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THE ELLIPSES / POINTS DE SUSPENSION
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Great response this past month to THE ELLIPSES / POINTS DE SUSPENSION, which featured small works on paper by Marilyn Nilsson Grabinsky (website). The colourful works garnered some interesting comments: "Powerful pieces in a tiny museum! Absolutely wonderful." or (to mark International Women's Day, March 8th) "Superbe créativité féminine / superb feminine creativity."
Exhibitions Scheduled for 2017 - Deborah Sears: May 6 to May 26 | Rhonda Grywacheski: Jun 3 to Jun 23 | Monique Martin: Sept 9 to Oct 6 (website) | Members' exhibition: dates to be announced. For more information on mounting a small exhibit of your work on our museum walls in 2018 please contact us at exhibits@wamsoc.ca.
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WAM's Wednesday Workshops
Information sessions April 5 and 12 at the museum.
La Cité francophone, #200, 8627 - 91 Street, Edmonton, AB
As we reveal ourselves in story, we become aware of the continuing core of our lives under the fragmented surface of our experience. Susan Wittig Albert, Writing From Life
WAM / MAF is launching a series of workshops on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8pm. Wednesday Workshops for Women will start later in April. Numerous topics will be covered, including the importance of documenting your artistic practice, the benefits of writing about your art practice, and tools to help your story telling process. What to archive and how will focus on what to do with your documents, on what artists should keep and the institutions that will want and take these documents, which will be open to everyone.
We are inviting you to attend information sessions either on Wednesday, April 5th or April 12th between 6:30 and 8 pm to find out how you could benefit from these workshops. We have limited space available and priority will be given to those who register on these two days. Please contact Danielle at 780 803 2016 or info@wamsoc.ca for more information. This pilot project is funded, in part, through an Alberta Gaming CIP grant. Workshops are FREE.
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Members' Corner
Are you interested in becoming a WAM Member in 2017? Information on how to become a member can be found here: Individual Memberships $20.00/yr.: Business and Organizations: $50.00/yr. Annual memberships run from April 1 to March 31.
As part of WAM's networking initiative, we are linking websites of members and of women's organization relating to the visual arts. WAM Members in good standing are encouraged to share links to their art related blogs, websites, or social media presence on the Links page of the WAM website.
WAM Members are encouraged submit one artwork for feature in the Member Showcase. Future WAM-e-News will include a Member Calendar. Members are encouraged to use this networking tool to share information regarding upcoming art exhibits they are participating in. Submissions for inclusion in upcoming WAM-e-News Member Showcase and Member Calendar in April, may be sent to our Membership Chair, Shannon O'Blenes at members@wamsoc.ca.
Volunteer Opportunities
Two committees are being formed to generate ideas for the museum's future development.
- The Finance Committee will meet on Friday, April 7, 2017 from 1:30 to 3 pm. This committee will deal with every aspect of funds that the museum receives or could potentially receive. From grants to membership and donations for our Lip-Sync contest, you could add some valuable input that can really make a difference.
- The Programing Committee will meet Friday, April 21, 2017 from 1:30 to 3 pm. This committee will look at ways to maximize our resources and look to engage the public with innovative and brilliant ideas for all museum programs.
Whether you have a few hours to spare or many, we encourage you to get involved. Please contact Danielle at info@wamsoc.ca or text/call 780 803 2016. All are welcomed!
Member Showcase
Wild Coast, 30" x40", acrylic by Tatjana Mirkov-Popovicki
New Voices 2: Jacqueline Fiala and Namita Patel Art Mentorship Exhibition April 19 - June 10, 2017 Opening reception Saturday April 22, 1-3pm Visual Arts Alberta/CARFAC Project Space 3rd fl, 10215 - 112 Street, Edmonton, AB Gallery hours: Wednesdays to Fridays 1-4pm, Saturdays 12-4pm (closed May 20).
Curator, Verna McLean has organized that Clara Isabella Harris's works will be part of the Toronto's Doors Open event on Saturday, May 27 and Sunday, May 28, 2017. Nine of her paintings will be shown at 2 locations: Montgomery's Inn www.montgomerysinn.com and Lambton House www.lambtonhouse.org. These events are part of the celebration for Canada's 150th birthday. Each exhibit will have corresponding photographs/maps of the locations featured in Clara's paintings. Visit the Curator’s Corner of the Clara Isabella Harris website www.claraharrisart.com for more information.
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From our archivist, Marlena Wyman
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The Contested Terrains of Archives and Libraries
In 2005, I attended a talk by Edmonton author Ted Bishop where he spoke about his award-winning book Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books. At the talk he pointed out that he had wanted to use the word Archives instead of Books in the title, but his publisher felt that people would not want to read a story about archives. Such is the unjust stereotype of archives. Although archives are certainly about order, they also inhabit the domain of personality and subtlety, much as does the art world, whereas libraries live more comfortable in the world of practicality. Not that I don’t love librarians, libraries and books - I most definitely do - but Bishop very elegantly explains the difference in Riding with Rilke.
Bishop travelled to research Virginia Woolf’s Library at Washington State University in Pullman, but was greatly disappointed by his discovery:
"Though special-collections libraries were for me serene oases, they are in fact contested terrains, for they straddle the border between libraries and archives. Initially the Woolf books had been housed together, but archivists and librarians order things differently. When a new curator, a librarian, took over, he shelved the Woolf books separately, according to their subject call number, dispersing the collection. That was his job; yet for an archivist the job would have been to keep the documents together, to treat them as a text in themselves, even if possible to keep them in the same order that they had been shelved in Woolf’s house.
In any case, what I wanted in Pullman no longer existed. They had four thousand books and it would have taken days to assemble them… I had not come to read individual texts…What I wanted was to gain some sense of what had been read… A personal library is not just a repository, it is a display, a performance…Virginia’s notebooks let the end of one novel run into the notes for the next and might include a book review starting from the back and written upside down on the blank leaves…so that at a certain point the two texts met, topsy-turvy and going in opposite directions. How would she have arranged the library?"
By dutifully following his training and the Dewey Decimal System, the librarian had destroyed a part of Virginia Woolf’s life story and the integrity of her personal library.
The lesson that I would like artists to take away from this is that if you are considering donating your records to an archives (as you should), do not “clean it up first” and do not throw anything out. You would be surprised at what archivists are interested in keeping. Let the archivist come into your studio and see things as they are, and as they reflect your art, your personality, and your story.
Ref: Bishop, Edward, Riding with Rilke : reflections on motorcycles and books, Toronto, Viking Canada, 2005.
Marlena Wyman is the Secretary and Archives Chair of the Women’s Art Museum Society of Canada and an artist in Edmonton, AB. She will be writing further editorials regarding archives, including what types of records we should keep, how to preserve our records before they are donated, and how to donate our records to an archival institution.
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NEW museum hours
Nouvelles heures d'ouverture
Tue/ Mar. : 12h - 17h (5pm)
Wed/ Mer. : 12h - 20h (8pm)
Thur/ Jeu. : 12h - 17h (5pm)
Fri/ Ven. : 12h - 17h (5pm)
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We are situated at / On se trouve à
La Cité francophone
Pavilion II, Suite 200
8627 Marie-Anne-Gaboury (91) Street
Edmonton, AB T6C 3N1
780 462 0502, ext 7 / Mobile: 780 803 2016
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