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Patricia Watts, AWA's new
Executive Director
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Hello and Goodbye!
After a nationwide search, we would like to welcome AWA's newest Executive Director, Patricia Watts (Santa Fe, NM)!
Patricia has worked as a curator and arts administrator for over 25 years, primarily focused on artists who work in and with nature. She founded the nonprofit ecoartspace 20 years ago and has curated over 30 nature-based exhibitions, including Bug-Eyed: Art, Culture, Insects at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, CA; Following Nature: Ruth Asawa in Sonoma County at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa, CA; and Beyond Landscape including artists selected from the Women Environmental Artists Directory, at the Marin Community Foundation in Novato, CA. Patricia has conducted video interviews with over 20 pioneering environmental artists and given over 50 art and nature lectures internationally. She has written numerous essays for books and magazines, and most recently has published a series of catalogues and monographs on under-recognized artists. Patricia likes to garden, hike, and travel. She's also a regular at the gym and when time allows, she loves to do research on her family ancestry. Patricia, welcome to AWA!
At the same time, Robin Knowlton, our Executive Director since 2016, will be retiring. Robin oversaw enormous changes for AWA, including the launching of the
25 in 25
campaign, increasing membership numbers, lining up museum shows for AWA members through 2023, creating our annual museum catalogues, developing AWA's Patron Membership Program, and converting us to a new website. "I have loved every minute of it!" Robin says of her time with AWA, including a stint as a Board Member prior to her appointment as Executive Director. She will continue to stay involved with AWA as a Patron and as a member of the Development Committee.
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Upcoming Deadlines
Put these dates on your calendar!
- Artwork due to Hanna Gallery: October 11 - 15, 2020
- Juried Applications Open for Booth Museum: November 1, 2019 - January 20, 2020
- Juried Applications Open for 2020 Spring Online Show: January 13 - March 16, 2020
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Member Profile:
Paige Wallis
By Aleta Carpenter, AWA Board V-P
We're all familiar with the common expression referring to "changing hats" when we switch from one task to another - but AWA member Paige Wallis has taken that concept to another level! In addition to her award-winning watercolor and acrylic paintings, Paige decided to expand her talents in another direction entirely: millinery.
Constrained from returning to her easel by an active young baby boy, Paige said, "I needed a more mobile form of creative expression." Paige's whimsical, delightful fascinators and other headwear were inspired by a trip to San Francisco's Edwardian Ball, an event that honors the somewhat-macabre cult author, illustrator, and cartoonist Edward Gorey. Attendees dress in turn-of-the-century Edwardian costumes, many topped off with feathered, flowered, beaded hats. Paige learned millinery techniques by watching online tutorials. "I could take these and sew by hand wherever I needed to be in the house," she said.
Another form of expression prompted by her children's needs has been ink drawings. Whereas most of Paige's work is created by what she can see, her ink drawings are purely stream-of-consciousness; "Whatever is coming out of my head," she said. As with her hats, the smaller ink drawings were also more portable, allowing her to attend to her children's needs.
Now that her children are older, Paige has been able to return to the easel. "Realism is where my heart is," Paige said. "I was an 'emerging artist' for so long, and it was time to finally come out of my chrysalis," prompting her to join AWA. "I felt AWA would offer me the best opportunities to get into shows in galleries and museums, and I really appreciated the focus on women's art, which is so underrepresented. I hope to see more emphasis on it in the future."
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We Need Your Ideas!
Board Member Sandy Delehanty is going to be taking over the solicitation of merchandise award items for our Spring Online Show and the annual Museum Show. Sandy needs your suggestions for companies to approach (particularly if you have a contact within these businesses). If you have ideas, email her at:
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Symposium on Women
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Heidi Presse - AWA Symposium on Women in the Arts 2019
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in the Arts 2019
Heide Presse
Each month over the next four months, we will post one talk from this year's Symposium on Women in the Arts, starting with AWA Master Member Heide Presse. Heide is creating a group of 45 - 50 paintings based on an 1848 Oregon Trail journal written by a woman. She describes this project and her own journey to becoming a painter and the creative process involved in designing an historic subject artwork.
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Shipping Artwork via Airline Cargo
By Lisa Gleim, Booth Museum Show Chair
When I needed to ship multiple large paintings from Atlanta to Montana, the quotes that standard FedEx and UPS gave me were not feasible, as the costs would have outweighed my commission of the sales. FedEx Freight was also very high and the time in transit was unreasonable.
I decided to do some investigating into other ways to ship large items of value at reasonable costs, and discovered my hometown airline, Delta has a division called Delta Cargo. The first thing I had to do was register my business with Delta Cargo to become a TSA Known Shipper, where a detailed background screening of me and my business was conducted. Once I was cleared and assigned an account number, I was able to set up my shipment both online and on the phone.
With Delta; there are multiple shipping options, but Delta DASH and DASH Heavy are where artwork fits best. Anyone can ship packages less than 16 ounces with DASH, and TSA Known Shippers can ship up to 100 pounds per package. With larger pieces like artwork, the weight may be light, but the overall dimensional weight tends to put artwork into the DASH Heavy category.
There are a few caveats with shipping via an airline cargo division. First, the package size must fit within the fuselage's container system, and those vary due to the size of the plane and the route your shipment takes. Wide-body planes tend to allow for larger pieces. The other major issue of shipping via an airline's cargo division is that you, personally, must deliver the boxes to the airport cargo office, and someone at the final destination must pick up the packages at the airport. There is no door-to-door service like the standard FedEx and UPS. For me, the small inconvenience of dropping off my work was well worth the savings of around $800. My gallery agrees that the pickup at the airport is also worth the savings, since my work doesn't have to be priced to make up for the shipping costs. I have also flown on the same flight along with some of my work has traveled and the boxes were available for me within an hour of the actual flight arrival.
I have shipped over 14 paintings with Delta Cargo and have been very satisfied with their care and handling of my packages. If you are in need of shipping large artwork quickly, safely, and inexpensively, consider looking into your local airline's cargo shipping policy.
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Special Offer From
American West Frames
By Amber Nill, American West Frames
Congratulations to all of you for all your hard work & creativity! Please take advantage of your exclusive
AWA Member Discount of 20% off your next frame order, and
10% off the rest of year! See hundreds of photos online to inspire the visual artist in you & design your next Perfect Frame with us!
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Pride of Tribe, oil by Elizabeth Robbins
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On Display
Three Cheers for the Hockaday Museum exhibiting, A Timeless Legacy: Women Artists of Glacier National Park, August 13 - September 21, 2019, Kalispell, MT. The show includes AWA members Linda Glover Gooch, Terry Cooke Hall, Krystii Melaine, and Elizabeth Robbins.
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Jann Haynes Gilmore, PhD, one of our Steamboat Museum Symposium Speakers, highly recommends we read this book:
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
Author
Mary Gabriel writes in her introduction:
"It is true that art, while indebted to tradition, is usually at odds with it; art is about the thrill of mutiny... But familiarity with tradition can be liberating for an artist because it provides a map illustrating the route others have taken...Male artists can inspire...Artistic concerns are gender neutral. But there are social and personal issues a woman artist faces that cannot be found in the stories of men; these are the obstacles confronted and obstacles overcome. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote: 'For spiritual values and a creative tradition to continue unbroken we need concrete artifacts, the work of hands, written words to read, images to look at, a dialogue with brave and imaginative women who came before us."
Gabriel goes on: "It's instructive as well as comforting to know how other women have managed and what other women have dared. It's also gratifying to find in their stories an occasional energizing dose of inspiration."
If you register with
Smile.Amazon.com, and designate AWA as your charity of choice, Amazon will donate 0.05% to AWA of the purchase of this book and any future Amazon purchases!
Smile.Amazon.com
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Pocket Mirror by Mickalene Thomas. On display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts
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ARTBEAT: News & Links
from the Wider World
How Electricity Transformed Paris and Its Artists, from Manet to Degas
Where are the women artists in the Come, Follow Me manual?
(Gender disparity for women artist are even being discussed in religious settings!)
Woman-Made: 10 Sculptors You Might Not Know
More is More: Multiples
At the National Museum for Women in the Arts
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We Will Promote Your Work on Social Media!
Click on the promotions link below to add your information. We'll blast it out on AWA's social media channels. Be sure to include an image!
Directory:
Membership & Social Media:
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Masthead Image
: Of Beauty and Grace by Cynthia Feustel, Brewing Tempest by Mejo Okon,
Tea for Two? by Diane Mason, Day Break by Elaine Bowers
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| 25 in 25: A Call to Action | American Women Artists |
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