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Peace Begins With
A Vision:
Celebrating Artists Working for Peace
Since
we have just marked the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion
of Iraq, we are featuring three artists this month who are exploring
issues of war and peace.
Although
male voices dominate the mass media war coverage, there is a long
and distinguished international tradition of women who have used
their art to witness, expose, and protest wars. For example, Polish
poet Wislawa Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for work that tells
the story of World War II in powerful and subversive ways; the
Vietnam era in the United States can hardly be remembered without
the voice of Joan Baez as a soundtrack; and Deepa Mehta has created
award-winning films about the suffering wrought by the partition
of India.
Women Artist-Activists Today
Over
the past two years, prominent women artists and writers have been
visible as activists in new movements for peace. Alice Walker,
Maxine Hong Kingston, the Dixie Chicks, Arundhati Roy, and many
others have been outspoken proponents of peaceful alternatives
to war.
Moreover,
around the globe, women are writing plays, poems and novels; painting
pictures; making films and art of all kinds that explores the
origins of armed conflict, examines its impact, and imagines other
pathways to the resolution of differences. Some women are using
their art to comment specifically on wars being fought by their
home countries and others are documenting the military experience
and daily life in a time of war.
Telling Women's Stories of War and
Imagining Alternatives
In
this newsletter, we interview three women who are using their
art to bring home the heart-break of war and to imagine alternatives.
Octavia McBride-Ahebee writes poems that tell the painful stories
of civil wars in Africa. Haifa Bint-Kadi is a Palestinian-American
mosaic artist who brings Muslim and Jewish women together to create
public mosaics. Seema Sueko is a playwright who has explored the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict in her own work, and whose company,
Mo'olelo Performing Arts, plans this fall to stage A Piece
of My Heart, Shirley Lauro's poignant play about women who
served in Vietnam. Just click on the artists' pictures to
read their interviews or go to:
www.WomenArts.org/news/March2005Interviews.htm
Learn about Women Artists and
Win Great Prizes!
To
encourage you to explore the WomenArts Network, we're
launching a monthly raffle where you can win great prizes for
learning more about women artists.
This month we are raffling off three copies of D.C.
Poets Against the War, an anthology featuring
60 diverse poets aged 10-80 writing from our nation's capital
and edited by our own Associate Director Sarah
Browning.
To
enter the raffle, just find any artist on the WomenArts Network
who is working on this month's theme of "Peace/Conflict Resolution"
and send an email to raffle@WomenArts.org
with the artist's name and one fact about her from her profile
page plus your name and address. The winners will be selected
on April 20.
It's
easy to search by theme on the WomenArts Network, just follow
these four simple steps:
- Click
on the words "Advanced
Search" under any WomenArts Network Search
Box on the site (in the left margin on most pages).
- Scroll
down the Advanced Search page to the box that says "General
Themes".
- Scroll
inside the "General Themes" box until you find the
theme "Peace/Conflict Resolution" and click on it.
- Go
to the bottom of the search page and click the "Search"
button. You should find at least 70 artists including the three
featured this month.
This
raffle will be steady feature of the newsletters. If you have
an item you'd like us to raffle, let us know. If your item is
picked, we'll provide a link to your WomenArts Network profile
or website in the issue that features your donated item. Thanks!
Spread the Word
Forward
this email to your friends and family. Many people do not realize
that there are so many women artists who are creating such inspiring
work.
Support The Fund for Women Artists
Click
on the Donate
Now button below to support these newsletters and
the other free services of The Fund for Women Artists.
You
can also mail us a check at:
The
Fund for Women Artists
P.O. Box 60637
Florence, MA 01062
Email:
info@WomenArts.org
Phone: (413) 585-5968
About The Fund for Women Artists
The
Fund for Women Artists is a non-profit organization dedicated
to helping women artists get the resources they need to do their
creative work. There is an overview of our goals and services
in the Share
the Vision section of our website at www.WomenArts.org.
The
Fund for Women Artists is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.
Federal Employer I.D. #04-3257661. All contributions are tax deductible
to the full extent of the law.
This
newsletter is made possible by generous grants from the Valentine
Foundation, the CDQ Charitable Trust, and the Women's
Funding Network Venture Fund.
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