WCA Conference is happening in New York City from February 13 – 17, 2013. Building Community, the theme this year, focuses on opportunities to network, see art in New York City, and make connections.
Above is Chapters’ Council Meeting & Elections this morning 7:30 – 9:00 am. Artists representing WCA chapters from around the country come together to share ideas and successes helping inform our national organizations direction. Margaret Parker represented our Michigan Chapter this year.
It’s hard to believe we just finished day 1! It feels like a whole week of activities occurred in one day. The Lifetime Achievement Awards were a huge success with wonderful presentations at the New York Institute of Technology.
Can you see your hand that you contributed?
Anyone recognize Beverly Buchanan’s beautiful piece… It has traveled all the way to NYC for the WCA raffle. It now has a very happy home!
Congratulations to Tina Dunkley, Artis Lane, Susana Torruella Leval, and Joan Semmel on their 2013 Lifetime Achievement Awards, and to Leanne Stella on her President’s Art & Activism Award! Such an honor to be surrounded by so many inspiring women.
The silent auction was a success and bidders were in good spirits even after another outbid them.
The afternoon has been a whirlwind of exciting caucus meetings at the American Folk Art Museum. Now for the excitement of the Lifetime Achievement Awards and Gala!
Up bright and early for the start of the WCA conference!
The Building Community workshop
Meeting at the Folk Art Museum for the International Caucus Meeting.
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“Fat Feminist Activist” blogger, artist and prominent WCA-MI member Brenda Oelbaum will open her new installation “Diet Detour” on February 22 from 6-10 in Detroit’s Whitdel Arts Gallery. The installation is a kind of maze composed of discarded diet books which the artist has been collecting for several years. The exhibit promises to be provocative, fun and a must-see for artists and art lovers. Whitdel arts is an attractive alternative gallery that deserves a visit from any artist interested in showing work in downtown Detroit.
If you are looking to carpool, contact me at kaletts@arborart.com.
WCA MI members gathered in January at the studio of Brenda Oelbaum in Ann Arbor to celebrate the new year and plot our strategies and projects going forward. We reviewed our priorities, which include:
Increasing membership (to 100) Barbara Carson, Membership Chair, has lots of great ideas for how to do this, but she could use some help. Anyone with expertise in this area, or who is just a willing hand, please contact Barbara at bacarson@gmail.com
Fund-raising, We need to find ways to increase our funding, and we are looking for ideas. In a first step, we held a raffle during our January party which raised $35 and Brenda’s Dr. Sketchy party raised $200. This is just as beginning, and with a little work and creativity we can do much more to make WCA-MI financially viable. All suggestions are gratefully considered: contact WCA Treasurer Loisann Arnold at robertarnold2@charter.net with your great ideas.
Exhibitions. In addition to Eye on the D which is tentatively sheduled for next fall 2013 at Wayne State Community Gallery, we hope to organize an all member show in Wyandotte at the Rivers Edge Gallery. (More on this as it develops) Margaret Parker is exhibitions chair : mparkerst@gmail.com
Professional Development is an important concern of most WCA-MI members. As part of our ongoing efforts I will be conducting online interviews with member artists in our Member of the Month section on this blog. ALSO any member who is having a show, has won a prize or has anything at all to crow about can contact me at kaletts@arborart.com and it will make its way onto our blog. (Please include a lo-res 4-6 jpg with your news)
Community Service remains an important concern for many of the WCA-MI members, with Brenda Oelbaum and Carol Morris heading up outreach. They are actively engaged in an ongoing art program at the Women’s Detention Center which is now sponsored by our WCA-MI chapter. Other ideas are in active development and you will hear from us as they develop. If this is an area that interests you, or if you have an idea about a project that brings art to the community, contact Carol at silkrhino@aol.com
Publicity/Public Relations is headed by Amanda Moyer, who is also working on creating a Young Women’s Caucus on the Arts. This is an exciting area, and Amanda is looking for help from mentoring artists from the WCA-MI. Contact her at amanda.moyer@inbox.com
WCA-MI continues to struggle with strategies to include farflung members of the statewide organization. We have members in Grand Rapids, Grosse Point, Wyandotte and we need to include them in our plans. Exhibitions are probably the best way to engage the geographically diffuse membership. Also, meetups held related to events in various parts of our region have been well-attended and well liked. We will continue to schedule these throughout the year. If you have an opening in your area and would like to be the site of a meet-up, contact me at kaletts@arborart.com to schedule.
Each member attending shared her most positive art experience of the year and her #1 goal for 2013. They ranged from success in the studio to exhibition opportunities, residencies and more. All the artists are engaged and active and looking forward to the coming year for further advances in their art practice.
Debra Golden won the new/continuing membership raffle which included a complimentary 3 month membership to TurningArt, an online art-leasing site.
Barbara Carson won the fundraising raffle prize, a basket containing chocolate and champagne, among other gifts and coupons.
2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year but it will only be exciting for you if you participate!
Join us for the first gathering of WCA- MI in 2013. Renew your membership and bring a friend so we can continue to grow! If your friend joins WCA for the first time, we will enter you into a drawing for a fabulous prize package…. Don’t miss out on this event as we need you to help start 2013 off with a bang!
Sunday afternoon,Michigan WCA members and friends from all over the state congregated at Brenda Oelbaum’s studio in Ann Arbor, to sketch, talk and enjoy food and drink together for the holidays. A life drawing session with Satori Circus, a well-known Detroit performance artist, artist’s model and “Detroit Institution” (pictured above in a fetching pink frock) was held, resulting in pictures that reflected the diversity of technique and viewpoint that characterizes the WCA-MI membership. Artists from Wyandotte, Grosse point, Ann Arbor and Detroit showed up to celebrate the season: talk centered around members’ projects both current and future. Carol Morris talked about her recently begun project bringing art to troubled young people and other artists discussed possible subject matter and approaches for the up-coming “Eye on the D” show (more on this later).
WCA-MI members Brenda Oelbaum, Amanda Moyer and K.A. Letts represented the organization at an event in Wayne State’s Community Arts building on Noel Night, December 1. Their goal was to interest potential members in joining the organization with printed material about previous exhibitions, an informational slide show designed by Amanda Moyer and a participatory activity called “I CAN”. Amanda met several college student artists who were interested in a potential chapter of Young Women’s Caucus for Art at Wayne State.
Not content with merely attending the opening of Pat Izzo and Martine MacDonald at Rivers Edge Gallery on November 17, WCA members took a side trip to the new home of the Downriver Council for the Arts, where Executive Director Tamara Trudelle took us on a tour of the former Masonic Lodge. This beautiful building now houses 2 large art galleries, meeting/class spaces, a theater space and four artists’ studios. The Center has a full-to-bursting schedule of art exhibits for both professional and community artists, general interest public meetings, theater and musical events and classes for young artists. The organization is financed by a small grant from the city of Wyandotte, with additional support from foundations, corporations, members and volunteers, grants and fees from facility rentals, concerts and classes, fundraisers and gallery sales. We were so impressed by Tammy Trudelle, who manages to keep everything going with her energy and positive attitude. The DeSana Center is a wonderful resource for the area–something every town needs but few have.
WCAMI