Girl Drive: a road trip, a blog, a book

WMG has been a huge fan of Girl Drive for sometime now. In fact, we have asked Nona Willis Aronowitz, one of the creators, to jury a show here at WMG next year. We encourage you to check them out (click HERE to see an interview on our very own Amy for Girl Drive)!

The following is an excerpt from their blog detailing what they’re all about:

“What do twenty-something women care about? What are their hopes, worries, and ambitions? Have they heard of feminism, and do they relate to it?

 These are the burning questions that photographer Emma Bee Bernstein and I, Nona Willis Aronowitz, sought to answer when we hit the road on October 15, 2007, determined to discover how our peers viewed their lives as women. For several months, through dozens of cities, we drove across America in a Chevy Cavalier, photographing young women and finding out what was important to them. Remembering our feminist moms’ legacy, Emma and I also tracked down feminist pioneers like Erica Jong and Michele Wallace, as well as younger veterans like Jennifer Baumgardner and Kathleen Hanna, and asked them, “Where do you see our generation headed?”

Before we left, Emma and I bestowed a name upon our adventure: Girldrive.

Girldrive tracks a conversation between the next generation. It allows gutsy young women across the American cityscape to be seen and heard. It evaluates, through an intergenerational conversation, the current state of feminism and its many definitions. It’s about the past and the present, and it glimmers on the future. It’s about the promise of the open road. It’s about how young women grapple with the concepts of freedom, equality, joy, ambition, sex, and love—whether they call it “feminism” or not.

Girldrive is bigger than just our road trip. It has inspired feminist road trips in the South and the UK. It’s been covered by newspapers, blogs, and TV and radio stations across the country, as well as in places around the world like Italy, Belgium, France and Canada. It’s a universal story personifying a universal message: young women are determined to change their world–and have our voices heard in the process.”

Calls for Art: “Girl, Please!”

“Girl, Please!” is intended to explore and transcend the definition and expectations of gender that are present everyday in our society.  The theory of gender performance can be a complicated idea for most people to unpack, let alone identify their own place within.  Perhaps through the creation and contemplation of art work made in response to these ideas, we all can learn a little more about the unique role that gender plays in each of our lives.  If we allow ourselves to question our societal, and our own, definition of gender, we might be able to learn more about the individuals who stand behind these descriptions.  And in another attempt of exploration, this show is open to the artwork of all genders, and it will be juried by some of Woman Made Gallery’s own staff, Kristen Carter and Emanuel Aguilar (for information on the jurors click here).

 ”Girl, Please!” is still seeking art and will be open to submissions until August 11^th!  If you are interested in submitting work, or want to learn more about them, please visit our website at: http://www.womanmade.org/entryform.html

Or click here to submit:

WMG Gala 2010 – A Memorable and Beautiful Event

We are happy to report a successful Gala Event on April 30, 2010, in a magical space with the nicest people. Thank you to all who made this success possible, from the organizers to the many guests who attended. We have received only praises about the delicious and abundant food, the variety of silent auction items, and the venue in general. All proceeds raised from this event will be used to pay for our programs.

We thank Sara Barg and Salvage One for providing us with a fabulous space. We are most grateful to Andrea Herrera for the excellent service provided by our favorite catering company, Amazing Edibles. Thank you to the people from Cabot Cheese for their abundant and varied cheese donations; and to Chris Kadow-Dougherty from Whimsical Candy for the most delicious almond coconut nougat sweets ever tasted on this earth. Thank you to Bill Lamme and to all the Jazzifiers, who helped create the wonderful atmosphere; and to Keith Taylor, who shared his artistic talents by producing live art, and donating the results to our live auction. Many thanks to artist and auctioneer Candace Hunter, who used her charm, wit, and humor to make the live auction an entertaining and profitable part of the evening. Event planning was graciously donated by Shannon Downey and her company, Pivotal Production.

Thank you to all our sponsors, advertisers, admission and raffle ticket buyers, volunteers, contributing businesses, and artists, and to all who have given time, talent, and resources to Woman Made Gallery.