I’ve been sorting through books, keeping many, giving away some. And putting some aside to read again. As I look through a book, deciding her fate, I see underlined sentences, phrases that have struck me as being exceptionally deep or witty. I’m finding bits of paper stuck in the middle of pages, with phrases, poems, thoughts that relate to the ideas in certain books.
On one of those bits of paper, I had written an excerpt from a Mary Oliver poem, Sometimes.
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
This is what we do as artists. We write, draw, sculpt, paint, stitch, all in an effort to share what we have seen, felt, know, are astonished by. We tell about it through our creativity in the best way we know how. This is why I am so grateful for WiVLA. This rather special group of women has given me an outlet, to discover new ways of expressing astonishment, to hone my skills in telling about it. And to do so together.
Just this month, during our member meeting, we had the opportunity to listen to Elissa Davis telling us about her experience with Urban Fairy Doors and the Wonder of Small Things. Some of us also met at the Jung Center to see the art, explore the bookstore and library, and have the chance to write about a piece of art.
We also, during the last weekend in May, gathered for a tour of the Hirsch Library at MFAH, had a studio visit with Michelle O’Michael, and had an Archway Gallery tour and discussion with Becky Soria.
Throughout the rest of the year, we have scheduled a variety of outings and workshops, all for you. We also have some awesome guest speakers lined up for our member meetings. You can check out the calendar on our website to look for details on those and to sign up to participate.
I am especially excited for our upcoming juried visual art exhibition. We choose broad themes that give you room to interpret through your art. The theme for this show is EXPANSION. The submission period for this show is open and closes on July 31st. The show itself will be up Sep 1st through Nov 4th. The exhibition location, the upstairs hallway walls of Winter Street Studios, allow for BIG works. And for the first time, we are inviting non-WiVLA women to participate.
And that’s not all!! This year, we partnered with Houston Writer’s Guild for a literary competition. Each submission followed the theme JOURNEY INTO ART. Submissions for this have closed, and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and honorable mentions have been notified, and will be working with editors to hone their works before they’re included in an anthology produced by Inklings Press.
I hope to see you this year at a meeting, an outing, or a workshop. In the meantime,
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Walk in love
- Gretchen -
Exhibit news!
WiVLA’s exhibit EXPANSIONwill take place from September 1, 2023 to October 31, 2023 and will be held at Winter Street Studios. Our juror is Elena Poirot from Lee College in Baytown. The exhibit will be open to WiVLA members as well as women artists working in the Greater Houston Area.
Saturday, July 1, 2023
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
17503 El Camino Real, Houston TX 77058
Something happened to you. You saw something. Maybe you did something yourself and later were haunted by regret over your behavior. In any case, now you want to write about it: about your pre-woke bullying of the transgender kid in high school, about being the victim of racial profiling, about your Peace Corps experience in Ecuador.
In this 3-hour session, we will analyze the craft of professional social justice storytellers such as TaNehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickeled and Dimed) to see how they affect readers’ thinking about issues. We will also go through some exercises designed to help you focus your own story on the three key pieces of crafting a social justice memoir: Anecdote (the little story), Introspection (how it affected you, what you realized), and Connection (creating meaning for the reader). We’ll also have a Q&A about publishing social justice and other essays.
Bio: Catherine Vance holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and was a recipient of the Dobie-Paisano Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her debut novel, The Mountains Under Her Feet, was released in March 2023. Her poetry, fiction, and memoir have appeared in Herstry, Visible Magazine, Talking Writing, Defunkt Magazine, Wraparound South, Sad Girls’ Club, Synkroniciti, Equinox, Memoir Magazine, and elsewhere. She is at www.catherinevance.com and on Instagram @bluemtns2sea.
Saturday, August 26, 2023
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
ZOOM
The real work of writing is the re-writing: Believe me, your literary heroes revise and revise and revise! This two to three hour workshop focuses on revision and editing and welcomes both poetry and prose writers. Participants will come to workshop with a piece of writing they would like to work on—either one poem or one-three pages of a prose piece. We will closely examine these works for craft (not grammar!). We will consider elements such as description and imagery, sound and syntax, people and place as well as beginnings and endings. This workshop will be tedious and immensely “hands-on” in its dissection—for example, isolating every noun and considering each for their relationships and intra-lineage. Participants will leave with plenty to consider!
Bio: Adele Elise Williams is a writer, editor and educator. She is the winner of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing and Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize for Poetry as well as a finalist for the 2022 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Indiana Review, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Cream City Review, The Florida Review and elsewhere. Her current goings-on can be found at adeleelisewilliams.com.
Writing Your Story and Then Sharing It: How to Stop Doubting and Start Making Art
Saturday, September 2, 2023
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
ZOOM
"Everyone's a critic," the adage goes, but for countless artists and aspiring artists, no one's a harsher critic than one's self. Join Dr. Cait Weiss Orcutt for a two-hour workshop geared around working with (or simply firing) our inner critics. We'll discuss how we get in our own way, what we have to offer, and why/how some systems seem to work to keep us quiet -- then we'll dive into a few creative exercises together to shake that nay-saying inner voice up.
Bio: Cait Weiss Orcutt is the author of VALLEYSPEAK, winner of the 2017 Zone 3 First Book Prize. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and a PhD from the University of Houston. Her essays and poems have appeared in Boston Review, Bust Magazine, Chautauqua, FIELD, The Pinch, The Academy of American Poets and more. Currently based in the Midwest, Cait leads online poetry and creative nonfiction writing workshops for writers of all backgrounds and locations. She is the recipient of a UH College of Arts and Letters Dissertation Completion Fellowship and an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/MD Anderson Foundation Fellowship.
Save the Date: Sticky Characters: Writing Unforgettable Characters
Saturday, October 7, 2023
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
ZOOM
Why do certain characters stick in our minds? Whether kind or cruel, powerful or pitiful, handsome or homely, some characters live on long after the curtain closes. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the Golden Girls – let's explore specifically what makes a character live on and on.
Save the Date: Tour of the Printing Museum
Saturday, October 28, 2023
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Save the date for a tour of the Printing Museum. More details, TBA.
Save the Date: Journal Making with Cori Austin
Saturday, November 4, 2023
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
819 Highland St, Houston TX 77009
Would you like to make a handmade journal that you can use for sketching? Watercolor? Art journaling? Writing your deepest thoughts? Playing with poetry? Any of those are possible at Cori Austin’s Handmade Journal Workshop.
Remember to check the WiVLA Calendar for exciting happenings - fieldtrips, studio visits, workshops, and other fun activities.
Join WiVLA for our June Member meeting where we will meet D. Marie Prokop: musician, knitter and author of YA, Middle Grade, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories, and Poetry. D. Marie will discuss how various arts lend inspiration to our writing.
Marie Prokop enjoys stories with adventure, spiritual insights, and enlightening cultural or social critiques. She is also a singer-songwriter and a knitter. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, D. Marie now resides in Houston, Texas, along with her loving family, their feisty cats, her beloved ukulele, and much, much yarn.
Watch your Inbox for an email with the Zoom meeting code.
Laurette “Lori” LeMieux-Clemons
Lori LeMieux was born and raised in Detroit Michigan, and has been preoccupied with reading and hoarding books since the age of four. She is a recent alumna of Wesleyan University, where she gleefully studied writing in different forms with 'her people' (fellow nerds). She has painted murals, canvases and fabrics, and is always looking for other opportunities to add color to the world around her. Happiest when she has a pen in one hand, and a paintbrush in the other, Lori currently lives in the Great White North of Minnesota, with her ever-tolerant husband and 5 Dogs.
Lori recently entered her first literary competition, Journey Into Art, made possible through her WiVLA membership. She has secured a spot in the upcoming anthology, to be published later this year. She is madly finishing paintings for an upcoming solo art show in Brainerd MN, tending to her gardens of flowers and vegetables, and enjoying life.
(c) 2023 Laurette LeMieux-Clemons
(c) 2023 Laurette LeMieux-Clemons
May Member Meeting: Urban Fairy Doors and the Wonder of Small Things
What a fun time WiVLA members had at the May Member Meeting with Elissa Davis. Elissa started her presentation with a quote by Jeremy Bendik-Keymer – Professor of Philosophy, “Wonder and imagination are closely linked, as both involve a capacity to transcend the here and now and to engage with possibilities beyond the immediate present. They enable us to explore different ways of being in the world, and to envision new and better futures for ourselves and our communities.”
Private Eye, the Urban Fairy Door created by Elissa and her husband have brought them hours of community involvement and joy. A picture is worth a thousand words so these pictures tell it all.
If you missed the zoom meeting, you can watch the recording on the WiVLA YouTube Channel.
A Sunday Afternoon at the Jung Center
It was a full Sunday afternoon on May 21st of touring the center, enjoying the art, and participating in a poetry workshop with Kelly Ann Ellis of hotpoet Inc. https://www.hotpoet.org/
Tour of the Hirsch Library at the MFAH
WiVLA members had a great visit at the Hirsch Library.
Rona Lesser will have four paintings in the Women's Caucus for Art Texas chapter exhibit, Texas Heat, at the Brazosport Art League Gallery, Brazosport Arts and Sciences Center from June 6, 2023 to July 1, 2023.
The reception is June 9, 2023 from 6:30-8:00 PM at 400 College Ave, Clute Texas and the gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
There is an artist’s reception at the Jung Center on June 3, 2023 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
Melody Locke is part of the Really Big Show
One of Melody Locke’s images was juried into the Lawndale Art Center’s BIG Show. The exhibition runs from June 2, 2023 through August 12, 2023 in the John M. O’Quinn & Cecily E. Horton Galleries.
The Opening Reception is June 2, 2023 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
Sell Your Book(s) in a Grocery Store
Authors in Grocery Stores is a program that pairs authors wanting to have book signings with grocery stores that will allow them to set up a table with their book. Kroger is the business that participates in the program in Houston. For more information or to sign-up, go to http://www.authorsingrocerystores.com The referral person for the form is Dru Richman.
We'd love to celebrate your good news. If you are interested in sharing, please send your items to newsletter@wivla.org. The deadline for inclusion in the next month's newsletter is the 20th. Thank you.
WiVLA’s exhibit EXPANSION will take place from September 1, 2023 to October 31, 2023 and will be held at Winter Street Studios. Our juror is Elena Poirot from Lee College in Baytown. The exhibit will be open to WiVLA members as well as women artists working in the Greater Houston Area. 
Remember to check the WiVLA Calendar for exciting happenings - fieldtrips, studio visits, workshops, and other fun activities. 
Lori LeMieux was born and raised in Detroit Michigan, and has been preoccupied with reading and hoarding books since the age of four. She is a recent alumna of Wesleyan University, where she gleefully studied writing in different forms with 'her people' (fellow nerds). She has painted murals, canvases and fabrics, and is always looking for other opportunities to add color to the world around her. Happiest when she has a pen in one hand, and a paintbrush in the other, Lori currently lives in the Great White North of Minnesota, with her ever-tolerant husband and 5 Dogs.
