Women in Conversation Offers an Intimate Look into Women's Experience of the World

Top row: artwork by Jill Milenski; Middle row: artwork by Gayle Pritchard;
Bottom row: artwork by Gail Crum

Our show Women in Conversation opens at the Stocker Center Gallery tomorrow night. We are so excited to see the installation. Gail Crum, Jill Milenski and I (Gayle Pritchard) first met years ago in my first Spirit Boxes, Sacred Vessels and Shrines class. The artwork was so amazing, we created an exhibition of the same name. Now, some twenty-five years later, this sisterhood of artists has created a new exhibition, our third in the past four years, and we seek again to offer a strikingly powerful view into how women see and experience life.

From the passage of the 19th Amendment a hundred years ago – giving women the right to vote – to the present day #MeToo era, we three artists celebrate woman's necessary role in society and the  importance of hearing steady, strong diverse female voices expressed through art. The urge to create is itself transformative and necessary, a balm for the soul. Women communicate differently about the gendered dimensions of their place in the world.

Fairy Tale Series: The Wolf at the Door, in progress. Artwork by Jill Milenski

In this groundbreaking exhibition, we raise our voices and speak through our work, a year in the making. Viewers are invited to be collaborators in completing the circle from the birth of an idea to the magical process of turning that idea into an art object that is put on display for all to engage with.

The pieces presented are inspired by daily life, the result of the way we, as women, skillfully and passionately navigate the multi-faceted roles we play: We are sisters, wives, mothers, aunts, daughters, grandmothers, soulmates, girfriends, caregivers, teachers, advocates, activists and artists.

Women in Conversation is the natural outgrowth of long-time artist friends who share a love of process and materials. The unbroken threads of decades-long conversations about our lives,our families, politics, women's issues, art, and techniques are woven into the work we are exhibiting. The show is a unique opportunity to share a piece of what brings us together as women and artists: the vulnerability, the intimacy that arises from telling our stories in our conversations with each other and through our artwork.

Saturday Night (Record Series) by Gail Crum

Along with the shared narrative, we also often share art supplies and found materials unearthed in junk and antiques stores. We share a love of process, of making something from nothing, or trying out new tools and birthing new visions in our note- and sketch-filled journals. We love laughing at the persistent compulsions that are the never-ending subjects of the objects we create. We share processes and favorite techniques with each other, simply playing and exploring ideas while we stretch to make new work that is out of our usual comfort zone. We nurture each other through our sharing and our play-days.

A box of ephemera ready to
be added to an artwork

We love color, old books and postcards, broken objects, paper dolls, fabric, and time-worn wooden blocks. We peruse junk shops, where intuitively gathered new treasures await our artists' mojo – that magical moment when the discarded trinkets and trash of everyday life are transformed. These snippets, pieces and parts are paired with process to become objects that carry the stories of our ideas.

We invite you to join in this living conversation about women, art and community. The chance to show our work and have this conversation is nurturing and necessary. It's a supportive, feminine thing we do together. We raise our voices to speak through our work. We hope you are moved, amused and inspired. Above all, we hope to see you there.

Women in Conversation

 · Where:

Stocker Art Center, 1005 N. Abbe Rd., Elyria, OH 44035

· When:

- Friday February 28, 4 – 7 p.m.: Opening reception, refreshments, Scavenger Hunt, live music and gallery talk at 6:30 p.m.

- Wednesday, March 4, 6 - 7 p.m.: 'Make and Take' with the artists before the play, Ain't I a Woman?

- Friday March 6, 6 - 7:30 p.m.: Visit the gallery before the Winter Film Series

- Friday, March 27, 6 - 7:30 p.m. | Visit the gallery before the Winter Film Series

- Thursday April 2,  4 - 7 p.m. | Closing reception, refreshments, Scavenger Hunt, live music and gallery talk at 6:30 p.m.

- TBA Other events celebrating Women's History Month and the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment

Detail of Travel Ban by Gayle Pritchard and
utilizing an altered Handkerchief Memory Project printed by
Clare Murray Adams