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So my friend Jeanette, the ED of RCWMS in Durham, called to ask if we would be interested in doing an exhibition of the work of three local women artists in honor of Swan Day. My first question, of course, was what is Swan Day. It stands for Support Women Artists Now and it is an annual international celebration of women in the arts. What's not to love right? I knew two of the artists, Mary Jane Rivers and Bryant Holsenbeck, well and liked their work and soon knew Marcy Litle and her wonderful work as well. Two painters and a sculptor/installation artist. The Masks and Mirrors exhibition was born.
We had a ton of wonderful volunteer help to hang the show.
The opening was a complete smash
Mary Jane's partner Grace with her daughter, grand daughter, and great grand daughter. 4 generations at one opening!
I wasn't prepared for the incredible amount and range of programming they planned and avalanche of interest there was in this show.
I love a first at Cassilhaus and we got a handful. For starters it was our first show of painting. Also Cassilhaus doesn't have public hours and we experimented for the first time with weekly open-to-the- public daytime docent hours in addition to five evening programs including the opening, readings, an artist talk and musical performances. We had extraordinary audiences with many coming to Cassilhaus for the first time.
Randa McNamara brought down the house.
All three artists gave inspiring artist talks. We had wonderful readings which I forgot to photograph :(
Alison Weiner, Mary Capucilli, and friends gave a fantastic musical goodbye at the closing event.
Artist Marcy Litle
Artist Bryant Holsenbeck (in center making noise)
And Mary Jane loved it all. It was an incredibly beautiful show. (Click to enlarge)
The show got me thinking about representation of women in the art world. The Guerrilla Girls have long documented the depressing statistics on this front. It made me take a look at our own collection and the percentage of women represented and although we are at a respectable 40% we are still not at parity. It inspired us to do the next show as a showcase of the women artists in our own collection. Stay tuned for a post on the Private Portals show.
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