Ten Chicago Women/Fifteen Years

Goodness Gracious! This Friday, November 20th, the exhibition "Ten Chicago Women/Fifteen Years" will open at the Bridgeport Art Center Gallery on the Fourth Floor.

The exhibition notes report: "Artists often work in isolation with no one to offer responses to their work. In order to combat a common sense of isolation, ten Chicago women artists began meeting fifteen years ago to provide honest critiques, encouragement and feedback to each other. The founders, Linda Eisenberg and Elyn Koentopp-Vanek expressed the main objective of the group: to be supportive and constructive and to increase exposure through group shows of their work."

One of the artists and interview participants, Rebecca Wolfram, will be exhibiting several drawings. Here's a blog post from our interview earlier this summer: https://elisa-shoenberger.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/interview-with-rebecca-wolfram

You should visit this exhibition. I can't wait to check out myself.

For more information, read  the website here: http://bridgeportart.com/portfolio/ten-chicago-women-fifteen-years/#.Vkv_HGSrQdA

Upcoming Events

Exciting events around town!

I am pleased to announce that AAUW will be hosting its third Jane Addams Day Celebration at Hull House (Resident's Dining Hall) staring performer/songwriter Kristin Lems on December 5th at 2pm.   She will share stories about her family’s experiences with Jane Addams and perform songs written about the life of
Jane Addams. Join us for a historic Jane Addams’ speech and song! The event will
conclude with lemonade and cookies. Come and celebrate this amazing woman with  AAUW! 

For more information check out the Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634847263465352/

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Also Kristin Lems has a new CD out: You, Me, and All of the Above. It has great songs including a song about Captain Streeter and Carl the Guinea Hen. Check it out here: 

http://www.kristinlems.com/you_me_and_all_of_the_above1/

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Jamie O'Reilly, performer, producer, and huge supporter of this project, has re-released her incredible CD I Know Where I am Going. Check it out here:

 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jamieoreilly5

There are two upcoming shows with the CD release: 

On Thursday, November 19th, at the Veteran's Room in Oak Park, IL, Jamie O'Reilly, Peter Swanson, Michael Smith, and reader Belinda Bremner will perform "I Know Where I'm Going," an evening of Irish Songs and Poetry.
More information:  http://oppl.org/events/friends-library-folk-music-concert-jamie-oreilly?ajax=1

On Wednesday, December 2nd, there will be a Christmas Show at Chief O’Neill’s PubWith Jamie O’Reilly. Peter Swenson, Michael Smith, Belinda Bremner and surprise guests!
More information at: http:chiefoneillspub.com

For more information about these events, check out Jamie O'Reilly's website: http://www.jamieoreilly.com/jamies-november-e-news-concerts-1119-122-radio-cds/

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Mary Ellen Croteau is also having a solo show at the Harold Washington Library 8th floor gallery starting November 13th until January 15th. Check out more information: http://www.maryellencroteau.net/mec_website/Whats_New.html

Conversation with Julie Schmidt

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Julie Schmidt of Juliet Jewelry. Julie Schmidt designs and sells beautiful jewelry here in Chicago area. She launched her jewelry at the Mercedes Benz LA Fashion Week and has been featured in several fashion magazines in Chicago, the rest of the US. and even internationally including Daily Candy, Chicago Scene, Chicago Journal, Hong Kong Watch & Jewelry, Philadelphia Style, and Chicago Magazine.

On a perfect summer day at an outdoor restaurant, we talked about her inspiration for her jewelry. She told me: “I spend a lot of time walking really early in the morning, when no one is awake, like 5am. I experience the city in a different way than I would right now. I see a lot of white space, negative space, around shapes. I’m moving towards more geometric shapes in the past year. I do follow trends. At first, I felt I was more of an artisanal jeweler. I feel that  over time I’ve become more on trend, or more of a fashion designer. I like to stay on top of the trends or before the trend hits the Midwest, which is easy to do. I catch things really quickly. I have an eye for the fine detail of simple things that people would overlook. I think my mother taught me that. She taught how to sew when I was eight, needlepoint, crochet… anything to use your hands. She taught me proportions. She really trained my eye without knowing it. I attribute a lot of that to her. In fact, when I work, I look at my hands... [and] see my mom’s hands. I feel like she’s always with me when I’m working. It’s really wonderful to have that feeling. She has passed.

“I spend a lot of time looking at the opposite of things that the average person looks at. I look at windows, walkways, corners of buildings,and the brickwork of that building, let’s say right over there. I love linear things. I could make some jewelry; it would be so extreme no one ever want to buy it. As an artist, I have to make a living so that’s why I’m focusing on fashion... Even just looking at the way those lights are strung, the shape [it] that creates. Or looking at the sky, it’s a soft cloudy, and billowy. Or there’s the rooftops with the two triangle houses. I see whispers of beauty in common things like that.”

I reflected that her work had an architectural feeling to it. She said, “I guess it does. My father was a construction guy. He was a general contractor. Although,he never talked to me about architecture, I’ve discovered through the years that I’m drawn to that. I like how things come together or the contrast between the two. The peaks of that building and the sky. The contrast of the soft and the really defined angles, the planes. I’ve never studied art, other than high school. I have a really strong knowing of what works for me and my business. And I hope people get it.”

What a pleasure to talk to Julie Schmidt about her work!

Check out her jewelry at her website: http://www.julietjewelry.com/

The Lights, Sky and Buildings on the day of our conversation. Photo: Elisa Shoenberger

Interview with Judie Anderson

Back in the spring, I had the pleasure to interview Judie Anderson, illustrator, painter, and retired Art Director for the Chicago Tribune. Judie Anderson’s illustrations included children’s educational illustrations, editorial illustration and much more. What a thrill to talk to her about her life and career!

Judie Anderson told me about her early career as a fashion illustrator at a local newspaper. She talked about the challenges she faced as a woman in the field, “I worked for the Chicago American. And you talk about being an activist, I don’t know if you could formally classify me as an activist or not, but I walked into a man’s world in the newspaper business. Whereby I was the only woman in the art department and I could draw rings around these guys. They were all older than me. I was this young little cookie who walked in there. I brought in a lot of business for them.

“So when it came time for my review, I would go to the head of the department and see what he would say. He would tell me that: ‘You brought in all this business. This is wonderful. We’re so pleased to have you here, but I can’t give you a raise.’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Well because all these men have families. You’re single. You don’t need this.’ And I went, ‘It’s not based upon what I need, it’s based upon what I do.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s based upon what I choose to do.’ So, okay, I threatened to quit and he gave me a raise. Okay.

“Another year rolls around, I came back for a review all over again. I’m bringing in even more business at that time, so he said,  ‘I still can’t give you a raise, Judie.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you can; otherwise, I quit.’ So we went through that charade for three years standing and then finally I decided: I’m quitting. And he said, ‘No, I’ll give you the raise.’ I said, ‘No, I’m quitting. I’m opening up my own business. I want to go freelance.’ And that’s it.”

Later on, she started a business with her husband Bill Anderson and eventually she joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune where she worked in political illustration until she became the head of the art department. She told me about the time when Mayor Washington died suddenly. “When Mayor Washington died, and that was on a Thanksgiving night, I had company here for Thanksgiving. I said, “Uh-oh, I’ll have to go to the paper tomorrow early in the morning and do something because we’ve got to produce something for this.” So I went in about 5 o’clock in the morning and I got a photograph out of our reference room. I did an illustration of him knowing that the editors would be in by about 10 o’clock all frantic. “What are we going to do?”... Well I had this done by the time they came in...But I really did have a very good career there. I loved it. I really enjoyed it. It was exciting. You’d get to meet many people. You were always on top of the news, and eventually they made me head of the art department.”

This is just a taste of a wonderful interview with the amazing Judie Anderson!

Judie, along with her late husband, Bill Anderson, are in a exhibition called Legacy/ Alliance at the Beverly Arts Center (2407 W 111th St, Chicago, IL 60655) thru Nov. 1 and the Fall Members show at the Elmhurst Artists Guild at the Elmhurst Art Museum (150 S Cottage Hill Ave, Elmhurst, IL 60126).

Go check out their work!

(left) Bill Anderson (right) Judie Anderson

Upcoming Art Events

October is going to be an exciting month. So many artists will be opening their work. Here are two of many events featuring artists who have participated in the project.

First, Yoko Noge and Jazz Me Blues will play a free concert at International House, University of Chicago, 1414 E. 59th Street at 5:30 on Friday 2nd. The event is co-sponsored by International House Global Voices Program.

For more information, check out: http://ihouse.uchicago.edu

Second, Carron Little and Judie Anderson will both be presenting work at the Beverly Art Walk on October 3rd. Judie Anderson will be holding Open Studio so check out her amazing work. Carron Little will debut her Neighborhood Magic.  More information about her piece here: http://www.beverlyarts.org/events/neighborhood-magic-carron-little-featured-artist-beverly-art-walk-2015/

Check out more information about the Art Walk here: http://www.beverlyarts.org/

There's a lot going on in the next few weeks. These are just two of many awesome art events you should check out!

Conversation with Claire Pentecost

Several months ago, I met with Claire Pentecost, artist, writer, and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute, to talk about her extensive work. Earlier this year she had a room installation called “Our Bodies Our Soils” in the DePaul Art Museum.

I asked her about how she conceived of her multifaceted work that includes installations, photography, writing, and much more. She told me: “I feel like my whole artistic career has been about grappling with my misunderstanding of what we call nature. I was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and my grandparents had a farm on the outskirts of town…I spent all this time roaming around the farm, even after it ceased to function as a commercial enterprise. I created a lot of fantasies about what nature is. When I got older, I became aware that culture also circulates a lot of different fantasies about this thing called nature. I’ve started calling it ‘The Nature’ because it is this thing we have constructed. Most of what we have conceptualized about nature doesn’t really include us and our activities, and there are a lot of consequences to that.  For instance, our obsession with cleanliness is killing off microbes and bacteria that co-evolved with us and made us who we are today.”

I asked her about her conception of the “Public Amateur.” She explained: “It was partly a response to the public intellectual. It was from observing a way that many artists are approaching their practice, educating themselves and becoming an interloper into other fields… I was seeing a lot of people become experts even though they weren’t certified institutionally. This is not expertise via the authorized track. This applied not only to artists but also to all kinds of people. I think it has to do with the failure of authorities to protect us from the risks of a techno-scientific society, the unintended consequences of modernization. Authority has become suspect, partly because it is corrupt, partly because it contradicts itself so much. And with every ‘solution’ those in control always seem to create new problems. 

“What is interesting for me to observe is all these people educating themselves to take responsibility for how to navigate a complex society. The amateur of course learns because they love learning or they love a particular subject. It’s important to me that the process of learning is made public.  So that learning itself and what constitutes knowledge can be examined. It’s on the table. It’s not ‘Oh I’ve learned this, I get certified, and now you have to listen to me.’ Put the whole process out in the light. I feel that artists are in a really good position to do this because ideally they have a public. People can garner publics in all kinds of ways, internet, and social media, etc. To try to produce knowledge collectively makes the knowledge more robust.”

Pentecost brings this notion of the public amateur and concern for understanding nature to her installation “Our Bodies Our Soils.”  In her work, she explains, “[The piece] was a room installation mimicking a 19th century apothecary. Over 170 vintage pharmacy jars containing samples of distinct soils were labeled with the locations where they were collected, most from the Chicagoland area. The artist explains that every plot of soil is different as it has a singular history, and that if you know how your farmer treats her soil, you will have a good indicator of the quality of the harvest. But the connection between our bodies and our soils is even more complex. Our bodies have co-evolved with millions of beneficial microbes, many on a continuum with the beneficial microbes in soil. Unfortunately we have been destroying many of these microscopic symbionts with misuse of antibiotics and overuse of microbial cleansers. Similarly in the soil, pesticides are destroying the healthy biology that makes farming without poisonous chemicals possible.” 

On a long marble counter, soil samples were displayed under bell jars, so that visitors had the opportunity to lift the bell jar and take in the aroma of a given sample. It was simply astonishing to see how different soil samples could be in our fair city. The walls had drawings depicting the microscopic world to the macroscopic world. In this room, she explores the interconnectedness between humans and unseen organisms. She explained that part of the reason she chose this 19th century aesthetic was to harken to the days when public amateurs were common in society. Scientists, politicians, artists and more all explored other fields beyond their traditionally trained vocation. 

In conjunction with the exhibition, there were several events. On selected Fridays, Pentecost set up her microscope to examine soil samples brought in by participants.  It provided people an opportunity to come face to face with this invisible world. There was also a joint lecture with Pentecost and Liam Heneghan, professor of Environmental Science and Studies at DePaul University, called “Soil Matters: Art and Science in Conversation.” It was stupendous to watch this meeting of the two disciplines talking about the importance of soil to our food, our environment, our bodies, and the world. I learned that earthworms are not indigenous to the New World; they were brought over by settlers bringing over soil for cultivation. I think that there should be more meeting of the minds between artists and scientists like this. 

That’s just a sample of our conversation! What a pleasure to talk to Claire Pentecost about her work!

Check out her art and writings at her website: http://www.publicamateur.org/

Claire Pentecost currently exhibiting: “the force that through the fossil drives utopia drives my greased age” at the Arts Club of Chicago. There will be a gallery talk “Climate Change and the Anthropocene” with Claire Pentecost and geophysical scientist Elisabeth Moyer on October 24th at 1pm. Check out more information here: http://www.artsclubchicago.org/Exhibitions_Public_Events/Claire_Pentecost.aspx

Conversation with Krista Franklin

I met with the incredible Krista Franklin back in July. I asked Krista Franklin to describe her work. She described it as  “pretty diverse. Visual artist, poet, sometimes performer (mostly around the poetry or poetics, papermaker...visual art includes papermaking, collage, letterpress, [and] sometimes bookmaking every blue moon.” She is also the writer of the chapbook Study of Love & Black Body (Willow Books), and most recently Killing Floor (Amparan). She also held a position of artist-in-residence with Arts and Public Life/Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator.

I asked her what drew her to collage in particular. She explained: “I can draw but I’m not the best drawer. So it was a natural response for me to use magazines to get the most realistic image that I wanted to have. So that’s what led me to it; the idea [of having] things look as realistic as possible, [but] not being able to render them myself. So [it was about] figuring out ways to snatch the ideas I needed in a direct kind of way.”

I asked about her use of media, including photos. She told me, “That’s evolved over time. My initial impulse was to have a realistic image…I have before used a lot of antique photographs in my work especially in the early phases…I was using a great deal of antique photographs of people of color... As well as popular culture figures who have passed away that I had [a] deep appreciation and admiration of… I was using their iconic faces or iconic histories to pull at things and to herald them… Much of my early work especially dealt with pulling from the ideas and theories of the Black Arts Movement in particular, and how people of color (specifically black people in this country and across the globe) have been represented in very insidious ways. What I sought to do with my art, particularly visual art in this case, was to create images that would resist those ideas, that were antagonistic [to] those ideas, that showed us the way I saw us: as full, human, beautiful, complex, and worthy [of being] loved…

“We Wear the Mask is a recent series for me, particularly about women...There’s a lot of things happening... I became very interested in Afro-Surrealism in the past three years...I wanted to push the envelope of my collage [practice] into the surreal realm, to play with the idea of disruption and [the] idea of the full imagined space from the weird way my brain works. I was thinking [about] a lot of ways in which women are seen as dangerous, gold diggers, dangerous creatures. I wanted to pull and play with some of those concepts, blending the female body with animal, plant, other organic spaces in the world, fusing those all together. The ideas that I was getting at had to do with negative perceptions placed on women by history, which ultimately lead to misogyny and violence against us, seeing us as somehow tricky or slick. I wanted to push the envelope about that around the [woman] body.

"So the title, of course, is taken from [the] Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem, [a] very famous poet. He’s from the same city I was born (Dayton, OH). His house is there, it’s a historical monument. So also [I’m] tipping my hat to Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s [idea] of wearing masks to survive in the world as a person of color... and [how it] plays out as a woman of color, as a woman in the world in my experience.”

That’s just a small section of a wonderful interview. To check out Krista Franklin’s work, go to her website: http://www.kristafranklin.com/

Andersonville City Made Fest

On September 12th and 13th, two interview participants, Lesley Timpe of Squasht and Julie Schmidt of Juliet Jewelry,  will be exhibiting together at the Andersonville City Made Fest. Lesley Timpe is owner of Squasht and designs incredible clothing and hats while Juliet Jewelry makes beautiful jewelry.

For more information, check out the festival website: http://www.andersonville.org/events/andersonville-city-made-fest/

For Lesley Timpe's website, check out: SquashtBoutique.com 

For Juliet Jewelry's website, check out: www.julietjewelry.com

Discussing Silhouette Art with Nina D'Angier

Back in July, I had the opportunity to talk with Nina D’Angier, graphic designer, writer, silhouette artist, and much more. We had met previously at several historical reenactments including the amazing Chicago Poetry Bordello. She is one of fifty artists still working in the artform.

I asked her about her work as a silhouette artist.  Nina D’Angier told me, “Silhouette art sorta found me. I was already here in Chicago at the time. Just starting my life in Chicago, I was in school. My husband...is also a magician. We both share a love for history and people. We had watched a documentary on his favorite magician Dai Vernon. [Magic] was the thing that he eventually made his name doing.... Prior to that, he was a silhouette artist. I’ve always liked them. You’ve seen [silhouette art]. I grew up in Florida so everyone had ones from Disneyworld. I always thought they were nice…. That’s a really cool thing from the time period. How sad that’s not a thing people do any more. I never made the connection that ‘Hey, why don’t you do it’ until we watched the documentary.

“It’s a rather curious thing that I happened to be rather good with scissors. It came from being a careful child. When you gave me something, and you told me to connect the dots or cut on this dotted line, I wanted to cut directly on it…. I really appreciated the way stickers—I had a sticker collection as a kid, cause the 90s— I really appreciated how the image had a perfectly spaced white border around whatever it was. When I got into things like collage, later on, I liked being able to cut the 2 mm of space around whatever the image was that I cut out. I remember perfecting that as a child. I remember having this impulse as a child at 7 and then doing it forever. I could cut out a perfect circle by the time I was 12. It was this weird thing, it was not super useful, but a skill I had cultivated over time.

“Anyway, we had watched this documentary about Dai Vernon. Aaron looked at me and said: ‘I think you’d be really good at that silhouette cutting.’ I said, ‘I think you that you are crazy. That’s insane. Look how fast he’s cutting those people out and it’s perfect.’ He was, “Let’s just try it.’ He runs out of the living room and comes back with the giant bulky kitchen shears and the a piece of college ruled loose leaf paper. He said, ‘Just do mine.’ So I indulged him. I am looking at his face and cutting out this image. It’s very a subtractive sculpture art. All of sudden it felt just like sculpture to me in that it’s like I was taking out of the pieces of paper that wasn’t his face. And it just felt really natural. Afterwards, both of us looked at it and we said: ‘Oh my god, that’s your face.’ And he said: ‘I told you would be good at this.’ To be fair, I wasn’t very good at first. It was enough to recognize him but not striking.

“I worked on it. And then about maybe four months later, I booked my first gig; it was a graduation. It was great. It was a thing I’ve continued to do for the past five years or so. I’ve started studying other people who’ve done it, what little the nuances and tricks they used. How do they differentiate between a child head  and adult head... How do you cut out curls? That’s the hardest thing for me. It’s been very exciting. A fun art to learn and very immediately rewarding.”

That’s just a tiny taste of the longer interview and all of the amazing work of Nina D’Angier.

Check out her Instagram: @ninadngr

Are We There Yet?

Tomorrow, August 27th, the Chicago Park District and Changing Worlds presents a dance performance by Helen Lee and Momentum Sensorium at the Lakefront near Diversey Avenue at the Ten Thousand Ripples installation site. The piece is called "Are We There Yet?" exploring "our inward journey towards piece." The performance will be from 6pm-6:30pm.

Indira Johnson is the lead artist of Ten Thousand Ripples, an incredible public art piece across the city. She also participated in this project.

To learn more about the project and Indira Johnson, check out:  http://www.indirajohnson.com/ten-thousand-ripples.html

Interview with Amy Meadows

A few months ago, I met with Amy Windows, ‎Retail Design and Visual Merchandising Consultant, about her work and career. She was the Senior Manager of Windows and Marketing Events at Marshall Fields for 25 years. She teaches visual merchandising at Columbia College and runs a consulting business.

I asked her how she got into her career. She explained, ”I was doing set design working for a regional theater company in Richmond, Virginia. I loved it. I loved the people I was working with. A career in the performing arts requires a level of passion and sacrifice that I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable making. I was on a bus downtown, just thinking, “What I am I going do? I don’t want to scrap my degree. There’s gotta be something.” The bus stopped and I looked over to the display windows for MIller and Rhoads and thought “if that were over there a little bit…” So the power of naivety and youth, I just called the head of display for Miller and Rhoads. “Oh hi. I was wondering if you can tell me more about your job.” I’m a huge advocate for the value of the informational interview. People like to talk about themselves. Bring them coffee. It’s fifteen minutes. There’s no expectations on them. They don’t have to decide to interview or not. All you are asking for is fifteen.

“They had a job opening at a suburban store. I took it. A few years later, I came to Chicago to visit my roommates. She was going to be busy during the day. I figured I’ll set up informational interviews. I went into Marshall Fields, they said, “How do you know about the job being available?” I knew nothing about the job available. I almost passed out. The reason that job was available was because an architectural graduate had just called and said she couldn’t take the job after all. She got an internship with an architectural firm she really needed to take. 10 years later we discover through cocktail parties and all sorts of stuff, that that woman was one of my husband’s roommates. She was at my wedding. Seriously, thank you so much for turning down that job because that’s how I got it. She had no idea. I had no idea. But there you go.”

I asked about her time designing windows for Marshall Fields, later Macy’s. It is a tradition for my mom and me to visit the Christmas windows.

“The most challenging thing about the windows, the Great Tree, the main aisle, all of those traditions: How do deliver on a tradition? [There’s the] widely held expectation yet keep it fresh. That’s the thing. Because we think of Disney as a time capsule but it’s not. Everything gets refreshed and, rewritten. They want new things. If everything was the same exact same way it was, it could look just as nice, but you wanted to see brand right. We would say whose name is on the door. We knew our customers expected something that was over the top, that would satisfy a wide generational breadth, because you are going to have grandparents with grandchildren on the shoulders. It became more and more multicultural society evolved. We stopped saying Christmas instead we said the holidays. One of my first windows was the Nativity scene. Do you see any departments doing Nativity scene windows anymore? But even when we did Harry Potter, there were critics who felt that we were promoting Satanic worship or that it wasn’t Christmassy enough... Some are Christmas stories but there other stories that you had to Christmasize. There’s only one Christmas scene in Harry Potter when they get gifts. But you still want to see twinkling lights, the snow, that sort of stuff too. How to merge that and still have it work?

Let’s say we’re doing Cinderella. Along State street from Randolph to Washington, we’ve got 13 window spaces, all different depths. You look at the narrative arch. The high points? She comes to the ball. That falls in the two shallowest windows. Can’t speed it up or can’t slow it down. You still have to tell the story. It has to make sense. The narrative has to hang together. Costs are always an issue. This is where theatrical tricks come in. Instead of having three fully 3D mechanical figures, could you have two that were 3D mechanical and simply have  a bas relief or silhouette with simple movement without the viewer thinking we’ve cut costs...That’s because everyone tries to be careful and creative about it. Could you do flaps that were painted, could you do faux-finished backdrops/set pieces like in a theater, something dimensional or constructed. Canvas always cost less than wood. [There’s] designing the proscenium, the frame all that visual information passes.

“We also try to design for layers of viewers. Little kids up close, little kids on shoulders way far back, and there’s an adult who might be reading the story to the child on their shoulders as they inch their way up. With each step closer to the glass, you should be discovering another new detail. You don’t want to be like: “Oh, we waited for this?” There should always be that: “Ooooh. Look at that. I didn’t see that back there. It still looked great. But Now that I’m all the way up here in the freezing cold, it was worth the wait.”

That’s all for now. To find out more about Amy Meadows and her work, check out her website: http://www.windowsmatter.com/index.php

Mellon Foundation's Report

Mellon Foundation released data from the First Comprehensive Survey of Diversity in American Art Museums. In the executive summary, the study showed: 

"Among its chief findings, the survey documented a significant movement toward gender equality in art museums.  Women now comprise some 60 percent of museum staffs, with a preponderance of women in the curatorial, conservation and education roles that can be a pipeline toward leadership positions. The survey found no such pipeline toward leadership among staff from historically underrepresented minorities.  Although 28 percent of museum staffs are from minority backgrounds, the great majority of these workers are concentrated in security, facilities, finance, and human resources jobs.  Among museum curators, conservators, educators and leaders, only 4 percent are African American and 3 percent Hispanic."

So museums definitely have some work to go to have representative boards and high level museum leadership. It's critical that the decision-makers be diverse in all sense of the words. 

Here's the article detailing more about the study and its findings: https://mellon.org/news-publications/articles/Diversity-American-Art-Museums/

I wanted to share this information with readers of this blog since I feel it is relevant to the project as a whole.

That's all for now!

Susan Yount and the Chicago Poetry Bordello

In the beginning of the project, I talked to Susan Yount, poet and head of Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal. She is also  Madam Black Eye for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Here is a taste of our talk back in October 2014. The Chicago Poetry Bordello holds amazing evenings filled with song, dance, burlesque, silhouette artist, and, most important, poetry whores who for a price will read poetry for you (and an enterprising loved one). I’ve been fortunate to participate in two shows as a temperance worker and a plant for a fake medium. I highly recommend checking them out!

I asked Susan Yount about what she wanted to achieve with the Chicago Poetry Bordello. She said, “I think the main goal of the show is to help people who don't always read poetry discover that poetry really isn't just a stuffy art for intellectuals at coffee shops. I think that's the main goal of the whole show, and I think that [it] is successful in doing that. I have friends that I worked with that have left my office and don't work there anymore. They still come back to the Poetry Bordello. It's because it's an escape. It's going back to when everything was a little more romantic... The one-on-one reading poetry, I mean that's what they used to do. Yeah, so I think that's very romantic and people appreciate the attention.

“And you can ask questions. If they don't understand your poetry… I've had many a person ask me... if that was real life.  In a sense, it is real life. It's all coming from life. So I think that's the main goal: to show that poetry is fun. And then there's this secondary part where it's an artist community. Artists are meeting other artists. I've met playwrights. A historian came to our show, more than one historian has come to our show now that I think about it…

“But other artists, you know like the Steampunk community too, which they're into the art of dressing. So it just caters to so many people. It's such a wonderful mix of people because everybody's meeting somebody else that they're interested in and/or have other things that they can do with them, with other forms of art, other communities of art. So I know that Pinch and Squeal has done stuff with one of the big guys from the Steampunk community. He went out and was doing their vaudeville tent with them, I know that Sara Chapman does stuff with them. So she's the pianist and she's hooked up with the White City Rippers. I feel like that’s part two: everybody connecting with other people who are also writers and artists. We got a great silhouette artist now... so that's a great. It's a great community of people. It is like herding cats, but somehow it all comes together and really amazing things and connections happen.

“And once I had this guy, after I read a poem to him, he yelled out: ‘You should write horror movies.’ And I thought: ‘Wow, I wish I could write horror movies, right.’ So you kind of get a perspective I think that you just don't get anywhere else.”

Check out Chicago Poetry Bordello website here: http://www.chicagopoetrybrothel.com/

Check out the amazing Arsenic Lobster Poetry Magazine here: http://arseniclobster.magere.com/index.html

A Conversation with Irena Siwek

A few weeks ago, I met with Irena Siwek, pen and paper artist, to talk about her work. She recently had a show at Iwona Biedermann’s gallery off of Western and North Avenue. I asked her how she became a self taught artist. How did she make that decision and why?

She explained: At eighteen, “I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t one of those lucky people who knew... I was born with an artistic talent. I always wanted to do something with art but wasn’t sure where my path should go. My mom, a very practical woman, pushed me towards something different.

“So I actually graduated with a math major, which was my other passion. Math was always very interesting to me. Sort of easy. If i couldn’t choose art, math was my next option. That’s where I went. I thought I’d maybe teach at a school. But my philosophy of education was a little different from what I experienced here in the US. I figured I couldn’t really do this. This is one of the professions that you had to have in your heart. I didn’t. I wasn’t meant to be a teacher.

“So that’s why I decided to pursue the artistic career. So I did a lot of different things. I did murals, graphic design... I took some classes at community college for graphic design. It sort of evolved. I did a lot of drawings. There is a lot of mathematical aspects incorporated in my art. There's the precision of it... There is something that connects both parts of my brain. I like to be very organized in what I do. I think that medium, the ink and paper, just gives me the outlet. It also gives me the freedom to do it anywhere. Because I can take my paper and pens anywhere. I love that flexibility. I don’t like to have any constraints. I feel so lucky to find this outlet for myself. I know that I will continue doing this for the rest of my life no matter what.”

I asked about her Marionette series. “This is a series that I thought that I’ll create a few drawings and I’d be done. But I’m so intrigued by it. I’m still continually creating more marionettes. There are a few aspects of why I want to create them. I can compose really nice pictures of them. I can manipulate them. The technical side is the exactly the same as the meaning of it because that’s how the marionettes are. We can do whatever we want with them. We can control them. That’s the deeper meaning behind them. We live in a world where something is controlling us, either its television, politics, religion… The question: what is freedom? It is that control in the way of freedom or is it not? If somebody is on an island by themselves, are they free? I’m looking for an answer... To what extent, can we be controlled? It’s not just one type of control. It’s many things. As a woman, I feel that I have a lot of different personalities. I’m an artist. I’m also a mother. I’m also a wife. I take on different roles. In a way, it’s a metaphor for the theatrical aspect of life that we take on different roles. I want to show that in the series of Marionettes as well. I just love doing them too. They are a great subject. I’m definitely going to continue on...In the Marionette series, I've done about 20.”

That’s all for now!

Check out Irena Siwek’s website here: http://www.irenasiwek.com

Carron Little and the Queen of Luxuria

In the initial months of this project, I talked to Carron Little, performance artist, curator, painter, writer, composer about her work. This upcoming week, she will be performing as Queen of Luxuria in LOVE over MONEY at Buttercup Park Uptown at 4901 N. Sheridan from 2 to 4 on Saturday July 18th.

The following week marks the beginning of performance art series Out of Site 2015, curated by Carron Little. In its fifth year, Out of Site is a public performance art series where performers from all over Chicago and the world will be performing for the next couple months in public spaces. It’s a truly magnificent series. The first performances are Sheryl Oring’s “I Wish to Say” and Ballenarca on July 25th from 1 -4 at Milwaukee and Evergreen. Duff Norris will perform “The Wisdom Box”  from 5 to 6 on July 25th as one of the first performances for the Wicker Park Fest.

Check out more information here: http://outofsitechicago.org/

I asked Carron Little about her Queen of Luxuria. She said, “So my persona  of Queen of Luxuria… I created a performance at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London... I was thinking about how I've really been inspired by people like Leigh Bowery and Quentin Crisp and queer icons in British culture. I’ve been thinking about my own upbringing and thinking about how one can represent those aesthetics...Every year we would watch Quentin Crisp’s address to the nation because he would always do a queen version, It was always hilarious. We would have like queer balls that we were always getting dressed up….

“So my mom was a lesbian feminist, so I got exposed to a lot of feminist theory and thinking.. So the Queen of Luxuria is really about embodying the queer, and really deconstructing notions of power, but also celebrating being a women and being like: ‘Yeah, I have breasts. I have nipples and they're fabulous.’ And it's also kind of a piss take of every female artist who's ever being celebrated within western culture has always been nude like: Marina Abramović and Cindy Sherman, Helen Chadwick, even actually Rebecca Horn. There's these women who become these so called masters end up representing what men want women to be and become objects in the process…”

I asked her about if and how gender played a role in her work. Carron Little told me, “Yeah, I remember actually a conversation I had with this woman in the group of artists while growing up. She asked me: ‘Carron, are you a woman first or an artist first?’ And she was 40 and I was 18 or 19 at the time.  I said, ‘Oh, I'm an artist.’ And if I was to ask myself that question again, I am an artist first, but being a woman is really important part of that. I was just quoting this article by Jerry Saltz in Vulture last week that lays out the statistics of women ads in the Art Forum in this (2014) September month's issue from New York. So out of 73 full page ads, only 11 were for women solo shows and that it equates to 15 percent.

“But a natural fact, the amount of solo exhibitions of women in the New York galleries right now is 25 percent. The Art Forum ads are down from last year. So it is vital that I just have to think about things like that. It fills me with so much fire and determination to change that situation. I can't do it on my own, but I'm really interested in making work that challenges the norm and does speak about the inequalities and the injustices. I think in terms of the piece Unto Each Their Own Safe + More, which I did in the bank last year, that piece to me is really making a comment about the inequality of salaries that women are given. I've just been researching the fact that in Britain, women under the age of 25 are getting 93.2 percent  in regards to male salaries; whereas woman over the age of 55, their salaries are 75 percent compared to men. Here I think the situation is worse in America because women get 76 cents to the dollar. It puzzles me that inequality exists. It just seems so bizarre, but then you just look at where we've come over the last hundred years and we've come a long way, but we still have more to go.”

So check out LOVE over MONEY at Buttercup Park Uptown and meet Queen of Luxuria. Also, check out all the incredible artists of Out of Site starting July 25th.

Check out Carron Little’s website here: http://carronlittle.com/

Check out the website for Out of Site: http://outofsitechicago.org/

Image: Courtesy of Carron Little

A Beautiful Summer Day Talk with Zsofia Otvos

I recently completed the 25th interview with Zsofia Otvos in mid-June. Zsofia Otvos is a painter and makeup artist extraordinaire, who has worked on movies like Divergent, TV shows like Sirens, and as the resident makeup artist for Chicago theater Trap Door Theatre.

I asked how she would define herself as an artist. She explained: “I call myself a character maker. What I’m most interested in both makeup and painting is creating characters, bringing something from nothing, and making it happen. In terms of makeup, that might be part of the storytelling, maybe there’s an arch in the story when the character becomes super happy, then gets very depressed, so on. Maybe I can alter his foundation, maybe his eyebrows I can manipulate. I like to do those subtle differences that will read slightly differently on camera.”

“In my visual art, in my paintings, my process and ideas are different because obviously they’re coming from my own inspirations. Lately, they are spur of the moment experiences. So that might be: I saw someone at the airport, or a coffee shop, wherever I may have seen them, I often sketch them right away. That may or may not become an actual painting. Once they do, I start recreating some of the characteristics in forms of sketches: Maybe the body position was very particular that I need capture or maybe their hairstyle, something that is very characteristic. The features are absolutely not important to me. The features are the result of something else. And it’s really the spirit of the experience that I am interested in capturing. That’s how I create character. I’m just a character maker.”

Later we talked about her work at the Trap Door Theater. She explained, “These tiny things can really be a big impact...I feel I don’t actually design the makeup. I just put on what’s missing. Because the [actors] are so expressive in their movement, I don’t feel like I do it; I’m just putting on what is 'already there' thru their expression. The [actors] are not visual artists, so they don’t see what is not there…..“How can you not see it?” (I wonder)…we just have different tools. They use their body and voice… for the same end I use colors and shapes. I’m not doing much at all... I feel like a bit of a cheater.  So, it is a lovely moment for me, when, for example, actor Marzena Bukowska said, ‘I got my character now.’ How are you telling me that? Your character is already so finished, so complete.

“But that’s a very good experience and reminder that my job is to help the actors arrive to who they need to be, whatever that is. It’s not so such about the makeup, their facial expression and body movement will always be more expressive than my work. But sometimes when the actor looks in a mirror, it is my work that may help them get to that point. An ignition key.”

You’ll have to stay tuned for the rest of this wonderful interview.

Check out her fine art: www.zsofiaotvos.com,

Check out her work in makeup: www.madeupfaces.com

Julia Haw: Her Philosophy and Chicago

Last week, we talked to Julia Haw about the proposed closure of the Illinois Art Museums. What a troubling time. This week, we are going to take a little peek at the interview that we had in December.

Back in December, I asked her about her work philosophy. She explained: “A lot of people are looking for a simple solution and a quick fix, or how to get from A to B very quickly. But it’s really about working (a lot) and it’s about steadiness. It’s about longevity. And what I’m really interested in, in being an artist, is the idea of longevity. I don’t want to be a flash pan artist or someone that just created a really great body of work and then was forgotten for many years. I’m interested in creating good works that are timeless and that will last in a historical context. So that’s number one.

“I’m also extremely supportive of the community. I love having these conversations. I get a lot out of it. So, yeah, I’m into supporting community. Back in the day of This is not the Studio (run by Claire Molek, Erin Babbin and Nick Jirasek on Marshfield Ave), we saw that in action, right?  It was just one of the coolest places in Chicago bringing together artists from all periods in their careers, working in all different media. There were conversations, dinners, fantastic provoking shows and so much fun. I think there are more spaces like that now - at that time, perhaps I just wasn’t as familiar with the artistic landscape, but the studio was really, really cool. It was kind of like what you’re doing, bridging all these different artistic modes of expression.”

I asked her more specifically about how Chicago has shaped her as artist. Julia told me: “A huge part of my work is activating conversation and bringing the public forum back. Artists in the 1920s and shit, they’d go to a bar in New York and brawl with each other and yell. Robert Rauschenberg was swinging a punch and it was just like: ‘Oh God, like that’s so spirited.’ I feel that energy in Chicago. Yeah, so I think that that’s definitely shaped at least the spirit of my work. It’s caused me not to be afraid, to really put something out there and just be like: ‘Fuck it, I’m going to do this whether you like it or not.’”

Julia Haw added an update about her exhibition at the IL State Museum in Lockport:

She told me: "Since the museum is still technically open (with no insurances to protect the works), there will be a one night only party and brand new painting reveal in response to Rauner's proposed budget cuts, July 30th, IL State Museum Lockport,6-10PM (music and drinks provided)  LONG LIVE CULTURE!!"

So check out the event on July 30th!

Check out her work here: http://www.juliahaw.com/

And if you haven't already, please consider signing the petition to save the Illinois Art Museums:  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/governor-rauner-dont

Julia Haw: Art and Politics

Back in December, I interviewed Julia Haw, painter extraordinaire. She is one of many artists who are impacted by Governor Rauner’s plan to close the Illinois Art Museums as of July 1st. She showed her incredible series The Western Veil at the Chicago branch of the Illinois Art Museum and currently showing the series at the Lockport branch.

I asked her about how she will be impacted with this threatened closure of the Illinois Art Museums.

How has the threat of the closure of all the Illinois State Museums affected you? What will happen to your exhibition in Lockport?

Julia: The state of Illinois will not be covering the insurances to protect the artwork, starting July 1st. I am unsure at this time if this decision is temporary or the museums will have to find private protection. (Confusing since I found this on Reboot: “The Department will begin the process to suspend operations and close the five state museums to visitors. The state will continue to maintain and secure the museums to protect the artifacts and exhibits.” I don’t know how the museum plans to protect the artifacts without proper insurances, but for this particular reason all thirty works of mine currently hanging will be re-delivered to me the week of June 22nd. My show, a traveling exhibition titled The Western Veil was slated to be in the Lockport Illinois State Museum until mid August, with a party and book release July 31st. The book, to be published by Perch Press, is now on hold as well, as the museum had a private resource who was going to fund it, whom will not give funds until things are settled. I don’t know if the museums are going to close or remain open, but there is definitely a petition to sign!

As for why..... “House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and their caucuses passed a budget for the 2016 fiscal year beginning July 1 that is nearly $4 billion in the hole,” said the governor’s office. (Chicago Sun Times) The democratic budget set for 2016 has been deemed “phony,” thus Rauner is making these cuts to save $400 million. “The governor has declared all-out war on the citizens of the state of Illinois because he’s peeved with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate,” Lang said, adding: “It’s a path that’s carefully chosen to strike at the values and principles of what the majority of the members of the Legislature believe in.” (Chicago Sun Times)

On February 18th, in the 2016 Illinois Operating Budget Book, Tim Nuding, Director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget states, “The morale of our citizens is low, and many Illinoisans are down on Illinois. A 2014 Gallup poll found that 1 in 4 Illinois citizens believe our state is the worst state to live in - by far the highest percentage of any other state in the country. Only 3 percent of Illinoisans said ours was the best state in which to live - the lowest of any state. About half of Illinoisans say they would leave Illinois if they could - that’s the highest percentage of any other state. United Van Lines’ 2014 National Movers Study lists Illinois as the third highest outbound state, meaning that more people are moving out of Illinois than out of 47 other states. Illinoisans have the lowest trust in their state government, with only 28 percent of respondents saying they trust their government while the national figure is almost 60 percent.” (I wonder why!!)

Please see the FULL 2016 Budget Book here. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/262704484/Fy-2016-Illinois-Operating-Budget-Book) (Notice the Illinois Arts Council on here as well. I know many artist friends spent hours applying for grants through the council only to receive a message like this:

“Dear Julia Haw,

The Illinois Arts Council Agency was not able to proceed with the review of the application you submitted for a fellowship in Visual Arts. Unfortunately, funds appropriated for the program are no longer available.On behalf of the Council and staff of the Illinois Arts Council Agency, thank you for your interest in participating in the programs and services of this State agency.

Sincerely,

Shirley R. Madigan and Tatiana Gant”

Read here about how Rauner’s cuts will impact the state: http://wgntv.com/2015/06/02/gov-rauner-prepares-closures-spending-cuts-if-no-budget-okd/

2. With this new climate in Illinois, have you been impacted in other ways by this cut to arts funding?

As I mentioned above, the state has slowly been pulling funds from the Illinois Arts Council this year and I started noticing it when the laborious grants I worked on were responded to by a three sentence email stating the funds had run dry. I will be applying for funds elsewhere now, such as through Artadia, a non-profit that awards unrestricted amounts ranging from $5K - $20K in the cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 

Through this whole process, I am still very up in spirit. I am taking everything as it comes. I see this as an opportunity to talk about what is happening, why and how we can take a stand for ourselves and for our artists! As for the work coming down, look - I’ve created an amazing body of work, and sold over half the series to private collectors. In the meantime if the state cannot provide, or refuses to provide, we have to seek alternate means, while still making ourselves heard!

I offer simple solutions:

• Inform ourselves.

• Stop saying “Our hands are tied.”

• Raise our voices. This means using constructive means, like petitions and writing, sharing information, or creating work expressing our opinions.

• Find permanent solutions, rather than temporary ones.

• Hold art to the highest esteem. This is our cultural foundation!

John Lustig, the director of the Lockport Illinois State Museum, and who I have been working with for the past two years has met with the mayor of Lockport just this week. The mayor is a fan of my work and says “Julia still has her date of July 31st. The band is booked.” I don’t know what this means just yet since the work is coming down... but this could be an opportunity for something different, something right in the vein of what I’ve always done, something a bit wild.... So YES - there is still a party date on July 31st. And I really hope to see you there..... TBD!!!!!!

###

Thank you Julia for your critical perspective on this troubling threat to cultural institutions in Illinois. So please consider signing the petition against the closure of the Illinois State Museums.

Sign it here: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/governor-rauner-dont
Check out Julia Haw’s work (including her exhibition threatened by the closure) here: http://www.juliahaw.com/

Hot Chocolate with Marnie Galloway

I recently sat down at a cafe to talk with Marnie Galloway, comic artist and cartoonist. She is the author and artist behind the incredible award winning wordless comic In the Sound and Seas.

I asked her about her choice of medium of the wordless novel. She said while she was aware of the tradition of wordless novels, they weren’t her source material. Instead, she explained, “I grew up in a sometimes chaotic environment and took a lot of refuge in literature. I’m also a pretty staunch materialist, an atheist, so if there is anything sacred to me, it’s literature. I’m intimidated by language. There are all the other reasons. I think the more restrictions on a work, the more creative you have to be in a lot of ways. You have to be so thoughtful about communication in a different way. Everything has to be intentional. Not to say that it isn’t intentional [in comics with text], but there are so many challenges with not having words. When I very first started working on it, I deliberately chose not to have words cause I didn’t want to mess it up. I wanted to dip my toe into that world that is so powerful to me and has meant so much to my life.

“I’m starting to get braver with that. The next big book I’m working on is going definitely have language in it, I’m sure informed by wordlessness. Taking this idea of secular sacred, I think silence is very powerful. And those things that are not easily communicated with language, that’s what I want to think about and that’s what I struggle to communicate with one other human… If something is ineffable, by definition it can’t really be described. You can only create impressions of it. I’m starting to learn more about poetry to learn how language can capture that ineffability. Frankly, I’m still a little intimidated.” I love this notion of the secular sacred. What a phrase!

Marnie Galloway also co-hosts a new podcast called “Image Plus Text” with fellow cartoonist Sam Sharpe. I asked her about the origin of the podcast: “It was a happy accident that there were two cartoonists at Ragdale at the same time; it was Sam. I got a whole lot out of talking with [Sam] and I realized that I didn’t have a lot of opportunities in my daily life to truly talk shop. I think hard about these questions but they spin in circles in my head. So having someone else to talk to about them and a different insight was really valuable…

“It was his idea to start the podcast; he’d been thinking of doing it for awhile. He has a lot of friends in radio and I’ve been listening to podcasts for years. I remember packing up my dorm in college almost a decade ago and listening to early Ricky Gervais podcasts. So it’s a familiar media for people who do visual work for sure. It’s been terrific. The format... we talk to other creators, so far it’s been other cartoonists since that’s what our social network has been mostly made up of. We want to talk to sculptors, novelists, anybody who spends their life thinking of art, in order to test the metal of what we think.”

As always, this is just a short section of our conversation. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to Marnie Galloway about her work.

Check out the podcast here: http://imageplustext.tumblr.com/post/115028411322/i-t-01-welcome-to-image-plus-text

Check out her website: http://monkeyropepress.com/

A Year In Review

It’s almost July 2015. That means it’s been almost one year since I started this project. What a year!  As I near the halfway point of the project both in time and interviews, I’m taking the time to reflect on the past 11 months.

It’s been a whirlwind of great conversations. At its core, I’ve been having amazing talks with women in a variety of fields. I’ve talked to painters, circus performers, cartoonists, singers, dancers, and much more. I’m so impressed with all the work that is being done here in Chicago. People are creating such incredible art here in Chicago, pushing so many limits. It makes me even happier to live here in Chicago. I can’t wait to talk to women in the year ahead about their awesome work.

In all my interviews, I always try to ask: “How do you think Chicago has impacted you as an artist?” Most people’s response has been “community.” They talk about how supportive and open the Chicago artistic community has been to them. It’s not easy being an artist in Chicago for sure, but there’s fellow artists who will support you. That’s pretty amazing. Just from working on this project alone, I feel that sense of community. Now I suppose I’m talking about a lot of communities since I’m talking to artists in so many diverse fields. I’ve been so amazed at how so many people have been willing to share their work and time with me. Many have opened up their homes and studios to show me their work. They’ve also shared their networks, recommending that I talk to other artists doing thrilling work. Many of my interviews are with these shared contacts, recommendations, and more.  

As a result, I’ve completed 24 interviews as of June 13, 2015. Originally, I had intended only to do an interview a month. Well, that idea has flown out the window and I’m totally cool with that. I know that I can’t talk to all the artists in Chicago but I’ll try to make a tiny dent in the world. I aim to have 50 interviews by July 2016 but it may surpass that. (I will have to impose a limit though. Time might be that limit).

The project has introduced me to a whole world of events and institutions all across the city. I recently went to my first Chicago Zine Fest and CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo) and they were so much fun. I can’t wait to go back next year. I’ve been to new galleries throughout the city too. I’ve also been more diligent about reading the newspaper and magazines to find out what is going on. That’s awesome in itself. I know that I’ll be attending even more cultural events around the city, getting to know new spaces and people.

I’m also pretty pleased that the project has taken me all over the city. I’ve been as far north as Skokie and south/ west as Beverly. I’ve spent some time in Logan Square area but I’ve also been in Humboldt Park, Gold Coast, Little Village, and much more. I can’t wait to spend more time exploring new parts of the city. I want this project to be inclusive of all the parts of the city. At the end, I want to create a map to show where I held interviews in Chicago.

One side effect of this project is that I think I’ve gotten bolder at talking to new people. Not just in the sense of talking to the folks who have agreed to participate, but in terms of networking. In high school, I was usually quiet in classrooms; it was often hard for me to articulate my thoughts into spoken words. In our yearbook, we had a section for “Where will they be 10 years later?” and my classmates wrote that I’d be an award winning speaker. Now, I didn’t take this as a slight but rather as encouragement; they thought I had important things to say. Now, I’ve spent the last decade becoming much more comfortable talking in front of rooms. However, it has only been very recently that I have been able to network without breaking into a nervous sweat. I’m not sure why. Maybe this project has made me bolder by virtue of necessity. If I’m going to talk to people about their work, I have to actually talk to them. Now I give my business card out to lots of people. I’ve gotten better at conversing with people than I ever thought I would be. I also cold email artists all the time if I don’t know a contact that can connect me to them. This is such a world away from the girl in high school or even college.

And apparently, I’ll also be reading Moby Dick as a result of the project.

Those are just a few thoughts about this project as it nears its second year.

Huzzah!