19
Apr
2005
Mallarie Zimmer was raised in Arkansas, not far from Memphis, and watched her artist mother try
to find balance in her life. "I grew up watching her struggle juggling her career, her family, and her creativity," Zimmer said.
That labor is a recurring motif in the middle part of the country, Zimmer said, as well as in its art. Creative works from along the Mississippi River - whether visual or musical - tend to be more utilitarian, Zimmer said, less frivolous and more meaningful. Unlike works from the East and West coasts, she said, "They didn't come from a position of abundance. They came from a place of struggling."
That's the intellectual base of Venus Envy, a women's arts showcase that debuts in the Quad Cities this weekend. The free, one-night event at the Bucktown Center for the Arts (226 East Second Street in downtown Davenport) will be held from 7 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, April 23. It will feature 40 visual artists, eight live musicians, five theatre or dance performers, and a pair of multimedia installations. Artists in the juried exhibition were drawn from a 200-mile radius of the Quad Cities.
Bringing Venus Envy to this area is a milestone for the local arts community, "placing the Quad Cities in the hierarchy of arts communities along the river corridor," said Rachael Mullins, the chairperson of the local event. Zimmer started the celebration in St. Louis in 1999, and the Quad Cities is now the fourth Venus Envy community.
The local event was organized and coordinated by a group of 11 prominent women. In addition to Mullins, Marla Alvarado is the program director, and the steering committee also includes Kathy Betcher, Laura Cleaveland, Melissa Coulter, Molly Foley, Jennifer Fowler, Olenka Gadzik, Sarah Purcell, Jodean Rousey Murdock, and Kara Toal. That committee's members are active in a wide range of cultural and business organizations, from MidCoast Fine Arts to Renaissance Rock Island and Ghostlight Theatre to the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce.
"The energy of everyone is breaking down any barriers that might come up," said Gadzik, a singer-songwriter who is helping coordinate performing arts at the event. Specifically, the group's bonds have erased issues that might have cropped up because of working in a space - Bucktown - that's not fully finished. "It's coming together," she said.
One of the surprises, Mullins said, came from "working a space that was changing." Bucktown is undergoing renovation, and the first floor - where Venus Envy will be held - will become primarily retail spaces for artists. "There are lots of wonderful nooks and crannies," Mullins said.
The space will feature two stages and two rooms with installation art.
Gadzik said that the festival's focus on women gives it a different energy than other arts events. "The camaraderie of the people on the committee gives us our own language," she said. She first heard about the event late last year, and thought her program on women and spirituality might make a good fit. (She'll also be performing at Venus Envy.)
Since starting the annual event six years ago, Zimmer has expanded it to other cities along the Mississippi - Memphis in 2002, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2003, and the Quad Cities this year.
The mighty Mississippi operates not only as a geographic symbol of middle-American struggle but also has the feminine associations of water - birth, renewal, and life. Hence, Venus Envy. "The river has a certain female quality to it," Mullins said. "It's a force," Zimmer said.
As you might expect, the beginnings of Venus Envy were modest, simple, and not nearly so high-minded. Zimmer was working as a volunteer gallery director in St. Louis, and "I was meeting a whole lot of talented women artists who weren't showing [in galleries] nearly enough," she said.
That first event featured 11 visual artists, with its financing coming from a dozen people throwing in $25 apiece. Last weekend, the seventh St. Louis Venus Envy featured 49 visual artists, 45 performing artists, and 5,000 patrons over two nights in three different buildings.
"This is pretty much my baby," Zimmer said. "It's still pretty grass-roots."
Zimmer said she has looked at larger river cities - New Orleans and Minneapolis, for instance. But "it's my preference to go to communities that are a little smaller," she said. The big cities "don't need us as much."
Zimmer made some inquiries to the Quad Cities in spring 2004, she said. "It was a little bit of a cold call," she said. But she liked the energy in this area, in terms of arts programming and outlets as well as ongoing efforts to use culture to bring tourists to the area.
"They were interested in expanding upriver," Mullins said. "It was a logical next step in proximity to St. Louis."
Venus Envy provided $1,500 in seed money, Mullins said, and the event has a budget of less than $5,000 - a lot of which is going to food and beverage. Other funding came from the Riverboat Development Authority. (The River Cities' Reader is a media sponsor for the event.)
Zimmer said that the central Venus Envy organization expects to subsidize satellite events for a few years, but they have typically become self-supporting in their third years. Venus Envy provided organization, fundraising, and event guidelines for the Quad Cities, but it was up to the local steering committee to put the show together.
Forty-five visual artists responded to the call for entry, and 40 are featured in the juried show. The jury featured four members of the local Venus Envy committee, but Mullins declined to specify which ones.
Mullins said she's expecting between 300 and 500 people to attend the inaugural Venus Envy event in the Quad Cities. Zimmer, who plans to attend, said she hopes to get between 500 and 1,000 people at Bucktown.
Letitia Garcia is a graduate student in the painting department at the University of Wisconsin who will have two small works featured at the Quad Cities' Venus Envy event. She said she's participated in women's arts festivals in the past and enjoys the celebratory vibe. "It always brings out a diverse crowd," she said. More conventional art events, such as gallery openings, don't have the same energy. "They feel a little more constricted ... a little cold, a little superficial."
Venus Envy can also be validating, Gadzik said: "We're empowered already, but it helps to go through a process to affirm that."
For more information on Venus Envy, visit (http://www.venusenvy.org).
Venus Envy Performance Schedule
Hera Stage
7:00 p.m.: Tribal Attitude
7:45 p.m.: Hersong
8:30 p.m.: Zlotenici
9:15 p.m.: Troupe Rakset al-Nehri & Ancient Rhythms Dance Ensemble
10:30 p.m.: Mad Charlotte
Sophia Stage
7:00 p.m.: Cindy Beal
7:30 p.m.: collaborative processional with Mona Ritemon
8:15 p.m.: Cathy Wetzel
8:45 p.m.: Carla Hall
9:20 p.m.: Olenka
10 p.m.: Jeri Benson & Lori Mariner
That labor is a recurring motif in the middle part of the country, Zimmer said, as well as in its art. Creative works from along the Mississippi River - whether visual or musical - tend to be more utilitarian, Zimmer said, less frivolous and more meaningful. Unlike works from the East and West coasts, she said, "They didn't come from a position of abundance. They came from a place of struggling."
That's the intellectual base of Venus Envy, a women's arts showcase that debuts in the Quad Cities this weekend. The free, one-night event at the Bucktown Center for the Arts (226 East Second Street in downtown Davenport) will be held from 7 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, April 23. It will feature 40 visual artists, eight live musicians, five theatre or dance performers, and a pair of multimedia installations. Artists in the juried exhibition were drawn from a 200-mile radius of the Quad Cities.
Bringing Venus Envy to this area is a milestone for the local arts community, "placing the Quad Cities in the hierarchy of arts communities along the river corridor," said Rachael Mullins, the chairperson of the local event. Zimmer started the celebration in St. Louis in 1999, and the Quad Cities is now the fourth Venus Envy community.
The local event was organized and coordinated by a group of 11 prominent women. In addition to Mullins, Marla Alvarado is the program director, and the steering committee also includes Kathy Betcher, Laura Cleaveland, Melissa Coulter, Molly Foley, Jennifer Fowler, Olenka Gadzik, Sarah Purcell, Jodean Rousey Murdock, and Kara Toal. That committee's members are active in a wide range of cultural and business organizations, from MidCoast Fine Arts to Renaissance Rock Island and Ghostlight Theatre to the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce.
"The energy of everyone is breaking down any barriers that might come up," said Gadzik, a singer-songwriter who is helping coordinate performing arts at the event. Specifically, the group's bonds have erased issues that might have cropped up because of working in a space - Bucktown - that's not fully finished. "It's coming together," she said.
One of the surprises, Mullins said, came from "working a space that was changing." Bucktown is undergoing renovation, and the first floor - where Venus Envy will be held - will become primarily retail spaces for artists. "There are lots of wonderful nooks and crannies," Mullins said.
The space will feature two stages and two rooms with installation art.
Gadzik said that the festival's focus on women gives it a different energy than other arts events. "The camaraderie of the people on the committee gives us our own language," she said. She first heard about the event late last year, and thought her program on women and spirituality might make a good fit. (She'll also be performing at Venus Envy.)
Since starting the annual event six years ago, Zimmer has expanded it to other cities along the Mississippi - Memphis in 2002, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2003, and the Quad Cities this year.
The mighty Mississippi operates not only as a geographic symbol of middle-American struggle but also has the feminine associations of water - birth, renewal, and life. Hence, Venus Envy. "The river has a certain female quality to it," Mullins said. "It's a force," Zimmer said.
As you might expect, the beginnings of Venus Envy were modest, simple, and not nearly so high-minded. Zimmer was working as a volunteer gallery director in St. Louis, and "I was meeting a whole lot of talented women artists who weren't showing [in galleries] nearly enough," she said.
That first event featured 11 visual artists, with its financing coming from a dozen people throwing in $25 apiece. Last weekend, the seventh St. Louis Venus Envy featured 49 visual artists, 45 performing artists, and 5,000 patrons over two nights in three different buildings.
"This is pretty much my baby," Zimmer said. "It's still pretty grass-roots."
Zimmer said she has looked at larger river cities - New Orleans and Minneapolis, for instance. But "it's my preference to go to communities that are a little smaller," she said. The big cities "don't need us as much."
Zimmer made some inquiries to the Quad Cities in spring 2004, she said. "It was a little bit of a cold call," she said. But she liked the energy in this area, in terms of arts programming and outlets as well as ongoing efforts to use culture to bring tourists to the area.
"They were interested in expanding upriver," Mullins said. "It was a logical next step in proximity to St. Louis."
Venus Envy provided $1,500 in seed money, Mullins said, and the event has a budget of less than $5,000 - a lot of which is going to food and beverage. Other funding came from the Riverboat Development Authority. (The River Cities' Reader is a media sponsor for the event.)
Zimmer said that the central Venus Envy organization expects to subsidize satellite events for a few years, but they have typically become self-supporting in their third years. Venus Envy provided organization, fundraising, and event guidelines for the Quad Cities, but it was up to the local steering committee to put the show together.
Forty-five visual artists responded to the call for entry, and 40 are featured in the juried show. The jury featured four members of the local Venus Envy committee, but Mullins declined to specify which ones.
Mullins said she's expecting between 300 and 500 people to attend the inaugural Venus Envy event in the Quad Cities. Zimmer, who plans to attend, said she hopes to get between 500 and 1,000 people at Bucktown.
Letitia Garcia is a graduate student in the painting department at the University of Wisconsin who will have two small works featured at the Quad Cities' Venus Envy event. She said she's participated in women's arts festivals in the past and enjoys the celebratory vibe. "It always brings out a diverse crowd," she said. More conventional art events, such as gallery openings, don't have the same energy. "They feel a little more constricted ... a little cold, a little superficial."
Venus Envy can also be validating, Gadzik said: "We're empowered already, but it helps to go through a process to affirm that."
For more information on Venus Envy, visit (http://www.venusenvy.org).
Venus Envy Performance Schedule
Hera Stage
7:00 p.m.: Tribal Attitude
7:45 p.m.: Hersong
8:30 p.m.: Zlotenici
9:15 p.m.: Troupe Rakset al-Nehri & Ancient Rhythms Dance Ensemble
10:30 p.m.: Mad Charlotte
Sophia Stage
7:00 p.m.: Cindy Beal
7:30 p.m.: collaborative processional with Mona Ritemon
8:15 p.m.: Cathy Wetzel
8:45 p.m.: Carla Hall
9:20 p.m.: Olenka
10 p.m.: Jeri Benson & Lori Mariner
