Ashley Atkins, Features Editor
“None of this would have been possible if it hadn’t been for Barbara looking at our work, believing in our work, and the Women in Arts,” Janet Goddard, writer and creative writing instructor at Visitation Academy, said. It was Sunday and Goddard along with her artistic partner Gretchen Hewitt, composer, had closed out what had appeared to be a very successful three day conference for Women in the Arts. Created back in 2005 by Dr. Barbara Harbach, director of the Women in the Arts, the conference was held in the J.C. Penney Auditorium at the University of Missouri – St. Louis on Thursday, November 10 to Saturday, November 12. With a variety of presentations conducted by talented women, guests had an opportunity to come an go as they pleased, making it a schedule friendly conference.
To further promote women empowerment, Dr. Harbach had decided to present guests with a marketplace, set up outside of the auditorium that promoted women creators, as well as presented guests with an opportune moment to get a head start on their Christmas shopping. Businesses at the conference included Dove Chocolate Discoveries, Plow Sharing, Qui Lin and Renata’s Pictures and Jewelry, among others.
Renata Kilgore, owner of Renata’s Pictures and Jewelry, inquired about being at the conference after seeing the event advertised in St. Louis American. “Because [the conference] was women orientated and with my being an entrepeneur, I wanted to participate. It was a business opportunity to display my products and to network,” Kilgore said.
Some of the goals of the Women in the Arts Conference were to praise women’s accomplishments, encourage creative potential in youth, and recognize diversity among women creators. During the three days of the conference, guests were introduced to poets such as Lisa Zimmerman, english professor, University of Northern Colorado. “I really wanted to go to an all woman conference because I am a feminist. For me being a feminist is a choice,” Zimmerman said. She entertained the crowd with a poetry centered around her daughter, complications with her mother’s lifestyle, and her brief adolescent encounter with an older gentleman at the age of twelve.
Chancellor Thomas George, who had made random appearances at the conference throughout the week, was impressed with the conference, commending it on its thoroughness, programming, and variety of artists. “I do not think that we could have asked for anything better,” George said.
UMSL’s own Maria Teresa Balogh, professor of Spanish, amused the crowd with her unpublished short essay “Dos and Don’ts for Growing Up in Macholand.” It was centered around the difference between the upbringing of boys versus girls. While girls are taught how to upkeep a household, boys are taught how to value their peni. Audience members commended her on talking about a subject that is hardly discussed out loud in society, both in America and internationally.
On Saturday, the crowd was introduced to the young film maker, Vanessa Woods, artist-in-residents, who had studied film at the San Francisco Art Institute with the original intent to focus on photography. “I was always interested in telling narratives and at the time I was doing it through sequences of still photographs and so when I took this film class and I realized that you could put still images together and really tell stories and have sound and narrative, it all came together,” Woods said. She presented a still of a piece entitled “On Alzheimer’s,” which consisted of photographs of herself in her grandmother’s apartment. She animated the photos with her grandmother’s objects to create the film.
Sunday was the last day of the conference and ended with a presentation and performance by Gretchen Hewitt, composer and Janet Goddard, writer. Together, they presented “The Mechanical Cat – The Collaborative Process of Writing a Musical with Janet Goddard.”
They both credited their collaboration to Harbach. After Goddard had written her musical she was unaware of what she could do with it. It was not until a friend had suggested that she get in contact with Barbara Harbach who strongly promoted Women in the Arts.
“When [Janet] was looking for a composer she found Barbara and Barbara luckily thought of me and put us together,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt enjoyed being apart of the conference as well as attending some of the other presentations. She said that she wished she could have taken advantage of more because it was so stunning.
“I was here all three days and my favorite part was today [Sunday],” Dianne Ridgeway, senior, media studies, said. “[The conference] was inspiring. It really shed light on every aspect of art including womanhood itself.”
“It was absolutely outstanding. We had presenters that were at the top of their field whether it was poetry, or whether it was talking about sculpture, or whether it was about composition. It was a wonderful three days,” Harbach said.
By: Ashley Atkins, Features Editor
