In Honor of Women’s History Month

March 19,  2021

Donna Kessinger Curator at Studio Montclair, Manager of the ChaShaMa Matawan Studio and Gallery

Mid-October 2020, during the last phase of a difficult political time in general, Susanna Baker, Executive
Director of Studio Montclair (https://www.studiomontclair.org/), reached out and asked me if I would be
interested in proposing a show honoring Women’s History Month.

I started with two words: women with a ‘y’ and werq. I looked them up online. 

From the Urban Dictionary:

Womyn

This is a term used by those who feel that having the word “man” in the word “woman” makes women a
subset of men. So, to make themselves a non subset, they changed the letter ‘e’ to a ‘y’.

I am not a subset, I am a womyn.

Werq

An expression used when praising someone for looking erce.

I was inspired as I headed to my bookshelf and reread selections from Sexual Politics by Kate Millett to get my
wheels turning. Millett was part of my chosen family when I was in my late 20s.

In 1999, I spent about a year’s worth of winter weekends and summer months upstate, werqing her women’s
art colony, archiving her writing materials, mowing acres of evergreen tree farmland, and daydreaming of
future times to come. I am now 51 and she is no longer with us in the physical sense, but her writing remains.
Sometimes, picking up her books remind me of conversations past regarding feminisms and life as a Dyke
living out loud in the modern world.

“Womyn’s Werq (https://www.studiomontclair.org/womyns-werq/)” asked artists to reflect on how radicalism
manifests on a visceral and intellectual level – is it the artist’s engagement with protest, activism, cultural
organizing? Is it the materials used or the content the artist takes up?

“Womyn’s Werq” honors radical feminists, artists who identify with LGBTQIA culture and the spirit of breaking
conventional boundaries in our daily lives. With a strong focus on inclusion, this show serves as a snapshot of
contemporary work created by gender-fluid, eco-femme, queer/trans, and old-school butch/femmes.

The exhibition features a wide range of 2-D artworks and sculptures, short video art pieces serving as visual
narratives in the main gallery, and, in the exterior windows, featuring exciting contemporary art installations!

“Womyn’s Werq (https://youtu.be/-newW6oJa8E)” is an old school, LGBTQIA-friendly, radical feminist art
exhibition featuring a collection of more than 60 artworks describing the spirit of renewal, raw energies,
sexuality, the personal is political, art making as a form of protest, soft spots, and maybe even finding love in
the age of COVID.

Participating artists: Aodan, Ara-Lucia, Mia Ahntholz, Olga Alexander, Sandra Anton, Barbara Bickart, Jeanne
Brasile, Rodriguez Calero, Marina Carreira, Gwen Charles, Liz Collins, Leslie Connito, Lisa D’Amico, Lisa DeLoria
Weinblatt, Yvonne Duck, Kara Dunne, Megan Dyer, Kathleen Elyse, Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern, Modern Fossils:Judith
Marchand and David P Horowitz, Yolanda Fundora, Colleen Sweeney Gahrmann, Trish Gianakis, Parastoo
Haddadi, Karen Heagle, Susan Hensel, Katie Hovencamp, Jennifer Hughes, Valerie Huhn, Raluca Iancu, Kristen
Iannuzzelli, Elizabeth Insogna, Miriam Jacobs, Dorian Katz, Michelle Knox, Erin Kuhn, Phoebe Legere, Jennifer
Malone, Paula Marino, Anne Q McKeown, Nick Metz, Leslie Nobler, Jacquie O’Brien, Christy O’Connor, Kate
Okeson, Stacey AS Pritchard, Brass Rabbit, Marisol Ross, Yolanda Santa Cruz, Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar, Alix
Anne Shaw, Gail G. Slockett, Victoria Smits, Peter Tilgner, Kay Turner, Rhonda Urdang, Sarah Van Vliet, Margaret
Rose Vendryes, Sue Eldridge Ward, Jennifer Willoughby, and Becky Yazdan.

“Under patriarchy the female did not herself develop the symbols by which she is described.” -  Kate Millett, Sexual Politics

Artwork in cover image: Erin Kuhn’s “Peach Love,” Jennifer Willoughby’s “Dystopia,” and Phoebe Legere’s “Holy
Clitoral Scroll”