Remembering the Work of Judith Anderson

This article recently came to our attention. Judith was a wonderful visionary artist  of archetypes of women and nature, who passed away in 2008. (Our thanks to Lauren Raine and Max Dashu for the reference.) The Encyclopedia of  Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History says that Judith “used womb/vagina imagery explicitly as devotional work dedicated to the goddess.”

In the Dark Speech of Praise and Birth:  The Prints of Judith Anderson 

by Catherine Madsen

“Missa Gaia: This is My Body,” Judith Anderson, etching, 1988

Describing her process of printmaking, Judith said,

“The germ of the idea for a particular print develops over many months or sometimes years. Images from reading, dreams, relationships, pictures, plants and animals will gather and cluster until a beginning form for the print emerges. The main image grows and changes, often in surprising ways, during the long process of working on the plate, which may be several months. Only some time after a print is finished do I come to understand intuitively more about its origins and implications.”  (from Art of the Print website)

Here as well is artist Alicia Blaze Hunsicker’s blog post about Judith.

“Women Make Movies” Continues Free Film Festival

In light of the coronavirus stay-at-home orders and film festival cancelltiona, Women Make Movies is extending their free film festival through May 31. This is a great opportunity to see excellent documentaries made by and about women.

Their website says, “In March, we launched the WMM Virtual Film Festival to commemorate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. However, in response to the demands and circumstances of COVID-19, we have expanded the content of the festival and extended it to run through May 31, 2020. Sign up to watch films by women at no cost! (You’ll be joining more than 5000 attendees in 89 countries — and growing!)

“The “Films, Interrupted” Series showcases films distributed by Women Make Movies that had film festival and public screenings canceled due to COVID-19. Each film will be available for a limited window and we will include filmmaker Q&As whenever possible.”

Learn more and register here.

 

2020 Saga Award Goes to Dr. Jane Caputi

 

Dr. Jane Caputi

The Board of Directors of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology has selected Dr. Jane Caputi for the 2020 Saga Special Recognition Award for Contributions to Women’s History and Culture. Her vision and scholarship reach far beyond the confines of academic institutions. This award recognizes her service both to individual women and to the future that is being created by all women.

Dr. Caputi has advanced bold ideas as a feminist theorist, documentarian, and unflinching critic of popular culture. Her books, The Age of Sex Crime (1987), Gossips, Gorgons and Crones (1993), and Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture (2004), have explored in depth difficult issues concerning violence against women and entrenched sexism in society.

Dr. Caputi’s work as a filmmaker has also advanced important concepts regarding violence against women, in the 2006 film, “The Pornography of Everyday Life,” and the worldwide movement of ecofeminism, in “Feed the Green: Feminist Voices of the Earth (2015).” Her forthcoming book, Call Your “Mutha”: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene, will be released in August 2020.

Past winners of the Saga Award include Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Genevieve Vaughan, Donna Read, Z Budapest, Dr. Peggy Sanday, and Dr. Arisika Razak.

See the complete Saga Award letter 2020 here and read Dr. Caputi’s  PBS interview about violence against women.

2020 Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts

Max Dashu and the Suppressed Histories Archives

The Association for Study of Women and Mythology Board of Directors has selected Max Dashu and the “Suppressed Histories Archives” as 2020 recipient of the Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts.  The award is given in recognition of her decades of contributions as American feminist historian and artist focused on female iconography, mother-right cultures and the origins of patriarchy, along with extensive teaching, publications and cultural as well as political activism.

Max’s creation of the “Suppressed Histories Archives”, researching and documenting women’s history, makes the full spectrum of women’s history and culture visible and accessible through more than 15,000 slides and 30,000 digital images. Her work as work as a feminist art historian features pan-cultural & global inclusion of women shamans and priestesses, witches and the witch trials, folk religion and pagan European traditions, and evidence in support of egalitarian matrilineages.

Past winners of the Brigit Award include Layne Redmond, Lydia Ruyle, The We’Moon Collective and Anna Crusis Women’s Choir.

See the 2020 Brigit Award letter, and learn more about the  Suppressed Histories Archives and Max’s publications and artwork.

Virtual Film Festival for Women’s History Month

To commemorate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Women Make Movies (WMM) is hosting a virtual film festival that highlights the new releases in our Transnational Feminist Film collection.

Women Make Movies provides services to filmmakers and educators, and distributes over 700 films by and about women worldwide. WMM has worked with ASWM to bring the best of women’s films to our events and film series.

Throughout March, festival attendees will receive free access to select films about women from around the globe. New films will be added each week and will be available for viewing at no cost for the duration of the festival (March 1 – March 31, 2020).

Our thanks to the women of WMM for bringing us together in this way to celebrate women’s lives this month and every month!

You may sign up here to enjoy the 2020 free films.