Woohoo! Got the grant! Oh, dear.

Yesterday I got an envelope from the Kentucky Foundation for Women saying I'm a recipient of an economic hardship grant that will fund my mailing an original collage and document to leadership in the United Methodist Church to stimulate conversation about the church's attitude toward homosexuality and women leaders. These funds, from an anonymous donor, are micro-grants. The maximum each person could request was $500.  My request was for $258.

The KFW letter goes on to say that 48 feminist social change artists requested funds; 24 were funded. The requests "bear powerful witness to the impact of the national recession on the feminist artist community in our state" and also "bear witness to the great strength, ingenuity and persistence that KFW grantees are demonstrating in seeking solutions to their financial hardships."  A check for $258 was enclosed.

I was totally happy until this morning when I re-read my grant proposal, in which I say I'M GOING TO CUT UP MY PREACHING ROBE and use it to make the collages. Good God, people.  What was I thinking? Why didn't you stop me?

It's the theological equivalent of flag-burning.  Let's be clear. I approve of flag burning as political statement, as performance art, as a way of knocking us out of the doldrums of familiarity, as free speech.  And if somebody else had told me she/he planned to chop up a preaching robe -- well, cool.  Free speech. Performance art. Political statement.  Let's get those fools to open their eyes that they may see glimpses of truth.  Right on, my sisters and brothers.

Right on, indeed. But it's my preaching robe. MY preaching robe.  My PREACHING robe. Embedded in its warp and woof is every day of my life from 1995 to 1998, when all was well with the world (or at least with Fred, my late husband); and when the congregation, God, and I danced -- a waltz, a tango, a Fox trot, the twist, the funky chicken, the swim -- on Sunday mornings.  I wore the robe when I performed my first baptisms (Bradley and Devin, two of my grandsons).  I wore the robe when I performed my final baptism (Seth, the baby my friend Lisa was pregnant with when she preached Fred's funeral).  The robe hung in my closet in South Carolina, and I brought it with me to Kentucky, and here I stuffed it into a sack and later I set the sack on a shelf in the garage.  I brought it back to the house after I wrote the grant proposal, and now the ratty old sack sits on a shelf in the laundry alcove.

I'm going to chop it up; I really am. And I'm going to make fiber collages of it and mail them to United Methodist leaders along with a statement, and I'm going to post that statement here, and I'm going to e-mail it to newspapers and magazines. But not quite yet.  Soon, but not quite yet. I want to hold on just a little longer to my preaching robe and to what it used to represent:  my life; my local church; a kind, open-hearted, open-minded, open-doored denomination.

facebook rocks!

After months of hearing people say I should be on Facebook, I caved on Thursday and signed up . . .

I've done lots of cool things online, but Facebook is the first that comes under the heading . (Among other good qualities, it's the first time ever that British and American sides of my family have been in the same place at the same time.)

My point, though, is that after a Kentucky Foundation for Women grants workshop yesterday, some of us decided to form a Friends of the Kentucky Foundation for Women group on Facebook.

KFW does more than give grants to feminist artists; it also intentionally seeks ways for those women to be in community, encouraging and empowering each other. Facebook, it seems to us, is another vehicle for doing so. We'd love to have you come on over and join on up!

Mary: The Paper Doll Project

If you live in or near Durham, North Carolina, scoot on over to St. Philip's Episcopal Church to see Mary: The Paper Doll Project by artist and Duke grad Carole Baker. This interactive exhibit offers 4 different cultural depictions of Mary, the mother of Jesus - and did I say they're paper dolls? That means you can change their clothes, just like you did when you were a kid.

I'm so sorry I can't be there for the opening on December 11.

One of the sponsors for this event is the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. This organization, founded and directed by Jeanette Stokes, has offered energy, expertise, and (when circumstances have permitted) financial assistance to women pursuing creative and spiritual activities for more than 25 years. Current emphases are writing and visual arts, with a full calendar of events and workshops. Click on over and get on their mailing list; it's invigorating even if you don't live in the South.

Only in Kentucky

KFW director Judi Jennings enjoyed the festivities.

And while you may have seen less fuzzy photos of Sallie Bingham, you've seldom see photos of a woman as radiant as she is here. Her glee is well-deserved. Her $10 million gift in 1985 created the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Through the granting of funds to feminist artists in Kentucky, the Foundation has birthed, nursed, and nurtured a vibrant community committed to feminist expression and to social justice.

Bingham's commitment is even more remarkable in light of an article in LEO, one of Louisville's alternative weeklies. In that 2005 piece, which celebrated KFW's twentieth anniversary, writer Molly Cunningham cited figures from the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy that show nationwide only six to seven percent of philanthropic donations go to women's issues and less than one percent go toward social justice issues.

Quotation of the Day

"The artist is always pregnant from within, a container of endless potential transformations, abandoned to the fertilizing powers of the imagination, actualizing unknown faces parthenogenetically... whether we are weaving tissue in the womb or weaving imagery in the soul, our work is sexual: the work of conception, gestation and birth." Meinrad Craighead

My friends at the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South are deeply involved with the production of a documentary about Sacred Feminine artist Meinrad Craighead. For more information,you can go to the documentary website, to the artist's website, and to the RCWMS website.
Support the Meinrad Craighead documentary project. Purchase notecards with this Meinrad Craighead art.

Yellow Orange to Red

Yellow Orange

Gold

yellow

Center medallion

You don't notice the center medallion so much from a distance.








It's only when you get up close that you see the rich colors and detailed stitching.








I read the book Ann Stewart Anderson kept about the Hot Flash Fan, and there I read about knots.








Can these be them? How long would it take to tie this many knots?

Participating Artists N - Z

Pat Obye
Joyce Ogden
Jacque Parsley
Liz Quinton
Lizi Ruch
Felize Sachs
Betty Senn
Kate Simon
Peg Smith
Marilyn Swan
Rebecca Tobias
Elizabeth Watkins
Donna Weiner
Jeanne Whitty

Participating Artists E - M

Marcia Fogelson
Frima Gelbard
Mary Clay Goodwin
Jean Guy
Shirley Hewitt
Peggy Sue Howard
Naomi Judd
Kathy Kaulitz
Suzanne LaValley
Anne Lindstrom
Micky Lorber
Anne Maiken
Martha March
Shana McMahan
Beverly McKinzie
Betts Meehan
Margaret Merida
Ann Miller
Jacquelyn Moore

Participating Artists A - D

Here are the names of contributing artists (A - D) to the Hot Flash Fan, created in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1985.

Aline Barker
Allis Eaton Bennett
Annie Barnes Bird
Marion Boomer
Lindsey Burns
Ann Coates
Mary Cobb
Miriam Corcoran
Pat Dereamer
Betsy Dienes
Franzee Dobeare
Sheryl Doerr
Nancy Durham

Embellishments

Ribbon









Picture, birth control pills, netting







Dried flowers held in place with netting

Beading

Before the Hot Flash Fan exhibit ended, I went back and took many more photos. I'm glad I did, because it gave me the chance to see details I missed the first time. The participating artists did an amazing job.

I love the sense of randomness within this carefully planned work of art. It's in keeping with the energy of the piece.

Creators of Hot Flash Fan

The creation of the monumental feminist artwork Hot Flash Fan required numerous hands, brains, and hours. I'll post lists all of the documented participants, in small steps.

These women had primary roles in the creation of the artwork:

Ann Steward Anderson, Originator and Principal Coordinating Artist
Judy Chicago, Facilitator
Ada O'Connor, Principal Embroidery Artist Coordinator
Judith Meyers, Quilting Coordinator

I'll post more of the artists' names tomorrow.

Close-up of Lower Right Side of Hot Flash Fan

Close-up of Lower Right Side
Originally uploaded by Ka-ching

You can see, in the tan area atop the green ray, the words that appear above each ray: Menopause is.

All of the lines done in brown paint ( you see them clearly in this photo) were done by the facilitator, Judy Chicago.

Still to Come

I have more photos to post, and I also plan to go back to Huff Gallery on Friday to take more photographs. This is the first time I've taken pictures of such a large piece, and in seeing them now, several weeks after the fact, I learned a lot about what I left out. At the time, I wasn't trying to be systematic; I focused on techniques that I especially liked or that were delicate enough not to show up in a full-size photo.

I still won't manage to photo every aspect of the piece, but there are a few important things to add. For instance, the hemisphere from which the rays emerge. I don't have a single close-up of the work on that part. It may not be as vibrant as the rays, but it's critically important to the whole.

So: more to come.

P. S. When I returned to take more photos of the Fan several weeks later and was able to concentrate on the hemisphere, I saw how vibrant it actually is. Strong colors, beautiful handwork -- it's a dynamic aspect of the whole.

Close-up of Center of Hot Flash Fan

Close-up of Center
Originally uploaded by Ka-ching

The pink section in the center of this photo pays tribute to the end of child-bearing years. The net holds various contraceptive devices.

Incidentally, can you see the gold cord that divides the pink section from the red and the purple sections? One of the participating artists told me that all of the cord was wrapped by hand, and that it took forever. She said everyone involved with the project wrapped cord at one time or another.

The Hot Flash Fan

The Hot Flash Fan is currently on display in the Huff Gallery of the Spalding University library in Louisville, Kentucky.

Hot Flash Fan is owned by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. At the opening reception last week, Ann Steward Anderson, the originator and principal coordinating artist, told how KFW came to purchase the HFF. She said Sallie Bingham was creating KFW at the time and urgently wanted the documentation Ann had collected (design sketches, letters between her and Judy Chicago, etc.) in the creation process. Ann told her that to get the documentation, the Foundation had to purchase the artwork. And so it came to pass that this monumental work of feminist art has been held and preserved for more than twenty years. According to the participating artists I spoke with at the opening, the piece has lost none of its luster, color, or embellishments.