As the country continues to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which made women’s suffrage the law, Cincinnati’s ArtsWave pays tribute to women behind the city’s diverse and thriving arts community with the release of the book,
Imagineers. Impresarios. Inventors: Cincinnati’s Arts and the POWER OF HER. Kathy Merchant, former CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, is the book’s editor and she kindly answered a few questions we had.
How long did it take to generate the list of the 200 women profiled and do you wish you could have added more? “Because the book was a major project of ArtsWave's POWER OF HER initiative, which was designed to shine the spotlight on women in the arts during the 19th amendment centennial celebration, we originally set a goal of 100 women. We invited the public to nominate women for the book, a process that took place over about 6 weeks in early spring 2019. We were overwhelmed (in the good sense) with the number of women who were nominated! But we were also concerned that the list of candidates was not as diverse as we knew that it could be. We did some additional research, and also asked Cincinnati Museum Center and Cincinnati Art Museum to help us identify particularly legacy women from the 19th and 20th centuries that our nominators may not know. We are grateful to them for their assistance. Then we applied a set of criteria to the massive list of well over 200 women before sending a curated list to a group of ArtsWave leaders for a final vetting. The criteria included importantly the significance of the woman's contributions to the arts over a sustained period of time; leadership in founding and/or serving as an executive leader of sustainable arts organizations; influence on the vibrancy of the arts sector as a visual or performance artist, philanthropist, educator, and other key leadership roles; and (last but not least) production of an important body of art works of all types. Still hoping to narrow the list down to 100, we found that to be an impossible task. Ultimately, we settled on 120 essays that incorporate lists of nearly 80 additional women who were collaborators in starting arts organizations in the 19th and 20th centuries. And that just scratches the surface! This book is comprehensive, but not exhaustive, of all the talent in our community then and now.”
How did you choose the local writers and then pair them with the profiles they'd write? “Once we knew the scope of the women in the book, we recruited 31 people to join me in writing the 120 essays. I started in May 2019 by identifying a list of local journalists, editors, and published authors I knew well by reading their work across my more than two decades living in Cincinnati. I asked them two key questions: would you prefer to write about legacy or contemporary women, and how many essays could you write on deadline by September 30. My original list of contacts didn't quite meet the goal of 120, so I asked those writers to identify others who might be interested. In this way, by June 2019 we were able to increase and diversify the number of essay authors, adding yet another artistic dimension to the book project. All writers either donated their time or accepted a small honorarium for their work, and we appreciate their generosity. All writers will receive a complimentary copy of the book.”
What did you learn personally about these women and their impact on our community? “The organization of the book reflects one of the biggest "aha moments" in the entire project: nearly all of our arts organizations were started by women, and all of those organizations--from 1868 to the present--are still going strong (despite the disruptive challenges of COVID-19). If there are exceptions to this assertion, we are not aware of them. The few organizations (such as Playhouse in the Park and WGUC) that were not started by women can point instead to significant leadership by women as executives, producers, actors, philanthropists, and more, all contributing to the organizations' long-term sustainability. A second important realization was just how many women there are who lead and nurture the arts, probably an entire second book! For example, there are the women in our local corporations such as Kay Geiger and Heidi Jark who are major arts supporters. The number of women artists in all disciplines is massive. Wouldn't it be fun to dig deeper to create a celebration of all art forms and the women in our community who are so very talented? The bottom line is that Greater Cincinnati is truly blessed to have such a vibrant and well supported arts community. (And I can say on behalf of ArtsWave that we are especially blessed to have an organization whose sole mission, thanks to Anna Sinton Taft and her husband, is to support the arts for the long view.)”
100% of the proceeds from sales of Imagineers. Impresarios. Inventors: Cincinnati’s Arts and the POWER OF HER will support programming for women’s artists and arts organizations. To order, visit: POWER OF HER
