Interview 58

It's been an exciting week! I completed the 58th interview last Tuesday with Petra Bachmaier of Luftwerk. Have you had a chance to check out solarise at the Garfield Conservatory? I highly recommend seeing it. They have several incredible installations inside and outside the facility. Portal is probably one of the most sublime pieces I've ever seen. solarise is up until the end of September 2016.

I know I've mentioned this before but one of my favorite writers and participants for this project, Lucy Knisley, is releasing a book in May. The trailer that she created is here: http://lucyknisley.tumblr.com/post/141902628439/the-new-animated-book-trailer-for-something-new

I also checked out Nora Moore Lloyd's work at the Thompson Center. The week long exhibition on Native American art was really lovely. Congratulations to Nora!

Joyce Owens, painter and sculptor, will be showing some of her constructions at Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville and the Cultivator Gallery in Ravenswood this month.

That's all for now!

SWAN Day and Other News

Hello! I just returned from a lovely trip to NYC. I spent SWAN day (Support Women Artist Day) attending a guided tour about Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun at the Met; she was an amazing artist who regularly painted Marie Antoinette and other notables of her age. Here's more about her: http://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/%C3%A9lisabeth-louise-vig%C3%A9e-lebrun

Later, we stumbled upon an exhibition "Printing Women" at the NYC Public Library Main Branch. There were etchings by Queen Victoria and Marie Medici. So cool! 

I'm back to interviews and other mischief in Chicago.

Other things on the horizon:

Nora Moore Lloyd has some photographs in a pop up show called "Women's Art from the Chicago American Indian Community" in the atrium of the Thompson Center downtown. It's open from Monday the 28th until April 1st. I interviewed Nora Moore Lloyd in my Vocalo piece. Go check it out!

Honey Pot Performance will perform Ma(a)sking Her at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion from 4/14/16 to 4/16/16. I also interviewed Meida Teresa McNeal for my Vocalo piece in February. I'm super excited about the show! You should check the show out: http://honeypotperformance.com/projects/masking-her/

SWAN Day! Feminist Frequency!

Yesterday, I conducted the 57th interview with Sangsuk "Sunny" Kang, visual storyteller. We talked about photography and design. What an insightful and exciting conversation! Again, I'm so grateful to everyone whose participated in the project. I'm so lucky to have so many people willing to talk with me about their work and career. 

This Saturday, March 26th, is the 9th Annual International Support Women Artists Day (SWAN day)! I'm going to a lecture on Vigée Le Brun at the Met and possibly see the exhibit on Nasreem Mohamedi at the Met Bauer. And that's just the start. Incidentally, SWAN day will be the 1 year anniversary of when I launched this blog! So, what are you going to do?

One possibility is supporting this amazing project from Feminist Frequency.  It's called Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History. It's a video series about amazing and daring women in history. If you are inclined, you should try and support it here: https://www.seedandspark.com/studio/ordinary-women#story

Support Women Artists Now. And every day.

Updates and News

I completed 56 interviews today. I met with the extraordinary Ruth Kaufman, voice over and on camera talent and a romance novelist. It was an insightful conversation.

We are getting close to the end of the interview portion. Only a few more interviews in the works! Soon I'll begin the editing and promotion process for the final product. So stay tuned!

Upcoming events and projects by women in the project:

Shanta Nurullah, storyteller and musician, will be performing in Classic Black: Southern Roots, Urban Migrations at the Pegasus Theater on Friday, March 25 at 7:30. The Theater at the Chicago Dramatists is at 1105 W. Chicago Avenue, Suite 202. The admission is $10. You should check it out.

Lucy Knisley will be publishing her book: Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride on May 3 about her experiences planning her wedding. I'm really keen to read this since I love Knisley's work and I have strong feelings about wedding planning. You can preorder  it  here: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781626722491

That's all for now!

Presenting: Three Artists; Three Projects; One Chicago

It’s up! I’m so excited that I can share my Vocalo piece with you all. Check it out here: https://soundcloud.com/vocalo/three-artists-three-projects-one-chicago-by-elisa-shoenberger

As I’ve mentioned previously, it features three artists I’ve interviewed for the project: Nora Moore Lloyd, Carron Little, and Meida Teresa McNeal. It’s a taste of the amazing work that they do!

I hope you will enjoy!

Interview with Yoko Noge

Back in August, I had the real pleasure of sitting down with the blues singer and pianist Yoko Noge. I had seen her play blues at the Art Institute many years ago and recently at the Ginza Festival in Lincoln Park. Below is a small portion of the incredible interview that we had.

I asked her to describe her work. She told me, “I’ve tried to make people happy. Music is something in me and I have to release it. I’ve been singing since I was 18/19 years old as a professional. Neither fame nor money has been my first priority. That’s not my purpose of playing music or singing. The reasoning for doing it is [that] I just have to do it. I’m happy when I believe I can make people happy listening to my music. Life is very tough sometimes for all of us and we need something to put our mind away. I can do that with my music for myself and for somebody else and that’s why I do it.”

I asked her what it was like to come to Chicago to see the blues scene year after she had established herself as a blues singer in Japan. Yoko Noge told me, “People are awfully nice and welcoming. I didn’t expect that openness of people, so it was very happy experience.  I didn’t think of myself singing on the stage of Chicago, I was there to observe and see the scenes. So when they said, ”Yoko sing. You are a singer, right? You sing.” I was like: “What? I can’t do that.” But they persuaded me, so I sung and they liked it. The other time, I had my ex-husband who was a blues’ guitar player, Japanese blues’ guitar player, I had a band with him in Japan. He became side guitar player for Willie Kent Band. I was a guest singer for the band. Here and there, they gave me a little bit of money. When they gave me $20, it was a big deal for me. Wow! And when I went to over to Maxwell Street before they moved, they had had always street band, right. So I joined them and sung with them and tips always came in, so they wanted me to come back week and week, so I did that.”

That’s just a small part of our interview. Check out Yoko Noge’s website and Facebook for upcoming performances, music, and much more: 

https://www.facebook.com/yokonoge

http://yokonoge.com/

Yoko Noge and her band at the Ginza Festival in August 2015

55 and Counting

Hello all! It’s been a busy few weeks. This past weekend, I completed interview 55 at the Zhou B Art Center! I’m coming close to the end of the interviewing stage of the project. Only a few more interviews before I’m ready to start the second half of the project: the transcribing and editing of all of the interviews. I’m getting pumped!

I also finished my 8 minute piece for Vocalo. What a process that was! I really learned so much, everything from how to get good tape to how to write for radio. I’m so happy that I had this opportunity. I think my final piece came out well and I can’t wait to share it with you all. I’m not sure when that will be exactly, but I’ll definitely post a link to it when I’m able to share it. I also can’t wait to work on my next audio piece!

Sculpture outside Zhou B Art Center

That’s all the news right now!

Radio Progess 2

So I'm coming up to the final week of the Vocalo Storytelling workshop. The final piece is due next Wednesday, March 2nd! I've learned so much in these past five weeks!

I've finished my second round of interviews with everyone. I've got all the secondary tape I'm going to need. Right now, I'm working on finalizing my script for my voiceover. And then mixing it all together. TIme is of the essence.

I've learned new ways of thinking about sound. There's the interviews themselves, which are critical. But I should also think about getting sound from someone showing me some work or asking them to show their favorite tool for their artwork. It helps set the scene!

So I'm going to be off the radar for the next week and a half as I finish this project.

Until then!

Radio Piece Progress

This week marked the fourth class of the Vocalo Storytelling Workshop. The theme of the workshop is philanthropy, but it's beyond the notion of financial contributions. We are looking at how individuals or groups contribute to society in many ways.  I've been working on an eight minute piece focusing on three artists whose work has dealt with communities. The first artist is Nora Moore Lloyd, a photographer who has worked to document elders and other members of Native American tribes in the US. The second is Carron Little, co-founder of the public performance art series Out of Site. And the third is Meida Teresa McNeal, co-founder of Honey Pot Performance. Together, I'll talk about how each person's work interacts and fosters community.

I've learned a great deal of important things about getting good tape for the radio. THere's a big difference between oral history tape and radio tape. One of the books on oral histories says that while you want to make sure when you are clear that you are recording with the person you are interviewing, you should position the tape so they don't see it. But you want to make sure you can still see it, so you can make sure it is still recording. Radio is much more upfront and close with this. You should wear your earphones into the recorder and position the recorder close in front of them. Very different. I've also learned to think about what non-verbal noises that you can get, like the sound of someone showing photos, or showing a camera. Very neat. I've also learned that editing tape with music in the background is hard. If you make cuts, the music may not align in the cuts and it will sound weird.

In the past three weeks, I've been working to collect additional audio for the radio piece. I've meet with two of the artists already and will be meeting the third artist this week. It's helped me get better sounding tape and also to hone in on the part of their work that I'll be talking about. I've also been helped by Out of Site who has let me use the audio they've collected. I've also gotten permission from Ballenarca, one of the performance art groups from last year, to use the music from their amazing puppet whale piece. (Check out more here: http://www.ballenarca.com). 

Ballenarca, Out of Site 2015

Lots of hard work ahead! I can't wait to make the final piece available to you all!

Nancy Savoca's Film Archive

Last week, I saw this article pop up on my Twitter feed: http://tinyurl.com/h2fnl43

How exciting! Nancy Savoca, movie director, gave her personal film archives to the University of Michigan's Mavericks and Makes Indie Film Collection. Other film notables include Orson Welles and Robert Altman. Great company. For those of you unfamiliar with Nancy Savoca, she directed 24 Hour Woman, True Love, and the HBO Mini-series If These Walls Could Talk. 

This archival addition is really welcome news. Nancy Savoca was the subject of my first SWAN day back in 2009, when I began working with Jan Lisa Huttner, film critic extraordinare. We wanted to screen her work 24 Hour Woman with Rosie Perez, a comedy about a woman trying to have it all. It proved foundational to WITASWAN (Women in the Audience Supporting Women Artists Now) and SWAN Day. Read here on Jan Lisa Huttner's blog: http://www.films42.com/witaswan.asp#_born

The idea for SWAN Day events was that we'd screen the film and then have the director talk about her work and answer a Q&A. We couldn't screen it because we couldn't find a copy to screen in the theater. We even appealed to Nancy Savoca and she said that she didn't have a master copy (or whatever you call the reel version of a film). What a reminder about why SWAN Day and all these efforts to support women in the arts are so important. So it really warms my heart that Nancy Savoca's personal film archive will be available for future generations.

And for those of you who wondered, we ended up screening True Love and had a great event with Nancy Savoca. So all was not lost. 

And now, you can watch it at home here:  http://gowatchit.com/movies/twenty-four-hour-woman-13319

Vocalo Storytelling Workshop

So very exciting news for the project: I was accepted into the six week Vocalo Storytelling Workshop! What an honor and an opportunity! I'm two classes into the workshop. For the next four weeks, I'll be working on creating my own audio piece based on interviews for this project. This is truly an exciting and thrilling opportunity. I wish to thank Maria Gaspar, artist and oral history participant, for recommending that I apply for the project. 

As many of you know, I have always wanted to use the incredible audio that I have collected in the course of this project but I know that I know nothing when it comes to sound editing. This class will hopefully teach me how to craft and edit an audio story, which is simply magnificent. It's also possible that my piece will be good enough for the radio. 

So if I'm a little quiet over the next four weeks, it's because I'm working hard on this project (along with other very important personal things). Whatever happens, I should have a piece that I can share with you all in the next few months!

That's all for now!

Upcoming Art Events!

Lots of exciting events coming up!

Gabriella Boros will have several pieces up in several shows in Chicagoland and Milwaukee. Her piece “Crowding Out the Gift Horse” is in a show at Nixie Gallery in Skokie, 7925 Lincoln (just south of Oakton Street). The show opened on the 23rd and will end on February 12th. Check out the gallery website for more information: http://www.nixiegallery.com

Gabriella Boros has work in another show at the Union Street Gallery in Chicago Heights, 1527 Otto Boulevard as part of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative Show. The opening is Friday the 29th from 6 to 9. Check out more information here: http://www.unionstreetgallery.org/

She has three prints from “Going Viral” in the show “Intimate Systems” at 100state, 30 West Mifflin, 6th floor, Madison, Wisconsin. The show opens on February 6th from 1-5. For more information, check out: http://100state.com/

Tomeka Reid, cellist extraordinaire, will be performing on February 17th at 7pm at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Arts in Evanston as part of A Feast of Astonishments, an exhibition about Charlotte Moorman, “a groundbreaking, rule-bending artist, musician, and advocate for the experimental art of her time.” It should be an amazing performance and exhibition. Check out more information: http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/muse/Participate/2016/charlotte-moorman-opening.html

Hull House Museum still has “Into Body Into Wall” exhibit up featuring The 96 Acres Project with Maria Gaspar. It’s up until February 29th. The project “uses the wall of Cook County Jail to look at architectures of power and incarceration. The project investigates the wall as a social, political, psychological and physical frame, imagines and reflects on new alternatives, and grapples with personal stories from both sides of the wall.” Check out more information here: http://www.hullhousemuseum.org/intobody/

Honey Pot Performance with Meida Teresa McNeal  will be presented /Shift/: First Annual Benefit Gala to support future performances of HPP on February 27th. The event will take place at Stony Island Arts Bank at 6:30pm. Check out the website: http://honeypotperformance.virb.com/

Conversation with Mairin Hartt

Since I’ve been working on this project for over a year and a half with over 50 interviews, I think now is a good time to return to the very first interview with visual artist and educator Mairin Hartt. Below is a little taste of our conversation.

I asked her about her interest in the random or disorder and she explained about entropy:

“Ok, it’s not necessarily referred to as the theory of entropy but one of the ideas of entropy that I learned in classes in college was… the second law of thermodynamics, I believe, that everything uses the least amount of energy for the most amount of output... The other law of entropy is that everything slowly moves towards entropy. Everything eventually loses energy. One of my professors was saying basically if you look at these two laws, life shouldn’t exist because it doesn’t make sense if it requires energy to be life. So that idea kinda caught on me. So anytime I see entropy I see as this weird balance between entropy and not entropy, or existence and nonexistence. So I guess a crack in a sidewalk doesn’t look like disorder if you think of it as just water slowly breaking rock over time. It’s an interesting thought to me.”

We continued on with this theme of disorder and the sublime when we talked about her ink and glass MFA Project:

“That came about because I was having lots of talks about the sublime. For those who don’t know, the sublime is an idea… of the Romanticists that nature was this awesome, frightening, empowering thing all at the same time. A lot of the literature that talks about sublime references skies and oceans, things that bigger than the human being or bigger than the viewer. And so a lot of my professors would go sublime has to be big, sublime; [it] has to be big. And I would go ‘No no, it doesn’t necessarily have to be big.’

“A large part of my MFA was making works that I could prove that the sublime could be small. The ink pieces came out from me  just playing around with ink and glass slides that I found from American Science and Surplus, which is always fun. And then I built the boxes, which took a long time, viewing boxes that were backlit just sort of to encompass the viewer’s peripheral vision so there was no sense of size or scale. So the little miniature thing, which before didn’t see all that interesting or..intimidating, but when you take away sign of size, it could be anything. It could be microscopic or macroscopic. So I wanted to show that something small could be sublime if you put it in the right context or depending on what it is. There is a small snippet of one text talking about the infinite micro being sublime, because it’s so small, you can’t see it…

“[It] was basically India ink on drafting film, which It’s hard to explain. It’s basically sheets of plastic that can absorb ink to a certain extent... I liked translucent aspect of it that light could fall through; [it] made a  glowing effect. I think someone mentioned it reminded them of stained glass, which is something I didn’t think about. I guess in that way, it does emphasize the traditional sublime. When you put it together, it’s bigger than you.

“And it’s also blue. Every example that I did research on I’ve read about, all these examples, everything was pretty much blue. And I couldn’t figure it out why until I realized that all the authors and Romanticists usually referred to the sky and ocean, which are blue. It kinda makes sense that blue would be the color people chose. But that's mostly creating sort of playing around an amorphous thing.

“It was interesting cause I asked people’s reactions to it. I was trying to make something a little intimidating. I was asking if people would describe this as sublime. It turns out that a lot of people have a lot of very different feelings on what would be sublime. Some people said ‘Oh I should be more frightened.’ Some people say it should be more comforting. It should be darker or it should be lighter. It was very interesting. Because sublime wasn’t this just one thing. It was sort of a more messy grouping of horror and joy. All these things put together. Some people wanted to have more a joyful experience; people wanted to be frightened by it. One guy said it scared him and he didn’t want to get too close to it. I got a variety of reactions. It was interesting. I did it just to see what would happen.”

That’s just a small part of a wondrous interview.

Check out Mairin Hartt’s work at http://mairinhartt.com/home.html

Book Releases!

Some of the oral history participants have work released or about to be released!

Anne Elizabeth Moore is having a limited edition run of her work AfterParty: A Novella described as "a sci-fi novel about disease and paradise", You can order it here: http://www.sonnenzimmer.com/#!/page/25 or find a copy at Quimby's in Wicker Park in Chicago.

You can now pre-order the entire In the Sounds and Seas by Marine Galloway that is due to come out on May 10, 2016. This wordless novel explores mythology and adventure. The first two volumes are incredible. I can't wait to read it all!

You can preorder it here: http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Seas-Marnie-Galloway/dp/193554876X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453132745&sr=1-1&keywords=marnie+galloway

DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis

Next Saturday, January 16, Maggie Brown, singer, educator and oral history participant, will be featured with Ari Brown at Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in the show "DuSable to Obama; Chicago's Black Metropolis," at the South Side Cultural Center at 9pm.

It should be an incredible show! You should all check it out!

For more information, check out: http://www.chicagojazzphilharmonic.org/?mc_cid=0d7eb89b09&mc_eid=70e9fedf73

The following Saturday, January 23rd, Shu Shubat, another incredible participant of the project, and other talented musicians will be holding EarthGong Bath: Dream In at the South Chicago Cultural Center at 4pm. "The candlelit evening will begin with the delicate and ethereal “Ringing of the Bells” ceremony to usher in dreams and intentions for the coming year, followed by an extended EarthGong Bath, a Lullaby and a Samulnori drumming performance with our musical guests." I'm really looking forward to it.

For more information, check out the Chicago Parks Foundation website: http://www.chicagoparksfoundation.org/event/earthgong-bath-dream-in/

Women in Comics

This week has seen a huge fracas over the Grand Prix d’Angouleme when the list of 30 nominees did not include a single woman. While no one has mentioned this, I can only imagine the number of minorities represented on that list as well. "The Grand Prix is a lifetime achievement award, and the winner is named president of the following year’s Angouleme International Comics Festival. In the event’s 43-year history, just one woman, Florence Cestac, has been awarded the Grand Prix."(1)

Franck Bondoux, executive officer of the Angouleme International Comics Festival, defended the decision by saying, "“Unfortunately, there are few women in the history of comics,” he said. “That’s the reality. Similarly, if you go to the Louvre, you will find few women artists.”(2)

To quote Clue, "it-it- the f - it -flam - flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breaths... Heathing..."

Many people throughout the comic world and beyond have spoken out against this outrageous behavior. Groups are protesting and 1/3 of the authors who were nominated have withdrawn their names from the award. I believe there is now a move by the organization to include several women but people are calling for the award to be cancelled this year. 

It's an amazing vicious cycle. Throughout history, women's contributions in art (and everything really) are devalued and thus forgotten. Then their supposed absence is a evidence of the lack of quality. It goes round and round. Oh the flames I see.

So several lists have come out this week about women comic book artists. Here's one:  

25 Graphic Novels Written by Women, A Beginner's Guide

At the bottom of this article are some more names:

After the fracas...

I'm going to add my two cents to these lists since I've been most fortunate to interview several comic book artists for the project:

Sarah Becan is the creator of Sauceome, a great webcomic about food and body image. She also wrote the Complete Ouija Interviews and ShutEye. Check her out here: http://www.sarahbecan.com/

Marnie Galloway is the creator of the incredible trilogy In the Sound and the Seas along with other works. Check her out here: http://monkeyropepress.com/

Lyra Hill is the founder of the late Brain Frame, a performative comic series. She creates zines, films, and much more. Check out her work here: http://lyrahill.blogspot.com/

Lucy Knisley is mentioned on the list above but I can't stress enough how awesome her work is. Relish is one of my favorite books; it's a graphic novel of short stories about food and memory. Check her out here: http://www.lucyknisley.com/

Isabella Rotman writes important comics about social issues, such as sex, consent, and more. She wrote the wonderful informative You're So Sexy When You Aren't Transmitting STD's and Animal Sex. FInd out more about her work here: http://www.isabellarotman.com   

These are just a few of many amazing artists in comics in Chicago. 

That's all for now!

(1) http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2016/01/angouleme-grand-prixs-male-only-long-list-sparks-call-for-boycott/

(2) http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2016/01/nine-creators-withdraw-names-from-angouleme-grand-prix-list/

Happy New Year!

It's been a few weeks since i've last posted. The great news is that I have completed 52 interviews by the year's end. I've been working on this project since July 2014 with the intention of only doing one interview a month. Clearly, that fell by the wayside.

I just want to reiterate how lucky I am for all the women who have taken the time to meet with me and share their thoughts and stories about their work and lives. People have been so generous with their time and sometimes their homes and studios. I already knew that Chicago was filled with amazing people but I'm so thankful to have it reaffirmed over and over again. Thank you to all the participants!

For those of you wondering about the timeline of the project, I am nearing the end of the interviews. I had originally thought that I would continue interviewing until June 30, 2016 but I don't want a 500 page book. Now, I envision stopping around 60 interviews. So yes, the research stage is near an end. Once I finish the interviews, I'll work on getting everything transcribed; I have some transcriptions completed. And then, the grand work of editing interviews for the book is next. 

So stay tuned!

Also this news about Sundance directors is exciting. Not 50% but the numbers are moving in the right direction.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/sundance-2016-competition-lineup-unveiled-over-40-directed-by-women-20151203

50 Interview Milestone

This week, I'm so happy to announce that I have completed my fiftieth and fifty-first interviews. Over 50 interviews! Wow. What an absolute pleasure. I talked with Olivia Block, sound artist, and Tomeka Reid, cellist and composer this week. I am so honored to have had the chance to talk to them.

I'm so amazed that I have gotten to talk to so many incredible women. I have gotten to explore the city a bit more seeing neighborhoods that I was not familiar with and revisiting old neighborhoods. I've talked to circus performers, a fashion designer, costume designer, painters, performance artists, and so many others who work in the broad spectrum of the arts. I've talked to a diverse crowd of people of different ethnicities, races, birthplaces, ages, and so much more. 

I thank every single of them for taking the time to meet with me and share their stories. I feel very lucky that I live in a city like Chicago with so many active artists in numerous fields. I'm super excited to start editing the book filled with so much talent and heart. Thank you. Thank you thank you. 

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It's been a busy few weeks. Last weekend was the AAUW's Jane Addams Day at Hull House. It was my third year running the event You can read about how I got involved at my other blog here: http://wp.me/p44HaC-oW

Here is my summary of how the event went itself: http://wp.me/p44HaC-p9

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As a final treat, Artnet published a list of "20 Emerging Female Artists to Keep on Your Radar." While the list is a bit NY centric, it's still rather neat. I can't wait to check out these women's work. Check the article out here:

https://news.artnet.com/people/20-emerging-female-artists-2015-383411?utm_content=buffera5e84&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=socialmedia

Afterparty: A Community Guide for the Future

If you are someone who really loves Kickstarter and supporting artistic endevours, I have project for you. It's called Afterparty: A Community Guide for the Future, an artist's book with recipes by Anne Elizabeth Moore, culture critic, zinester, and participant of the project. There's only about 15 or so days left and the campaign has a ways to go.

A description of the project: "Afterparty: A Community Guide for the Future is an artist’s book project that plays on the edge of realism and the visionary. How do we survive the challenges that lie ahead when confronted with the epidemic of autoimmune disease? By melding together fiction and recipes through the medium of an artist’s book, we hope to challenge creative formats and investigate important issues creatively.

"Proposed is a 24-page (estimated page count) sculptural board book featuring recipes that accommodate the heightened food sensitivities that often come with autoimmune disease. Embedded within the cookbook will be a smaller book featuring Anne Elizabeth Moore’s first published work of science fiction. The package is intended to act as a welcoming guidebook to our collective imperfect future."

I think this is a really interesting project tackling an uncommon problem and I want to see it supported and published. Putting money where my mouth is.

Find out more here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sonnenzimmer/afterparty-a-community-guide-for-the-future

After all, we should Support Women Artists Now (SWAN). Or if you can't, help spread the word!

Other News

In the Chicago Tribune this week, there is an exciting article about liftUPTlift, a online global marketplace, that gives women entrepreneurs the opportunity to sell their jewelry and other products. It's a neat idea to encourage consumers to purchase goods made by women from all over the world. They are also trying to promote Women Owned Wednesday to support women shoppers and makers all over the world the day before Thanksgiving!

This fits well with the whole purpose underlying WITASWAN (Women in the Audience Supporting Women Artists Now). Be aware of what media you are consuming. Or who makes what you are purchasing. 

You can read more about it here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/stevens/sc-gift-guide-corielle-heath-liftuplift-2015-20151110-column.html

Here is the website: http://www.liftuplift.com/

In the New York Times Magazine, Maureen Dowd wrote an amazing article about the gender disparities in Hollywood. You should definitely check it out. Thanks to Jan Huttner for the article.

Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-women-of-hollywood-speak-out.html