Reception: January 10, 7 - 9pm

The year 2020 marks 100 years of Women’s Right to Vote in the United States. The American suffragette story, while ultimately successful, is not without failures and criticism. Now, 100 years later, we are experiencing a marked awareness of and spread towards social equality and related issues across genders, ethnicity, beliefs and preferences. Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD) is a strong example of women creatives coming together to share and provide opportunities for female identified artists working with ecological and social justice content. In this regard we are holding our Feat to the Fire. That is, we are employing art as a means to fulfill the promise of having our voices count.

Exhibition juror, Jan Rindfleisch has focused on community building as an artist, educator, curator and author. From 1978 to 1985, she taught art and art history at De Anza College, and in 1979 began a 32 year journey as executive director/curator of The Euphrat Museum of Art in Cupertino, California. She is the author of Roots and Offshoots: Silicon Valley’s Arts Community, 2017; and co-author of Creative Power: The Art and Activism of Ruth Tunstall Grant, 2019. Both books are published by Ginger Press. Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD) is a 501c3 non-profit founded in 1996 by Jo Hanson, Susan Leibovitz Steinman and Estelle Akamine with these goals in mind: To provide information regarding the ecoart and social justice art fields to artists, curators, writers, art and public art administrators, educators in art and ecology, cross-disciplinary professionals and others; To facilitate international networking among artists working with ecological and social justice issues; To further the fields of, and the understanding of environmental and social justice art. weadartists.org

Remedios Rapoport's Tax the Rich Poster Distribution Installation will give 100 free Tax the Rich/End War/LiveLove posters, printed from an original pencil drawing wrapped with a smaller Gentle Revolution Manifesto poster, to veiwers.

A continuous thread throughout my life, since childhood, has been the goal to mobilize acts of positive change. By tailoring my art career to gain skills for promoting messages with beautifully crafted work, it now adds my voice to the ecological and social justice work of so many other activist and visionaries. In 2006, I wrote The Gentle Revolution Manifesto to articulate the values I strive to support within my varied works of paintings, painted sculptures or installations. Beyond engaging viewers with lush visual experiences, my work aims to stimulate the viewers’ minds and catalyze social change through positive ideology. The Gentle Revolution Poster Distribution Installation evolved as a means to present my original art as posters. Allowing people to take them and share them with others as a contemporary version of the historical handbills created for social change in the past. With a love of letterforms and 40 years of sign painting, my work has created a new genre referred to as Word Portraits. I am honored to participate in this exhibition that creates connection from the Suffragettes of 100 years ago to the social justice work of today. Through my art, my voice as an activist is present.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS Celia Anderson, Kenai, Alaska Salma Arastu, Berkeley, California Kathryn Bagwell, Dallas, Texas Jenny Balisle, Richmond, California Barbara Boissevain, Palo Alto, California Heidi Brueckner, Oakland, California Belinda Chlouber, San Mateo, California Alice Dubiel, Seattle, Washington Rebecca Finley, The Woodlands, Texas Elizabeth Kenneday, Reno, Nevada Deborah Kennedy, San José, California Kari Kollars, Safford, Arizona Linda MacDonald, Willits, California Robin Mullery, Palo Alto, California Renée Owen, Sebastopol, California Bonnie Peterson, Houghton, Michigan Shelby Poor, Canoga Park, California Remedios Rapoport, Portland, Oregon Robin Repp, Huntington Beach, California Maryam Safanasab, El Cerrito, California Lorna Stevens, San Francisco, California Jensen Twite, Tea, South Dakota Tammy West, Austin, Texas Xue Jiao Yu, Chicago, Illinois