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