Breaking Boundaries & A Night of Spoken Word

via RE/VISIONIST

This weekend the Sarah Lawrence community will be celebrating Women's History Month with our 13th Annual Women's History Month Conference, Breaking Boundaries: Body Politics & the Dynamics of Difference.  Friday, the conference opens with a plenary featuring Marilyn Wann (author of Fat! So?) then a Night of Spoken Word featuring Maria James-Thiaw and Lara Frater, plus other artists: Ms. MaDonna Awotwi a.k.a. Sankofa the Poet, Jennifer Bartlett, Andrea Baker, Sheila Black, Shaashawn Dial, & David Wolach.

flier by Kate Wadkins | illustration by Cristy Road

A full conference schedule can be found here.

I'll be helping with the conference this weekend (along with fellow R/V staffer Thea Michailides) so I really hope to see you there! Excited about it all.

PHOTO FAVORITES: JANUARY

(Kim Shattuck sings "Rock'n'roll Girl" with Paul Collins' Beat

at Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ, January 29, 2011)

WOMEN WHO ROCK

(this one is for ADRIAN)

>> D.I.Y. MEDIA PANEL <<

JAMIE VARRIALE VELEZ

ZINE ARCHIVE & PUBLISHING PROJECT

MAGGIE OWSLEY

SEATTLE FANDANGO PROJECT

SEATTLE, WA

Alice Bag wrote a really great piece about the conference, and I want to echo her sentiment that it was super inspiring and reminded me that we need to continue to do this work. Also, the community in Seattle is like nothing I've ever seen: all of the academic folks are involved in community organizing, and the communal warmth was felt, even as an outsider.

Andreana Clay at QueerBlackFeminist wrote this (also beautifully-written) piece about an incident that went down during the panel discussion, which is important to read; it reminds us white folks that in order to be allies we should LISTEN first. It is amazing the connections that can be drawn between music and communication, feminism and respect, and all the rest. It made me proud to be presenting about my own journey through these issues with my comrade, Jamie. I want to write more on this, but for now, check out the articles I linked above.

SIX YEARS

is THREE HUNDRED TWELVE WEEKS
is TWO THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED NINETY DAYS
is KIND OF A LONG TIME!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WISDOM TOOTH.

VERY OKAY ON REFILTERED

Check out a new website, Refiltered, by our friend Dave Garwacke of If You Make It fame.

After years of updating If You Make It, I’ve come to realize how hard it is to promote digital releases. They are so easy to get up and distribute, but after that you need to hop on message boards, submit news and post on dozens of social media sites. You are constantly behind the ball, and posting about releases after they are already available.

Over the last couple of years a couple of awesome donation-based digital record labels have popped up, especially in the area of punk. I wanted to band these labels together somehow, and make it easier for people to keep track of our upcoming and past releases. With the advent of Bandcamp, online labels have become more akin to music curators ( I hate that word ). We distribute the music we love and Refiltered is meant to foster that.

Very Okay's "Small Loud" is featured as a Recent Album on Refiltered, where you can stream the EP on the Refiltered player (the only place where the record is streaming)! Check it out here.

WOMEN WHO ROCK + BEAT NITE

or ABOUT THIS WEEK/END...



Jamie Varriale Velez and I are participating in this great conference this week in Seattle. We’re on a “DIY Media” panel at the University of Washington/Seattle University's Women Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities conference. Here's a blurb about what we'll be talking about:

"Disassemble it and dialogue with me": Communication as Punk Feminist Cultural Activism

Using our experiences within the New York City DIY/Punk feminist community, we argue that learning to communicate effectively, both interpersonally and through media like music, blogs and zines, is the activism that produces the change that we want. Learning to communicate requires us to listen to each other and expand our cultural vernacular, bringing previously marginalized voices into a new narrative and changing the way we think. This process of learning to dialogue respectfully and productively does more than merely facilitate our feminist work; it is our feminist work.

Our presentation shares how this work has enabled us to organize and contribute to our communities, and create feminist art and spaces.

Facilitators: Jamie Varriale Velez, Kate Wadkins


DIY MEDIA panel
10am - 12noon

at Seattle University
901 12th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122

Bldg/Room: Administration 321

For more info: University of Washington & Women Who Rock Research Project

So, come say hi if you are in Washington tomorrow/Friday! We are among other great folks, too, so please see the full conference schedule here.

While I'm gone, Lauren Denitzio will be covering for me at STOREFRONT; we'll be open late for Norte Maar's BEAT NITE this Friday, from 6pm-10pm. Needless to say, go visit BRAIN WAVES! Lauren is in the collection so it's a pretty exciting event.

VERY OKAY - SMALL LOUD

I am super excited to announce that Very Okay's first EP, "Small Loud," has finally been released (we recorded it in August 2010) on Quote Unquote records. I designed an 'album cover' and 'insert' for the digital download. The photograph was taken by me in November 2009. Small Loud was recorded & mastered by John Meredith.

>>  GET "SMALL LOUD" HERE.  <<

P.S. - I've gotten some traffic looking for 'Very Okay' so FYI, our blog is here.

INTERNATIONAL GIRL GANG UNDERGROUND ZINE RELEASE PARTY

I've curated a zine release party for The International Girl Gang Underground at Death by Audio on March 12th! This is GIRL GANG GIG VOLUME #004.

RSVP to the show on Facebook.

// The International Girl Gang Underground Zine Release Party has a safer space policy intended to make this event a supportive, nonthreatening environment for everyone including survivors of abuse and sexual assault. Harassment, abuse, and assault, as well as racist, sexist, queerphobic, classist, ageist, or otherwise oppressive remarks or behavior will not be tolerated.

People who have perpetrated inter-personal violence, assault and/or harassment and are not presently undergoing any accountability-related process are asked not to attend. There will be mediators at the show to assist if any violations do arise, so if you would like to speak to a safer space team member please find someone with a pink armband, or ask someone at the Support New York table to help you. //

- International Girl Gang Underground editors & NYC Coalition for Safer Spaces

TEEN ZINE WORKSHOP

Last night, Kate Angell and I took the Metro North to Westport, Connecticut, to host a Teen Zine Workshop! It was my first time working with 12-18 year-olds (since I was that age), and it was a really amazing experience.







Kate and I went on a shopping spree at Bluestockings this Tuesday so we could bring the Westport girls some zines to take home with them.



Zines ranged from "Diary of a 13-year-old Foodie" to "Gymnasts" to "Dear Beats," a music review zine, a zine list of favorite people, "Everything Under the Sun," and more. There was even a comic that I didn't get a picture of!









Thanks so much to Jaina and the Westport Library!



Can you imagine if you had this tote when you were a teenager? I mean, I'm jealous now!

TRES BIEN

I am super honored to be featured on my feminist-librarian-hero-riot-grrrl-enthusiast-colleague-and-dear-friend Kate Angell's blog today:

This is only the second time I’ve written a post for this particular category, but it’s about time that I write more, as I’m lucky to be surrounded by many people deserving recognition for their accomplishments.

Today I want to write about a person with whom I share a name, neighborhood, college, and favorite band- Kate Wadkins. I met Kate last summer through Kathleen Hanna, as we both worked for her on various projects at different times. Over time Kate has become my research collaborator, close friend, and feminist inspiration.

Read the full article here.

Needless to say, the feelings are mutual, as I am consistently inspired by Kate's work, which involves radical librarianship and feminist community activism of all sorts. Please check out the rest of her blog for insightful posts and feminist/women's history resources abound!

UPDATE! JUST TODAY Kate's new article, "Feminist Archives: Archiving Grrrl Style Now," was published in the new issue of Feminist Collections! Congrats, Kate!

BRAIN WAVES COVER STORY

Jesse Sposato's article on BRAIN WAVES just happens to be the cover of the Greenpoint Gazette this week. So, yes, that's me, giving bunny ears on the cover of my local paper. Again, hi Mom!

"RIDING THE BRAIN WAVES"

Jesse Sposato wrote a really great review of the newly-debuted print + zine collection at Storefront, BRAIN WAVES. You can check it out at the Greenpoint Gazette.

Kate Wadkins, Storefront gallery manager and now Brain Waves curator, has been involved in zine culture since she was a teenager, and she continued to celebrate this pastime last Friday, January 28 with the opening of Brain Waves, Storefront’s zine and print collection. Storefront, which just celebrated its one-year-anniversary, was a triple threat on Friday. In conjunction with the Brain Waves opening, there was also Mary Judge’s solo show, Pop-Oculus that took place in the front room, and Wavelength, a group show in the back featuring works by Judith Braun, Maureen McQuillan and Susanna Starr. “[Wavelength] was kind of part of the impetus of having Brain Waves open at the same time. We just thought it was too much of a coincidence to have Wavelength and Brain Waves [open simultaneously],” Wadkins said.

Wadkins, along with Storefront founders and directors Jason Andrew and Deborah Brown, is using Brain Waves as yet another platform for artists within the space. “It [is] a really good opportunity for me to be able to tap into all the things that I [see] going on and give people just one other way to get their work out there,” Wadkins said. The collection is going to be rotating and the goal, as of now, is to have a new zine every month with a corresponding opening.

read the full article here!