{"id":61,"date":"2015-01-27T03:19:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T03:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/?page_id=61"},"modified":"2015-02-02T21:28:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T03:28:27","slug":"women-artists-midwest","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Artists Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WAM: Supporting Women Artists in the Midwest<\/h2>\n

The first notable exhibition of women artists in the Kansas City area was Women Artists \u201877<\/i>, organized by the now-defunct Kansas City Chapter of the National Women\u2019s Caucus for Art and juried by feminist artist Miriam Schapiro in 1977. \u00a0The introduction to the catalog explains several motivations for holding a group exhibition devoted exclusively to local women artists, including the desire to overcome a discrepancy in representation, explaining:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile women comprise fifty percent of today\u2019s artists, they receive only fifteen percent of the solo exhibitions at the major galleries.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Almost forty years later, the goal of equal exposure has not been realized. \u00a0Despite gradual progress, on average men are twice as likely to be exhibited in local galleries and museums today.\u00a0 In 2014, art historian Paula Rose and gallerist Meredith Moore collected data straight from the sources by counting male and female artists on display in the galleries and on the official websites of nearby art institutions.\u00a0 Their numbers were consistent with those collected by national art activists. \u00a0Of course, the Guerilla Girls inspired the museum counts with their famous 1989 billboard, Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum?<\/i>\u00a0 When the Guerilla Girls revisited the subject in 2012, they found that the number of women artists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Modern section had actually decreased from 5% to 4%.\u00a0 Last year, Los Angeles-based artist Micol Hebron launched a crowd-sourced gallery count project, which confirmed her suspicion that only 30% of women represented by commercial galleries of contemporary art are women.<\/p>\n

In Kansas City, the spark ignited by Women Artists \u201877<\/i> is fanned today by the Her Art Project at the Women\u2019s Center at the University of Missouri Kansas City. \u00a0Since 2009 they have held several exhibitions devoted to women artists, both on campus and at the Leedy Voulkos Gallery in the Crossroads Arts District. \u00a0Arzie Umali, Assistant Director of the Women\u2019s Center, has extensively studied women\u2019s participation in local arts institutions and found, like Rose and Moore, that women are behind only about 30% of the art exhibited in the region. \u00a0She aims to raise consciousness in order to overcome this inequity, which she believes is not the product of deliberate intent. \u00a0Most museum boards, for example, are mainly focused on funding, a mindset which unintentionally perpetuates the status quo.<\/p>\n

The 70\/30 balance is by no means representative of women\u2019s lack of desire or ability to participate in the art world at the same level as their male peers. \u00a0Enrollment at the Kansas City Art Institute is 62% female, so there is no shortage of talented Young Woman Artists in the area.\u00a0 At the current rate of improvement, equality will not be achieved until after 2050, but it doesn\u2019t have<\/strong> to take another 40 years to gain equal representation. \u00a0Women artists can acheive more visibility by raising consciousness about the gallery world\u2019s gender problem and by forming a cross-generational community of mentors and inspirational figures.\u00a0 Join WAM: Women Artists Midwest to help.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/div>

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Featured Artists<\/h3>\n\r\n\t\t<\/div>
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShenequa A. Brooks\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Shenequa A. Brooks<\/a><\/h2>\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t

Artists<\/a>, Fiber<\/a><\/p>Shenequa A. Brooks is a fiber artist who weaves synthetic human hair in her works.\u00a0 On her web site, she explains, \u201cI am designing and creating a body of work using braiding hair as a way to communicate with my sisters how intimate, powerful, celebratory, and socially pleasing getting one\u2019s hair done can be.\u201d\u00a0 Over the summer she traveled to Ghana to study traditional weaving techniques as a recipient of the Windgate Travel Fellowship.\u00a0 She supplemented this with a study of contemporary African-American hairstyling at the Bronner Bros. International Hair Show and Madame CJ Walker Museum in Atlanta,... read more<\/a>\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/article> \r\n\r\n\t\t

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlison Moyna Greene\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Alison Moyna Greene<\/a><\/h2>\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t

Artists<\/a>, Paint<\/a><\/p>Alison Moyna Greene\u00a0collects thorns from her own garden, paints them by hand in various matte and iridescent acrylic colors, organizes them in jars, and later applies them to ink-stained wood panels.\u00a0 The thorns are arranged on the panels according to Greene\u2019s interest in geometric patterns and systems.\u00a0 The concentric compositions resemble Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, appropriate since she tells me that the series is \u201call about healing.\u201d\u00a0 Greene views everyday objects as potential art materials, seeing the world with the fresh perspective and energy of a truly innovative... read more<\/a>\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/article> \r\n\r\n\t\t

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMariah Gillespie\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Mariah Gillespie<\/a><\/h2>\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t

Artists<\/a>, Fiber<\/a><\/p>Mariah Gillespie is passionate about the history of quilts as an artistic medium.\u00a0 Her own large-scale quilted works combine fiber art and painting in innovative ways: challenging the boundaries of both fine art and craft.... read more<\/a>\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/article> \r\n<\/div>

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View The Calendar of Upcoming Events<\/h2>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\tClick Here For The Calendar<\/a>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t<\/div> \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/div> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-61","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womenartistsmidwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}