SWAN Day 2015 Re-Cap

Our SWAN Day 2015 Party in the Wellsville Daily Reporter ~Kathryn Ross

THE BIG QUESTION: 
What IS SWAN Day??

SWAN Day – History

Jan Lisa Huttner
Film Critic & Founder of
WITASWAN

"The idea for SWAN Day grew out of a collaboration between WomenArts and Chicago’s WITASWAN (Women in the Audiences Supporting Women Artists Now).  WITASWAN is an informal alliance of women who are using their power as consumers to increase opportunities for women artists.  It began as an initiative of the Illinois chapter of the American Association of University Women.  The complete history of WITASWAN is at www.films42.com/witaswan.asp. "...."Jan Lisa Huttner invited Martha Richards, the Executive Director of WomenArts, to speak at an American Association of University Women conference in Bloomington, IL in April 2007.  (For pictures of this historic meeting seewww.films42.com/witaswan/martha-richards.asp).  The idea for SWAN Day was born during the car ride between Bloomington and Chicago, as Huttner and Richards discussed ways to build more direct connections between women artists and women audience members." Full Story at Women Arts.org.

SWAN Day is celebrated annually on the 4th Saturday of March. However, events observing this occasion are schedule around the world from March 1st to April. There are many ways to Join this Celebration of Women Artists. To celebrate and support local women artists and influential women in art history this year in Allegany County, NY; the community was invited to attend a SWAN Day Party at the Fountain Arts Center in Belmont, NY.  

Representatives from the Belfast Organization For Artists (Kathy Garrison), the Wellsville Art Association (Kristen Kruger), SheilaLynnK Art Studio (Sheila L. Kalkbrenner), and the Fountain Arts Center (Wendy Skinner) attended.  

INFLUENTIAL WOMEN ARTISTS AND CHANGES IN HOW WE KNOW THEM

We began the event with a brief description of the history of SWAN Day followed by a short film, Famke Jannsen Discusses Louise Bourgeois & SWAN Day from Women Arts. As a tribute to a few of the influential women painters and sculptors initially excluded from the History Books, we watched and discussed a Great Museums presentation, A Woman's Touch: The National Museum of Women In The Arts (with Founder, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay , Chief Curator Susan Fisher Sterling; and Founding Board Memeber, Martha Dippell ).  "More than 50% of artists in the United States today are women."

Among the amazing historical and contemporary women artists' works and stories preserved and documented in the collections at the National Museum of Women In the Arts featured in the video were:  Lavinia Fontana, Clara Peters, Maria Sabylla Merian, Marianne Loir, Angelica Kauffman, Suzanne Valadon, Camille Claudel, Mary Cassatt, Lilla Cabot Perry, Georgia O'Keeffe, Grace Hartigan, Alice Neel, Audrey Flack, Lorrie Goulet, Elisabetta Sirani, Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun, Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Alice Bailly, Frida Kahlo, and Joan Mitchell .  

[See more videos about Swan Day and women in the arts on Sheila's SWAN Day video playlist. ]

OUR FAVORITE WOMEN ARTISTS

After the video, we shared light refreshments and discussed our favorite women artists. Featured in this discussion were the works of Rose Marie Shave of Nunda, NY and Eleanor Cott of Wellsville, NY. Kathy Garrison shared original watercolor paintings by Rose Shave from her personal collection, as well as, a 100 year old family fabric art quilt created under the substantial creative familial influence of Ms. Shave. The quilt displayed delicate master-embroidered hand-stitched botanically correct depictions of flowers from K.G.'s great grandmother's garden as well as flowers painted under the tutelage of Rose Shave. Kathy stated that these works have influence her by giving her the courage to try new things in her own art work. Kathy is a designer and fabric artist living in Belfast, NY. 

Kristen shared her digital gallery of another local artist, Eleanor Cott's, detailed landscape watercolors and lively natural scenes from her collection of painted works. She says that Eleanor frequently worked from photographs and is especially thankful to own a painting of a scene from a location they had visited together. "Eleanor personally encouraged me to create and share my own art," Kristen said. She was also inspired by discovering the diverse collection of media and materials that Eleanor had used in the making of her own art. 

Sheila shared, The Art of Asking, a book by Musician and Performing Artist, liberal arts graduate,  Amanda Palmer. After discovering Amanda Palmer via her TED Talk shared at a business workshop for creative entrepreneurs, she is inspired by Amanda's bold and generous approach to trusting and communicating with her audience via couch-serving, crowd-surfing, AND modern means of connecting to humanity via sharing art and keeping it affordable to the general public. After very publicly fighting her way off of her recording label, Amanda now uses crowdfunding via Kickstarter and Patreon to offer her work to as many people as possible around the world, for FREE. Her fans and followers voluntarily provided her with a record- breaking $1.2 Million to allow her to continue making the work that they love. 

"We've been asking the wrong question, How do we make people pay for music? What if we started asking, How do we LET people pay for music?" ~Amanda Palmer

"Formerly of the Dresden Dolls -a music/performance group I had never really listened to, I had never heard of Amanda before this business class. So, I sought out her music. My current favorite piece is, In My Mind, a song about loving and accepting ourselves as we are RIGHT NOW. A celebration of her own acceptance of her human journey, this is also an inspiring message for her audience. " ~Sheila

This first Allegany County, NY SWAN Day event evolved into a majorative tribute to women in the visual arts. SWAN Day is designed to celebrate and support women working, past and present, in all of the creative genres. 

Outcomes and updates will continue to be posted on the Event Page. 

SWAN Storming Ideas for future SWAN Day Events in Allegany County, NY

DO YOU HAVE IDEAS FOR SWAN DAY ALLEGANY COUNTY, NY??

PLEASE SHARE THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW OR ON OUR EVENT PAGE.