Updates from the Chair
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October 2013
In This Update
Opportunities
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art Milestones
UN Program
WCA UN Alternate Representative Position Applications Due November 15
Toronto Project Moved to 2015/2016
International Caucus Facebook Page
International Caucus Annual Meeting/Chicago
WCA's International Caucus continues to grow - almost 150 members and counting - and strengthen - more of our members are finding ways to volunteer their skills and/ or their willingness to learn them to our projects! And an increasing number of our members are citizens of other countries than the United States.
New members: The Women's Caucus for Art is 41 year-old, volunteer-run, art and activism non-profit organization. Our International Caucus (or IC) is dynamic group of women within WCA who support our United Nations connection and develop projects with other international women artists. Please check out our International Caucus website to learn more. Training and administrative pages are password protected: wcaic as in the first letters of Women's Caucus for Art International Caucus.
Our numbers have necessitated exploring new ways to communicate with and update our members. This update is via MailChimp. It is free, unlike other email services such as Vertical Response. Let me know what your impressions.
Read on for opportunities to get involved and become informed.
OPPORTUNITIES
Our volunteer run programs provide our members opportunities to expand their world views, share and develop their professional skills and participate in a creative, international community.
Since March, volunteers have been working on our art-based cultural exchange that will occur in Shenyang, China in April 2014. As the work continues, we take a moment to celebrate many milestones!
Maureen, UN Program Committee Director, and committee members are creating an event for the 2014 UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference. Tentatively titled "Impressions: Artists Consider MDGs and Post 2015", it will give UN Program members an opportunity to share how art and art-based events are used to bring attention to UN priorities and provide an interactive, community building opportunity for conference attendees, who come from all over the world for this conference. To learn more and join the UN Program, contact Maureen at[email protected].
WCA UN ALTERNATE REPRESENTATIVE POSITION APPLICATIONS DUE NOVEMBER 15
Up to four WCA members may be submitted, during our annual NGO (non-governmental organization) renewal application to the United Nations, to represent WCA at UN events, conferences and whenever they are on the UN grounds. Being a UN representative is a privilege and comes with a serious responsibility for maintaining our relationship with the UN. It also provides a fascinating window into the workings of the UN and opportunities to meet other UN representatives from around the world. Each year one of these representative positions rotates among our membership. The other positions go to the WCA's President, the International Caucus Chair and the UN Program Director. We are grateful to Elizabeth Sowell-Zak for representing us in this fourth position for 2013.
Though the majority of events and conferences at the UN have no fees, our UN representatives are responsible for any travel or other expenses incurred while participating. Representatives are required to submit a written report of any meetings/events they attend. Representatives attend portions of the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women conference held in March at the UN in NYC and are encouraged to attend other meetings throughout the year.
We encourage those interested to read more about WCA's UN Program on the many UN pages of our IC website and then apply for this position for 2014 by emailing their answers to the following questions to Maureen [email protected] by November 15, 2013.
1) What interests you about the UN and the possibility of representing WCA at the UN?
2) What skills and background would you bring to this position?
3) Do you live in the New York City area and/or are able to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference and occasional other events in 2014?
TORONTO PROJECT MOVED TO 2015/2016
Natalie Waldburger, professor at Ontario College of Art & Design and my collaborator on this project, and I have been laying the groundwork for an innovative, interactive art conference that will now occur in October of 2015 in Toronto (during and with possible opportunities for our artists at Art Toronto) with events in New York City around the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference in March 2016. This delay will give us more time to seek grants and other funding as well as create partnerships with other organizations. Some IC members have already volunteered to work on this project - thank you!. We should have more information about our next steps in the next IC update.
INTERNATIONAL CAUCUS FACEBOOK PAGE
Krista has also created a Facebook page for our caucus. This is a nice way for us to stay connected, share International Caucus projects and news of our own that may be of interest to other caucus members. Check it out and "like" it!
INTERNATIONAL CAUCUS ANNUAL MEETING/CHICAGO
We hope to see you at WCA's annual meeting in Chicago in February 2014! Our International Caucus will meet that Friday, February 14th, from 9-11 a.m. at the Essex Hotel, where most WCA meetings will be held. Yes, Valentine chocolates will be provided. More information coming soon!
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May 2013
In this Update
International Caucus Website/Password
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
International Caucus Finances
EcoArt and International Caucus Collaborative Exhibition
Toronto
New Banner for Website Needed
Ideas to Think About
International Caucus Website/Password
New content is being added to our website almost weekly. Krista Jiannacopolous is adding to our Art & Activism Database, Maureen Burns-Bowie, Chair of our UN Program, will soon be including updates about UN-based opportunities and events on our International Caucus UN Program page. I have retired the blog we started with the first International Caucus website last year and transferred the information to other pages on our website. The old International Committee blog – Artwaves International – is now available in cleaner formats under the WCA Artwaves International Blog Archives. Some of the pages on our site – particularly concerning professional development information and project planning pages- are password protected.
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
Jing Deng, returned from China last week after meeting with the President, Vice President and Galllery Head at LuXun Academy in Shengyang, China and Yin Ou Zhao, her friend and our curator for the Chinese women artists. Yes, this is a go! And we have begun setting up the groundwork. Here is the page on our website to support the project.
Social Practice Art
This project is primarily an art and cultural exchange from April 15-30, 2014 with an exhibition component. A working delegation of our membership will be traveling to Shenyang for a segment of this time to interact with the Chinese women, who will have art in the exhibition, and, possibly, with students of the Academy in a variety of events – demonstrations, dialogues, collaborations… For the exhibition, we will be encouraging new media and interactive works along with more traditional ones. Bonnie MacAlister has been helping define these new media for the Call for Art.
Call for Art and for Essays
The Calls should be published in early June with a deadline for submissions in mid-September. As soon as the Calls are finalized, I will send them out to our International Caucus
Shipping
Krista Jiannacopoulos’ and Kieran Collins’ research about collective shipping is one our Exhibition Shipping Information web page. We are not doing collective shipping for this project due to its costs and LuXun Academy has agreed to accept individual shipments from selected artists. Examples of these costs will be added to these pages when we get them.
Fundraising/Publicity
Many of you have offered to assist with Fundraising and Publicity – thank you! . Alli Berman, as the Chair for Fundraising and Publicity, and I should have the first steps of the fundraising plant ready to start within the week. The first phase will be raising money for the project via sponsorships and donations and an Indiegogo campaign – funds from which will subsidize travel costs for the delegation, providing one copy of the catalog for each artist and essayist, supply technology/equipment to support our events at the Academy and possibly more. Once the artists are selected, we will be asking their assistance in continuing this fundraising effort and delegates will be raising individual funds to cover what we cannot subsidize for their travel expenses. Jamianne Amicucci and Sal Sidner have been sharing their experiences with crowdsourcing and fundraising.
International Caucus Finances
Now that the internal caucuses are responsible for funding their own projects, I have set up a password protected page on our website so that we can all see how we are doing financially and how our funds are being allocated. My goal was to have a small profit from our Woman + Body exhibition in Korea – which we did - so that we could have seed money for future projects. The budgets for all future projects - which will have to be budget neutral or show a profit - will include a repayment of any seed money used. The report on this page will be updated with notes for any month within which there is activity. All funds are kept within the national WCA accounts. Transactions are documented by our national Director of Operations.
EcoArt and International Caucuses Collaborative Exhibition
We are still waiting for enough information from the gallery in Chicago before we send out a proposal for our caucus to consider. As stated in the last Update, MaryLinda Moss, acting chair of EcoArt Caucus, and I have created a simple but effective installation project, in which we could share ideas and resources. This would be created in 1/3 of a gallery during the WCA annual conference in Chicago next February. I hope to have this proposal out to you all very soon.
Toronto
No new information about this project at this point.
New Banner for Website Needed
I put together the banner image – WCA International Caucus on a background of the earth – very quickly one day. It could certainly be more interesting and eye-catching. The current image is 2 inches by .397 inches and 700 x 139 pixels, but I stretched it to fit into the banner format. Could we get some new options for our members to consider by this fall?
Ideas to think about
Priscilla Otani, our national WCA president, has asked us to consider creating a panel idea for our 2015 national conference, which will be in NYC, and presented with the CAA panels schedule - around international projects/exhibitions/UN work – and possibly including members of CAA’s International Committee. We would need to begin working on this idea by the latter part of this year, 2013.
Krista Jiannacopoulous has asked is we could look ahead to creating an exhibition during that 2015 conference – possibly in coordination with our Toronto project, an extension of one of our other international projects, or an international themed exhibition that we would then try to travel to other countries.
Member Gallery on website. We have the capability to create a gallery page on our website with each image (one per artist) including short text below (artist name/name of artwork) and a URL link. If there is interest in this, we would need someone with basic internet experience to learn how to manage and update this gallery.
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April 2013
In this update:
Professional Development Pages Now Password Protected
UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference
UN Program
5WCW
Our Toronto Project is Back on Track
EcoArt/International Caucuses Collaboration
China: Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
How Do We Decide which Ideas to Pursue?
WCA Wikipedia Article is Now Life
Brazil – The Big Hug
Professional Development Pages Now Password Protected
As a reminder…I am continuing to create training materials for exhibition development and management and for fundraising. Higher level/more detailed training is available to national WCA board members and to those who volunteer for major positions in our projects, but our caucus pages aim to cover many of the basics and to create a common level of understanding for us to use in our own practices as well as to be more successful at our caucus projects. To protect these pages and pages that list our members and catalog our updates, I have created a password to access these pages.
UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference
What an amazing collective effort! Six of our members participated in this conference in an effort to learn more about how CSW works and to spread the word about how WCA uses art platforms to bring attention to issues: Maureen Burns-Bowie - chair of our UN Program committee and UN Alternate Representative, Elizabeth Sowell-Zak – our other UN Alternate Representative, Alli Berman – our PR/Publicity chair, Ana Koshkin – who joined WCA and our caucus the last day of our NYC annual conference, Simone Kestelman – whom Elizabeth and I met at the Scope Fair during CSW and who immediately joined WCA and went to panels at CSW, and myself.
The theme for this year’s conference was Eradicating Violence Against Women. In a perfect example of collaboration, Joanna Fulginiti, director of the WCA Philadelphia Chapter’s Ragdoll Project - which focuses of sex trafficking - sent dolls, doll-making kits and literature about the Project to NYC so that Maureen and I could use them to bring attention to the Project and to start conversations about WCA’s mission.
At the last minute, Amanda Moyer and Alli created an Art & Activism brochure that we shared with as many CSW participants as we could. It is now available as a PDF on our website. Out of this week came new ideas and connections for our caucus. See our website home page for photos and more information.
UN Program
This committee continues to evolve! Maureen is working with this group to develop a side event or panel for next year’s CSW conference and Negin Sharifzedah and Seda Baghdasarian are following up with one of our CSW connections to possibly document an important piece of history – both personal and global. There is much information about the UN and our connections to it on our International Caucus website.
5WCW
One of our goals at the CSW conference was to make deeper connections with the efforts to have a UN-sponsored 5th World Conference on Women so that we could create art platforms in support of the effort and during the conference if it were to be finally approved by the UN General Assembly (once approved, the planning process would take two years). One hundred WCA members attended the last one in Beijing in 1995 and their experiences there are still resonating with them and with those with whom they share their stories. A new group that is supporting a 5WCW became excited about making WCA a planning partner, but after research and discussion, I decided that we did not have the resources in time and woman power at the moment to participate in their work at this time. I will continue to stay connected to 5WCW efforts and, when a concrete opportunity presents itself for which we have “bandwidth” – especially after approval by the General Assembly - I will bring it to our caucus for consideration.
Our Toronto Project is Back on Track
Another contact that Elizabeth and I made at the Scope Fair in NYC has re-energized our idea for a collaboration with Toronto women artists at venues in Toronto and in NYC. (Remember that Joyce Ellen Weinstein and I started working on this idea last spring?) This contact and I are getting to know each other’s organizations and we hope to be able to bring an idea for the caucus to consider within the next couple of months. The earliest a collaboration would occur would be Fall 2014, which would mean some overlap in tasks with our China project, but, with the enthusiastic volunteer response for China and the exhibitions training materials on our website, our capabilities are growing quickly.
EcoArt/International Caucuses Collaboration
The internal caucuses have been encouraged by the national executive committee to consider creating exhibition opportunities for its members at a gallery in Chicago during the national WCA annual conference in February 2014. With our caucus’ resources currently focused on our China project, MaryLinda Moss, acting chair of the EcoArt caucus, and I decided to brainstorm around a simple but effective installation project, in which we could share ideas and resources. As soon as we have some more information about the venue, we will be back with you with that idea.
China: Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
Now that our proposal has been approved by the national WCA board, we are just awaiting the official invitation from the president of LuXun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, China (we have already received his promise). Jing Deng, our China Outreach Liaison, will be going to China at the end of the month to get this document and more information about the venue. I am very impressed with and thankful to eighteen caucus members who have stepped up to assist in this project – Alli Berman, Negin Sharifzedah, Lee Lee,Judy Johngson-Williams, Sal Sidner, Krista Jiannacopoulos, Amanda Moyer, Sanfra Mueller, Avinger Nelson, Ana Koshkin, Ulla Barr, Helen Newman, Dale Osterle, Kelly Hammargren, Hilda Demsky, Loraine Bonner, Nelleke Nix, Kieran Collins! As soon as we get the document, we will begin fundraising for the project (Alli and I are currently working on a fundraising plan), searching for and contracting jurors (one for art, one for essays) and writing the Call for Art (due to be posted in early June). I have created a page on our website for this project with sub-pages for the timeline/tasks and for gathering information that will be helpful the delegation of artists selected to travel to Shenyang.
How Do We Decide Which Ideas to Pursue?
Are you excited about all of these possibilities? Are you concerned about how we could make them realities? Our members have come up with many enticing ideas for international projects. I endeavor to direct our caucus’ resources to ideas that 1) have International Caucus members jumping in to do research and make contacts (see Exhibition Development Guidelines on our website, 2) have a committed planning group of women in the partner country, 3) do not conflict with a current project, and 4) have a realistic time frame. If an idea has these components, our caucus members or I, will develop a draft proposal to give to our caucus for consideration. If the caucus approves and/or has concerns that are then addressed, we will create a budget and proposal (see board proposal format) to be considered by the national WCA board. Any project that involves funds (receipts/payments), contracts and/or uses the WCA name in a public way has to be approved by the national WCA board. Although we hope to always have at least a small amount of seed money within our caucus accounts to start projects, all projects must be self-funded (entry fees, sales, fundraising, etc), return the seed money to the caucus account, and result in a neutral or income-producing budget (income increases the amount of seed money).
WCA Wikpedia article is now Live
Another resource for us to use in spreading the word about WCA is finally up on Wikipedia. Through this process, we discovered that most of our documentation about WCA’s history is too closely associated to WCA. Wikipedia expects objectivity in its articles, so we have not been able to include as much as we would like about our past exhibitions and history, which need resources from periodicals, newspapers, independent blogs, etc. WCA resources have to be used sparingly to avoid the article being flagged for removal. If you come across such resources, please sign up as an editor on Wikipedia and add them to the article.
Brazil – The Big Hug
At our annual meeting, I mentioned that a woman artist from Brazil had approached WCA about being involved with her The Big Hug exhibition, which would occur during the next World Cup soccer games. I met with her in NYC. She hopes to raise the consciousness about women in Brazil with this project. It quickly became apparent, though, that she was mostly looking for non-profit partners to assist her in raising a very large amount of funding for her project. WCA is not in a position to do this, but our artists may be invited to participate individually in The Big Hug. She will let us know when her Call for Art is open.
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March 2013
Another energetic annual meeting for our caucus! We only had 75 minutes at the American Folk Art Museum, but many of us were able to continue the conversation at a nearby coffeehouse. I am encouraged by the number of you who have stepped up to not only say you are interested in what our caucus is doing, but have volunteered to make these exciting ideas happen. Thank you! Our caucus is only one year old, but we are certainly a force!
United Nations Committee
Maureen Burns-Bowie has jumped right into developing our caucus’ new United Nations Committee as its chair and currently has a dozen or more caucus members who are ready to go. She is also one of our UN Alternate Representatives and has a lot of history with UN work. Maureen told us the UN and its NGOs are ripe for art & activism. She expressed the importance of learning by providing some links including the pages on our caucus website and shared a list of UN-related groups to join. Maureen and I are currently at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and will be reporting later about the enticing connections we are making. Contact Maureen at [email protected] if you are interested in working on developing projects/exhibitions with the UN. Elizabeth Sowell-Zak is our other UN Alternate Represenative.
Social Media/Art & Activism Database
Krista Jiannacopoulos graciously volunteered to promote our caucus through various social media and to also keep a watch out for and collect information about WCA projects that fall within our art & activism mandate for the United Nations. Contact Krista at [email protected] if your chapter or region has such a project in the works. We collect this information annually for our UN NGO application as well as to provide data for grant applications.
Public Relations/Promotions
Alli Berman has a long history in this area and is wiling to help us not only get the word out about WCA as a whole (we definitely need to do a better job at sharing our good works!) but to also do the same for our International Caucus projects.
Toronto Exhibition Update
Several of you have volunteered to work on a collaboration with women artists in Toronto. We still cannot move ahead with this project until we find a group of women in Toronto who are interested in being a co-committee there. I do have some names to follow up with. Crossing my fingers. If you know of anyone there, I can send you information to share and/or you can give me their contact info. I have no problem making cold calls!
Exhibitions Training Anyone?
We have several real possibilities in the next 2-3 years for international exhibitions. There is much to do to make them realities, including having a strong and trained exhibition committee in place. Again, each person doing a little means we can do great things. These are skills that can enhance other aspects of your art life and exhibition committee members are recognized in the exhibition catalog – proof that you have used these skills, another line on your resumé!
I have placed information about exhibition development, tasks, timelines and budgets on our IC website. Please look them over, see if there is some aspect of running an exhibition that you already know and would like to share your skills and/or some aspect you would like to learn about and to which you could imagine fitting into your life so you can be on our Exhibitions Committee. Initially, this committee will be in training and will work on developing proposals. Once we have a project approved, this committee will expand.
And those exhibition possibilities?
Toronto, China, Turkey, Dubai, Brazil, the United Nations…. ! I am weaving the various clues and connections to see what arises as priorities. At that point, off we go and I mean “we”. We will work together to make them happen!
More internal caucus formalization
The two internal caucus proposals passed with the national WCA board. Our International Caucus will now be responsible for its own budget, which means we need to raise our own funds for projects and create budgets that are neutral or profitable. We also get to keep any profits as seed money for future projects and are eligible to apply for two forms of grants from the national WCA, just as WCA chapters can – the Chapter Matching Fund and the Chapter Development Fund. More info about these are on the national website. Our projects and their budgets still need to be approved by the national board each July (ex., July 2013 approval for projects incurring financial activity July 2013 through June 2014)
Caucus representation on the National WCA Board
There are three rotating positions on the national board that come from the internal special-interest caucuses and represent the concerns of all of the internal special-interest caucuses (EcoArt, JWAN, International and Young Women’s). Amanda Moyer was elected by Young Women’s and I was elected from our caucus. Rona Lessman, representing JWAN, was already on the board. EcoArt will have the opportunity of having a member on the board next year. This means that we will have more opportunity to be part of the decision-making that affects our caucus.
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February 2013
Reminder: Renew Your WCA annual membership if you haven't done so
And make sure the box for International Caucus is checked in you member profile on the WCA website. This email is going out to all IC members from last year as well as new ones. Future emails addresses for updates will be taken from current members in the WCA website member directory.
International Caucus Annual Meeting
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square @ West 66th, 9:30 – 10:45 am, February 14th
We have many interesting things on our agenda, so I will be available to continue the meeting and conversation with those who are not attending the JWAN meeting (which follows our meeting) somewhere nearby after this meeting officially ends. I hope to find a nearby coffee shop or some such place on my way to the Folk Art Museum that morning. Here is the agenda:
I. Welcome and Introductions – 10 minutes
II. Location Announcement about Follow Up Meeting – 2 minutes
III. Vote for Board Representative – 5 minutes
IV. Exhibition Timeline/Tasks, Budget Considerations – 10 minutes
V. Vote on Committee Structure – 5 minutes
VI. Special Interest Caucus Funding Proposal – 3 minutes
VII. Brief Reports
Women + Body – Sherri – 2 minutes
UN and CSW – Sherri and Maureen – 5 minutes
Brazil “Big Hug” – Sherri – 2 minutes
Toronto –Sherri & Joyce 10 minutes
China – Avinger – 5 minutes
WCA Wikipedia Article – Sherri 1 minute – Need more independent resource
CAA International Committee – Anneliese 5 minutes
VIII.Begin Discussion about Budget Priorities for 2013-2014 and beyond
IX. International Panel at 2014 WCA Conference?
X. Other Business
Volunteers Still Needed for Conference
If you haven't already done so, please check on Volunteer Spot (http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/582588462027) to see if there is a place where you can offer some of your time during the conference. In the last update, I mistakenly said that you had to have a ticket to help inside the event. That is incorrect. The event is free and and open to the public. Thank you Ikie and Krista (and Krista's husband) for agreeing to assist with registration. I am helping to coordinate the volunteers during registration for the Lifetime Achievement Awards on Thursday. We still have some openings for that event - help with registration, door greeters, selling raffle tickets - and at other times during the conference. The event starts at 6:00, but I will be there at 4:30 to help set up and... would be happy to continue international caucus discussions if we have some slow moments.
Anyone interested in representing the special interest caucuses as a WCA board member?
There are three special interest caucus positions available on the national WCA Board. These positions represent and speak for the concerns of all four caucuses. This year, the International Caucus can have a position for the first time. Board members must attend the annual meeting in February and the summer board meeting in July as well as meet other contribution requirements, such as a minimum of $500 in contributions or fundraising and a working contribution – such as being on a committee, chairing a committee or caucus, or contributing to a project. The caucus must vote on a representative. I have put my name in as caucus chair, but any caucus member who can commit to the above requirements can be considered and I would be happy to have another leader in our midst! Please let me know if you are interested. We will vote on this at the meeting.
Exhibition Timeline/Tasks and Budget Considerations
Please see Exhibition Timeline/Tasks as well as the Budget Considerations on the Exhibition Tools page of this website /exhibitionevent-tools-home.html. These are draft documents that will eventually be part of of an Exhibition Manual that Priscilla, Karen Gutfreund and I are working on. These two documents will be very helpful as we look at ideas for future projects - to make sure we have enough time, money, and woman power to guarantee successful outcomes. Working on an exhibition is an example of how WCA members can develop their professional skills.
Committees
Please review the draft of the committee structure for the International Caucus /international-caucus-structure--committees.html. If you have suggestions for additions/edits, please let me know. If you haven't already done so, please consider how your skills and time would make a good fit with international caucus projects. We will be voting on this structure at our meeting. Again, WCA is a volunteer run organization. We can accomplish much when each of us commits to a little.
Reports
There is time in the agenda for brief reports. If you have something you would like to bring before the caucus, please let me know and I will add it to the agenda.
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January 2013
Caucus Funding Proposals
The chairs of WCA's internal special interest caucuses (Eco-Art, International, JWAN, and Young Women's) are presenting two proposals to the WCA board annual meeting February 17th. The first proposal states that, in brief, that each caucus is responsible for funding (through fundraising, sponsorships, grants, donations or caucusmembership fees) its projects and managing its budgets, including losses and profits. Any profits from a caucusproject would remain with that caucus to seed future projects. This is particularly important because the Woman + Body exhibition had a small profit due to catalog sales. Under current policies, any profits from national exhibitions, including caucus ones, go into the national WCA general funds to support national WCA. And there is currently no provision within the national budget to financially support internal caucuses and/or provide seed money for caucuses.The second proposal would allow internal special interest caucuses to apply for the two funds that are currently available to chapters - the Chapter Matching Fund and the Chapter Development Fund. These two funds are contingent on the national budget being healthy enough to cover the funds. We will talk about these proposal more at our annual meeting, but I want you to know about them because they are will give us, if approved, seed money options for future projects.
We need to provide volunteers for the WCA Conference
WCA's President Elect Brenda Oelbaum organizing the volunteers for the annual conference. There are many opportunities and several that I would like to suggest:
1) CAA Book Table - sit at the book table, sell WCA catalogs, including any leftover Women + Body catalogs, greet visitors to the table and encourage them to join WCA. Two hour slots are yet to be filled on Thursday 2/14 from 11 am to 6 p.m. Friday from 9a.m - 6 pm and Saturday from 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. If the Caucus Funding Proposals are approved, sales of catalogs from International Caucus exhibition/projects will be certain to stay within the InternationalCaucus budget as seed money for future projects.
2) Lifetime Achievement Awards - I have signed on as the Logistics Captain for the Lifetime Achievement Awards. This award ceremony is the main reason that WCA keeps its non-profit status and it is important to recognize women artists. If you haven't gone before, it is an inspiring event. You do not have to have bought a ticket to the event to volunteer for Event Registration (handing out gala tickets and catalogs to registrants), Registration during the ceremony (sit outside ballroom and make sure latecomers get their tickets and catalogs, Event greeters (welcome attendees stand at the entrance doors and make sure those entering have their tickets ). If you have a ticket, you can volunteer to help me inside the event by making sure reserved seating escorts know where reserved seating is, making sure awardees go to the photographing area after the ceremony, and making sure awardees know that there is a limo to take them to the Gala.
3) There are also other volunteer opportunities including assisting with the Chelsea tours as captains to help groups get taxis to Chelsea and lead them to the first stop.
Please sign into Volunteer Spot http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/582588462027 to look at the different volunteer options and sign up or let Brenda know <[email protected] if you can sign up for any of these.
Women + Body catalogs available for purchase
All of the Women + Body artists have purchased catalogs. Those remaining are now available. The catalog is very attractive and includes artwork and bios of the well known Korean artists that participated in this exhibition. Catalogs are $25 plus $4 shipping fee per order. Please let me know if you are interested. Payment can be made by sending me a check or I can send you an paypal invoice. Leftovers will be available at the CAA book table during the conference. Same price.
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In This Update
Opportunities
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art Milestones
UN Program
WCA UN Alternate Representative Position Applications Due November 15
Toronto Project Moved to 2015/2016
International Caucus Facebook Page
International Caucus Annual Meeting/Chicago
WCA's International Caucus continues to grow - almost 150 members and counting - and strengthen - more of our members are finding ways to volunteer their skills and/ or their willingness to learn them to our projects! And an increasing number of our members are citizens of other countries than the United States.
New members: The Women's Caucus for Art is 41 year-old, volunteer-run, art and activism non-profit organization. Our International Caucus (or IC) is dynamic group of women within WCA who support our United Nations connection and develop projects with other international women artists. Please check out our International Caucus website to learn more. Training and administrative pages are password protected: wcaic as in the first letters of Women's Caucus for Art International Caucus.
Our numbers have necessitated exploring new ways to communicate with and update our members. This update is via MailChimp. It is free, unlike other email services such as Vertical Response. Let me know what your impressions.
Read on for opportunities to get involved and become informed.
OPPORTUNITIES
Our volunteer run programs provide our members opportunities to expand their world views, share and develop their professional skills and participate in a creative, international community.
- Join our UN Program Committee to participate in events we create at or in support of the United Nations. Contact Maureen Burns-Bowie at [email protected]
- Apply to be one of WCA's four UN representatives, which gives you access to UN events and conferences (seearticle below.)
- Create a new look for our caucus. We need a new banner for our website and this email program with a coordinating square logo.
- Create and manage an online gallery for your and our IC members' art. It's easy - the template is already available to upload a photo for each member with a line of text and web link.
- Develop an idea for an international-focused panel at the national WCA annual meeting in NYC in February 2015. The panel would be presented with the CAA panels schedule - around international projects/exhibitions/UN work – and possibly including members of CAA’s International Committee. We would need to begin working on this idea by the latter part of this year.
- Develop and manage an idea for an innovative, international themed exhibition to occur during the national WCA annual meeting in NYC in February 2015. Perhaps collaborating with EcoArt Caucus as originally planned for 2014.
Since March, volunteers have been working on our art-based cultural exchange that will occur in Shenyang, China in April 2014. As the work continues, we take a moment to celebrate many milestones!
- Eighty-three donors helped us raise $7225 in our first-ever Indiegogo campaign- significantly over our original goal -(see our Wall of Gratitude) and enabling us to provide room & board at the Academy for our full delegation, more than the original $100 goal for travel stipends for each delegate, editing/printing/shipping of catalog to participants/donors, translation fees for this bilingual catalog, tech equipment (computer tablet for real-time blogging & video sharing, converters, speakers), baggage fees for tech equipment/catalogs/gifts, art materials for events, gifts for our hosts, and printing of signage/posters/postcards.
- Over 150 artists and essayists submitted works to our Calls for Arts & Essays. Our jurors are now reviewing these and notifications will be made to artists by November 7th and essayists by November 12th.
- About 100 of these artists and essayist showed interest in being part of our delegation to Shenyang. Decisions about membership in the delegation will be made in November.
- Much gratitude to our volunteers: Prisiclla Otani, Jing Deng, Sandra Mueller, Alli Berman, Karen Gutfreund, Krista Jiannacopoulos, Sal Sidner, Virginia Maksymowicz, Kieran Collins, Bonnie MacAllister, Tanya Augsburg
- Krista created a Half the Sky Facebook page for this event and we found this very helpful to share information.
Maureen, UN Program Committee Director, and committee members are creating an event for the 2014 UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference. Tentatively titled "Impressions: Artists Consider MDGs and Post 2015", it will give UN Program members an opportunity to share how art and art-based events are used to bring attention to UN priorities and provide an interactive, community building opportunity for conference attendees, who come from all over the world for this conference. To learn more and join the UN Program, contact Maureen at[email protected].
WCA UN ALTERNATE REPRESENTATIVE POSITION APPLICATIONS DUE NOVEMBER 15
Up to four WCA members may be submitted, during our annual NGO (non-governmental organization) renewal application to the United Nations, to represent WCA at UN events, conferences and whenever they are on the UN grounds. Being a UN representative is a privilege and comes with a serious responsibility for maintaining our relationship with the UN. It also provides a fascinating window into the workings of the UN and opportunities to meet other UN representatives from around the world. Each year one of these representative positions rotates among our membership. The other positions go to the WCA's President, the International Caucus Chair and the UN Program Director. We are grateful to Elizabeth Sowell-Zak for representing us in this fourth position for 2013.
Though the majority of events and conferences at the UN have no fees, our UN representatives are responsible for any travel or other expenses incurred while participating. Representatives are required to submit a written report of any meetings/events they attend. Representatives attend portions of the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women conference held in March at the UN in NYC and are encouraged to attend other meetings throughout the year.
We encourage those interested to read more about WCA's UN Program on the many UN pages of our IC website and then apply for this position for 2014 by emailing their answers to the following questions to Maureen [email protected] by November 15, 2013.
1) What interests you about the UN and the possibility of representing WCA at the UN?
2) What skills and background would you bring to this position?
3) Do you live in the New York City area and/or are able to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference and occasional other events in 2014?
TORONTO PROJECT MOVED TO 2015/2016
Natalie Waldburger, professor at Ontario College of Art & Design and my collaborator on this project, and I have been laying the groundwork for an innovative, interactive art conference that will now occur in October of 2015 in Toronto (during and with possible opportunities for our artists at Art Toronto) with events in New York City around the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference in March 2016. This delay will give us more time to seek grants and other funding as well as create partnerships with other organizations. Some IC members have already volunteered to work on this project - thank you!. We should have more information about our next steps in the next IC update.
INTERNATIONAL CAUCUS FACEBOOK PAGE
Krista has also created a Facebook page for our caucus. This is a nice way for us to stay connected, share International Caucus projects and news of our own that may be of interest to other caucus members. Check it out and "like" it!
INTERNATIONAL CAUCUS ANNUAL MEETING/CHICAGO
We hope to see you at WCA's annual meeting in Chicago in February 2014! Our International Caucus will meet that Friday, February 14th, from 9-11 a.m. at the Essex Hotel, where most WCA meetings will be held. Yes, Valentine chocolates will be provided. More information coming soon!
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May 2013
In this Update
International Caucus Website/Password
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
International Caucus Finances
EcoArt and International Caucus Collaborative Exhibition
Toronto
New Banner for Website Needed
Ideas to Think About
International Caucus Website/Password
New content is being added to our website almost weekly. Krista Jiannacopolous is adding to our Art & Activism Database, Maureen Burns-Bowie, Chair of our UN Program, will soon be including updates about UN-based opportunities and events on our International Caucus UN Program page. I have retired the blog we started with the first International Caucus website last year and transferred the information to other pages on our website. The old International Committee blog – Artwaves International – is now available in cleaner formats under the WCA Artwaves International Blog Archives. Some of the pages on our site – particularly concerning professional development information and project planning pages- are password protected.
China/Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
Jing Deng, returned from China last week after meeting with the President, Vice President and Galllery Head at LuXun Academy in Shengyang, China and Yin Ou Zhao, her friend and our curator for the Chinese women artists. Yes, this is a go! And we have begun setting up the groundwork. Here is the page on our website to support the project.
Social Practice Art
This project is primarily an art and cultural exchange from April 15-30, 2014 with an exhibition component. A working delegation of our membership will be traveling to Shenyang for a segment of this time to interact with the Chinese women, who will have art in the exhibition, and, possibly, with students of the Academy in a variety of events – demonstrations, dialogues, collaborations… For the exhibition, we will be encouraging new media and interactive works along with more traditional ones. Bonnie MacAlister has been helping define these new media for the Call for Art.
Call for Art and for Essays
The Calls should be published in early June with a deadline for submissions in mid-September. As soon as the Calls are finalized, I will send them out to our International Caucus
Shipping
Krista Jiannacopoulos’ and Kieran Collins’ research about collective shipping is one our Exhibition Shipping Information web page. We are not doing collective shipping for this project due to its costs and LuXun Academy has agreed to accept individual shipments from selected artists. Examples of these costs will be added to these pages when we get them.
Fundraising/Publicity
Many of you have offered to assist with Fundraising and Publicity – thank you! . Alli Berman, as the Chair for Fundraising and Publicity, and I should have the first steps of the fundraising plant ready to start within the week. The first phase will be raising money for the project via sponsorships and donations and an Indiegogo campaign – funds from which will subsidize travel costs for the delegation, providing one copy of the catalog for each artist and essayist, supply technology/equipment to support our events at the Academy and possibly more. Once the artists are selected, we will be asking their assistance in continuing this fundraising effort and delegates will be raising individual funds to cover what we cannot subsidize for their travel expenses. Jamianne Amicucci and Sal Sidner have been sharing their experiences with crowdsourcing and fundraising.
International Caucus Finances
Now that the internal caucuses are responsible for funding their own projects, I have set up a password protected page on our website so that we can all see how we are doing financially and how our funds are being allocated. My goal was to have a small profit from our Woman + Body exhibition in Korea – which we did - so that we could have seed money for future projects. The budgets for all future projects - which will have to be budget neutral or show a profit - will include a repayment of any seed money used. The report on this page will be updated with notes for any month within which there is activity. All funds are kept within the national WCA accounts. Transactions are documented by our national Director of Operations.
EcoArt and International Caucuses Collaborative Exhibition
We are still waiting for enough information from the gallery in Chicago before we send out a proposal for our caucus to consider. As stated in the last Update, MaryLinda Moss, acting chair of EcoArt Caucus, and I have created a simple but effective installation project, in which we could share ideas and resources. This would be created in 1/3 of a gallery during the WCA annual conference in Chicago next February. I hope to have this proposal out to you all very soon.
Toronto
No new information about this project at this point.
New Banner for Website Needed
I put together the banner image – WCA International Caucus on a background of the earth – very quickly one day. It could certainly be more interesting and eye-catching. The current image is 2 inches by .397 inches and 700 x 139 pixels, but I stretched it to fit into the banner format. Could we get some new options for our members to consider by this fall?
Ideas to think about
Priscilla Otani, our national WCA president, has asked us to consider creating a panel idea for our 2015 national conference, which will be in NYC, and presented with the CAA panels schedule - around international projects/exhibitions/UN work – and possibly including members of CAA’s International Committee. We would need to begin working on this idea by the latter part of this year, 2013.
Krista Jiannacopoulous has asked is we could look ahead to creating an exhibition during that 2015 conference – possibly in coordination with our Toronto project, an extension of one of our other international projects, or an international themed exhibition that we would then try to travel to other countries.
Member Gallery on website. We have the capability to create a gallery page on our website with each image (one per artist) including short text below (artist name/name of artwork) and a URL link. If there is interest in this, we would need someone with basic internet experience to learn how to manage and update this gallery.
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April 2013
In this update:
Professional Development Pages Now Password Protected
UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference
UN Program
5WCW
Our Toronto Project is Back on Track
EcoArt/International Caucuses Collaboration
China: Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
How Do We Decide which Ideas to Pursue?
WCA Wikipedia Article is Now Life
Brazil – The Big Hug
Professional Development Pages Now Password Protected
As a reminder…I am continuing to create training materials for exhibition development and management and for fundraising. Higher level/more detailed training is available to national WCA board members and to those who volunteer for major positions in our projects, but our caucus pages aim to cover many of the basics and to create a common level of understanding for us to use in our own practices as well as to be more successful at our caucus projects. To protect these pages and pages that list our members and catalog our updates, I have created a password to access these pages.
UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference
What an amazing collective effort! Six of our members participated in this conference in an effort to learn more about how CSW works and to spread the word about how WCA uses art platforms to bring attention to issues: Maureen Burns-Bowie - chair of our UN Program committee and UN Alternate Representative, Elizabeth Sowell-Zak – our other UN Alternate Representative, Alli Berman – our PR/Publicity chair, Ana Koshkin – who joined WCA and our caucus the last day of our NYC annual conference, Simone Kestelman – whom Elizabeth and I met at the Scope Fair during CSW and who immediately joined WCA and went to panels at CSW, and myself.
The theme for this year’s conference was Eradicating Violence Against Women. In a perfect example of collaboration, Joanna Fulginiti, director of the WCA Philadelphia Chapter’s Ragdoll Project - which focuses of sex trafficking - sent dolls, doll-making kits and literature about the Project to NYC so that Maureen and I could use them to bring attention to the Project and to start conversations about WCA’s mission.
At the last minute, Amanda Moyer and Alli created an Art & Activism brochure that we shared with as many CSW participants as we could. It is now available as a PDF on our website. Out of this week came new ideas and connections for our caucus. See our website home page for photos and more information.
UN Program
This committee continues to evolve! Maureen is working with this group to develop a side event or panel for next year’s CSW conference and Negin Sharifzedah and Seda Baghdasarian are following up with one of our CSW connections to possibly document an important piece of history – both personal and global. There is much information about the UN and our connections to it on our International Caucus website.
5WCW
One of our goals at the CSW conference was to make deeper connections with the efforts to have a UN-sponsored 5th World Conference on Women so that we could create art platforms in support of the effort and during the conference if it were to be finally approved by the UN General Assembly (once approved, the planning process would take two years). One hundred WCA members attended the last one in Beijing in 1995 and their experiences there are still resonating with them and with those with whom they share their stories. A new group that is supporting a 5WCW became excited about making WCA a planning partner, but after research and discussion, I decided that we did not have the resources in time and woman power at the moment to participate in their work at this time. I will continue to stay connected to 5WCW efforts and, when a concrete opportunity presents itself for which we have “bandwidth” – especially after approval by the General Assembly - I will bring it to our caucus for consideration.
Our Toronto Project is Back on Track
Another contact that Elizabeth and I made at the Scope Fair in NYC has re-energized our idea for a collaboration with Toronto women artists at venues in Toronto and in NYC. (Remember that Joyce Ellen Weinstein and I started working on this idea last spring?) This contact and I are getting to know each other’s organizations and we hope to be able to bring an idea for the caucus to consider within the next couple of months. The earliest a collaboration would occur would be Fall 2014, which would mean some overlap in tasks with our China project, but, with the enthusiastic volunteer response for China and the exhibitions training materials on our website, our capabilities are growing quickly.
EcoArt/International Caucuses Collaboration
The internal caucuses have been encouraged by the national executive committee to consider creating exhibition opportunities for its members at a gallery in Chicago during the national WCA annual conference in February 2014. With our caucus’ resources currently focused on our China project, MaryLinda Moss, acting chair of the EcoArt caucus, and I decided to brainstorm around a simple but effective installation project, in which we could share ideas and resources. As soon as we have some more information about the venue, we will be back with you with that idea.
China: Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art
Now that our proposal has been approved by the national WCA board, we are just awaiting the official invitation from the president of LuXun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, China (we have already received his promise). Jing Deng, our China Outreach Liaison, will be going to China at the end of the month to get this document and more information about the venue. I am very impressed with and thankful to eighteen caucus members who have stepped up to assist in this project – Alli Berman, Negin Sharifzedah, Lee Lee,Judy Johngson-Williams, Sal Sidner, Krista Jiannacopoulos, Amanda Moyer, Sanfra Mueller, Avinger Nelson, Ana Koshkin, Ulla Barr, Helen Newman, Dale Osterle, Kelly Hammargren, Hilda Demsky, Loraine Bonner, Nelleke Nix, Kieran Collins! As soon as we get the document, we will begin fundraising for the project (Alli and I are currently working on a fundraising plan), searching for and contracting jurors (one for art, one for essays) and writing the Call for Art (due to be posted in early June). I have created a page on our website for this project with sub-pages for the timeline/tasks and for gathering information that will be helpful the delegation of artists selected to travel to Shenyang.
How Do We Decide Which Ideas to Pursue?
Are you excited about all of these possibilities? Are you concerned about how we could make them realities? Our members have come up with many enticing ideas for international projects. I endeavor to direct our caucus’ resources to ideas that 1) have International Caucus members jumping in to do research and make contacts (see Exhibition Development Guidelines on our website, 2) have a committed planning group of women in the partner country, 3) do not conflict with a current project, and 4) have a realistic time frame. If an idea has these components, our caucus members or I, will develop a draft proposal to give to our caucus for consideration. If the caucus approves and/or has concerns that are then addressed, we will create a budget and proposal (see board proposal format) to be considered by the national WCA board. Any project that involves funds (receipts/payments), contracts and/or uses the WCA name in a public way has to be approved by the national WCA board. Although we hope to always have at least a small amount of seed money within our caucus accounts to start projects, all projects must be self-funded (entry fees, sales, fundraising, etc), return the seed money to the caucus account, and result in a neutral or income-producing budget (income increases the amount of seed money).
WCA Wikpedia article is now Live
Another resource for us to use in spreading the word about WCA is finally up on Wikipedia. Through this process, we discovered that most of our documentation about WCA’s history is too closely associated to WCA. Wikipedia expects objectivity in its articles, so we have not been able to include as much as we would like about our past exhibitions and history, which need resources from periodicals, newspapers, independent blogs, etc. WCA resources have to be used sparingly to avoid the article being flagged for removal. If you come across such resources, please sign up as an editor on Wikipedia and add them to the article.
Brazil – The Big Hug
At our annual meeting, I mentioned that a woman artist from Brazil had approached WCA about being involved with her The Big Hug exhibition, which would occur during the next World Cup soccer games. I met with her in NYC. She hopes to raise the consciousness about women in Brazil with this project. It quickly became apparent, though, that she was mostly looking for non-profit partners to assist her in raising a very large amount of funding for her project. WCA is not in a position to do this, but our artists may be invited to participate individually in The Big Hug. She will let us know when her Call for Art is open.
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March 2013
Another energetic annual meeting for our caucus! We only had 75 minutes at the American Folk Art Museum, but many of us were able to continue the conversation at a nearby coffeehouse. I am encouraged by the number of you who have stepped up to not only say you are interested in what our caucus is doing, but have volunteered to make these exciting ideas happen. Thank you! Our caucus is only one year old, but we are certainly a force!
United Nations Committee
Maureen Burns-Bowie has jumped right into developing our caucus’ new United Nations Committee as its chair and currently has a dozen or more caucus members who are ready to go. She is also one of our UN Alternate Representatives and has a lot of history with UN work. Maureen told us the UN and its NGOs are ripe for art & activism. She expressed the importance of learning by providing some links including the pages on our caucus website and shared a list of UN-related groups to join. Maureen and I are currently at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and will be reporting later about the enticing connections we are making. Contact Maureen at [email protected] if you are interested in working on developing projects/exhibitions with the UN. Elizabeth Sowell-Zak is our other UN Alternate Represenative.
Social Media/Art & Activism Database
Krista Jiannacopoulos graciously volunteered to promote our caucus through various social media and to also keep a watch out for and collect information about WCA projects that fall within our art & activism mandate for the United Nations. Contact Krista at [email protected] if your chapter or region has such a project in the works. We collect this information annually for our UN NGO application as well as to provide data for grant applications.
Public Relations/Promotions
Alli Berman has a long history in this area and is wiling to help us not only get the word out about WCA as a whole (we definitely need to do a better job at sharing our good works!) but to also do the same for our International Caucus projects.
Toronto Exhibition Update
Several of you have volunteered to work on a collaboration with women artists in Toronto. We still cannot move ahead with this project until we find a group of women in Toronto who are interested in being a co-committee there. I do have some names to follow up with. Crossing my fingers. If you know of anyone there, I can send you information to share and/or you can give me their contact info. I have no problem making cold calls!
Exhibitions Training Anyone?
We have several real possibilities in the next 2-3 years for international exhibitions. There is much to do to make them realities, including having a strong and trained exhibition committee in place. Again, each person doing a little means we can do great things. These are skills that can enhance other aspects of your art life and exhibition committee members are recognized in the exhibition catalog – proof that you have used these skills, another line on your resumé!
I have placed information about exhibition development, tasks, timelines and budgets on our IC website. Please look them over, see if there is some aspect of running an exhibition that you already know and would like to share your skills and/or some aspect you would like to learn about and to which you could imagine fitting into your life so you can be on our Exhibitions Committee. Initially, this committee will be in training and will work on developing proposals. Once we have a project approved, this committee will expand.
And those exhibition possibilities?
Toronto, China, Turkey, Dubai, Brazil, the United Nations…. ! I am weaving the various clues and connections to see what arises as priorities. At that point, off we go and I mean “we”. We will work together to make them happen!
More internal caucus formalization
The two internal caucus proposals passed with the national WCA board. Our International Caucus will now be responsible for its own budget, which means we need to raise our own funds for projects and create budgets that are neutral or profitable. We also get to keep any profits as seed money for future projects and are eligible to apply for two forms of grants from the national WCA, just as WCA chapters can – the Chapter Matching Fund and the Chapter Development Fund. More info about these are on the national website. Our projects and their budgets still need to be approved by the national board each July (ex., July 2013 approval for projects incurring financial activity July 2013 through June 2014)
Caucus representation on the National WCA Board
There are three rotating positions on the national board that come from the internal special-interest caucuses and represent the concerns of all of the internal special-interest caucuses (EcoArt, JWAN, International and Young Women’s). Amanda Moyer was elected by Young Women’s and I was elected from our caucus. Rona Lessman, representing JWAN, was already on the board. EcoArt will have the opportunity of having a member on the board next year. This means that we will have more opportunity to be part of the decision-making that affects our caucus.
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February 2013
Reminder: Renew Your WCA annual membership if you haven't done so
And make sure the box for International Caucus is checked in you member profile on the WCA website. This email is going out to all IC members from last year as well as new ones. Future emails addresses for updates will be taken from current members in the WCA website member directory.
International Caucus Annual Meeting
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square @ West 66th, 9:30 – 10:45 am, February 14th
We have many interesting things on our agenda, so I will be available to continue the meeting and conversation with those who are not attending the JWAN meeting (which follows our meeting) somewhere nearby after this meeting officially ends. I hope to find a nearby coffee shop or some such place on my way to the Folk Art Museum that morning. Here is the agenda:
I. Welcome and Introductions – 10 minutes
II. Location Announcement about Follow Up Meeting – 2 minutes
III. Vote for Board Representative – 5 minutes
IV. Exhibition Timeline/Tasks, Budget Considerations – 10 minutes
V. Vote on Committee Structure – 5 minutes
VI. Special Interest Caucus Funding Proposal – 3 minutes
VII. Brief Reports
Women + Body – Sherri – 2 minutes
UN and CSW – Sherri and Maureen – 5 minutes
Brazil “Big Hug” – Sherri – 2 minutes
Toronto –Sherri & Joyce 10 minutes
China – Avinger – 5 minutes
WCA Wikipedia Article – Sherri 1 minute – Need more independent resource
CAA International Committee – Anneliese 5 minutes
VIII.Begin Discussion about Budget Priorities for 2013-2014 and beyond
IX. International Panel at 2014 WCA Conference?
X. Other Business
Volunteers Still Needed for Conference
If you haven't already done so, please check on Volunteer Spot (http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/582588462027) to see if there is a place where you can offer some of your time during the conference. In the last update, I mistakenly said that you had to have a ticket to help inside the event. That is incorrect. The event is free and and open to the public. Thank you Ikie and Krista (and Krista's husband) for agreeing to assist with registration. I am helping to coordinate the volunteers during registration for the Lifetime Achievement Awards on Thursday. We still have some openings for that event - help with registration, door greeters, selling raffle tickets - and at other times during the conference. The event starts at 6:00, but I will be there at 4:30 to help set up and... would be happy to continue international caucus discussions if we have some slow moments.
Anyone interested in representing the special interest caucuses as a WCA board member?
There are three special interest caucus positions available on the national WCA Board. These positions represent and speak for the concerns of all four caucuses. This year, the International Caucus can have a position for the first time. Board members must attend the annual meeting in February and the summer board meeting in July as well as meet other contribution requirements, such as a minimum of $500 in contributions or fundraising and a working contribution – such as being on a committee, chairing a committee or caucus, or contributing to a project. The caucus must vote on a representative. I have put my name in as caucus chair, but any caucus member who can commit to the above requirements can be considered and I would be happy to have another leader in our midst! Please let me know if you are interested. We will vote on this at the meeting.
Exhibition Timeline/Tasks and Budget Considerations
Please see Exhibition Timeline/Tasks as well as the Budget Considerations on the Exhibition Tools page of this website /exhibitionevent-tools-home.html. These are draft documents that will eventually be part of of an Exhibition Manual that Priscilla, Karen Gutfreund and I are working on. These two documents will be very helpful as we look at ideas for future projects - to make sure we have enough time, money, and woman power to guarantee successful outcomes. Working on an exhibition is an example of how WCA members can develop their professional skills.
Committees
Please review the draft of the committee structure for the International Caucus /international-caucus-structure--committees.html. If you have suggestions for additions/edits, please let me know. If you haven't already done so, please consider how your skills and time would make a good fit with international caucus projects. We will be voting on this structure at our meeting. Again, WCA is a volunteer run organization. We can accomplish much when each of us commits to a little.
Reports
There is time in the agenda for brief reports. If you have something you would like to bring before the caucus, please let me know and I will add it to the agenda.
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January 2013
Caucus Funding Proposals
The chairs of WCA's internal special interest caucuses (Eco-Art, International, JWAN, and Young Women's) are presenting two proposals to the WCA board annual meeting February 17th. The first proposal states that, in brief, that each caucus is responsible for funding (through fundraising, sponsorships, grants, donations or caucusmembership fees) its projects and managing its budgets, including losses and profits. Any profits from a caucusproject would remain with that caucus to seed future projects. This is particularly important because the Woman + Body exhibition had a small profit due to catalog sales. Under current policies, any profits from national exhibitions, including caucus ones, go into the national WCA general funds to support national WCA. And there is currently no provision within the national budget to financially support internal caucuses and/or provide seed money for caucuses.The second proposal would allow internal special interest caucuses to apply for the two funds that are currently available to chapters - the Chapter Matching Fund and the Chapter Development Fund. These two funds are contingent on the national budget being healthy enough to cover the funds. We will talk about these proposal more at our annual meeting, but I want you to know about them because they are will give us, if approved, seed money options for future projects.
We need to provide volunteers for the WCA Conference
WCA's President Elect Brenda Oelbaum organizing the volunteers for the annual conference. There are many opportunities and several that I would like to suggest:
1) CAA Book Table - sit at the book table, sell WCA catalogs, including any leftover Women + Body catalogs, greet visitors to the table and encourage them to join WCA. Two hour slots are yet to be filled on Thursday 2/14 from 11 am to 6 p.m. Friday from 9a.m - 6 pm and Saturday from 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. If the Caucus Funding Proposals are approved, sales of catalogs from International Caucus exhibition/projects will be certain to stay within the InternationalCaucus budget as seed money for future projects.
2) Lifetime Achievement Awards - I have signed on as the Logistics Captain for the Lifetime Achievement Awards. This award ceremony is the main reason that WCA keeps its non-profit status and it is important to recognize women artists. If you haven't gone before, it is an inspiring event. You do not have to have bought a ticket to the event to volunteer for Event Registration (handing out gala tickets and catalogs to registrants), Registration during the ceremony (sit outside ballroom and make sure latecomers get their tickets and catalogs, Event greeters (welcome attendees stand at the entrance doors and make sure those entering have their tickets ). If you have a ticket, you can volunteer to help me inside the event by making sure reserved seating escorts know where reserved seating is, making sure awardees go to the photographing area after the ceremony, and making sure awardees know that there is a limo to take them to the Gala.
3) There are also other volunteer opportunities including assisting with the Chelsea tours as captains to help groups get taxis to Chelsea and lead them to the first stop.
Please sign into Volunteer Spot http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/582588462027 to look at the different volunteer options and sign up or let Brenda know <[email protected] if you can sign up for any of these.
Women + Body catalogs available for purchase
All of the Women + Body artists have purchased catalogs. Those remaining are now available. The catalog is very attractive and includes artwork and bios of the well known Korean artists that participated in this exhibition. Catalogs are $25 plus $4 shipping fee per order. Please let me know if you are interested. Payment can be made by sending me a check or I can send you an paypal invoice. Leftovers will be available at the CAA book table during the conference. Same price.
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