Women are hot right now!

Any way you look at it women are stirring the proverbial pot: Socially, Politically, in the Media and the Arts, women are cooking up a new kind of brew, and clearly there is plenty to go ’round!

A few women (including a couple of the Women’s March organizers) find themselves in a pot of hot water lately, proving that although they might be termed the fairer sex, there’s nothing fair about (reverse) racism, anti Semitism and outright male bashing, but the beat goes on and in time the cream will rise as it always does.

Having said that, women artists are rising along with this great Feminist tide, gifting us with their much needed vision and voice during these turbulent and troubling times.

After the success of Janet Webb and Judith Kendall’s Work By Women at the Harwood Museum of Art last month, and spurred on by the fact that only women already in the Harwood Collection were included in that show, Maye Torres decided to keep on riffing on that theme and began making a list.

“It just kept growing!” She laughed, wide-eyed, as she showed me her work sheets for pulling this show together.

Three or four sheets of paper were covered with the names and numbers – hundreds of them – of women artists who live and work here in Taos.

It reminded me of something Anita Rodriquez had said when I interviewed her for the Work by Women show at the Harwood. “When all the women of Taos Valley, Native and Hispana included, have the support, recognition and space as Mabel Dodge, Bea Mandelman and Agnes Martin, we will have a Fort Knox of incredible art. The world will be richer when 51% of our talent is liberated and taken out of the shadows and storage rooms!”

Well it appears that Maye has decided to shine a little light on the ones that have been, for one reason or another, left in the shadows lately, but even she had to set a limit,

“There’s just not enough space here to show them all!” She laughed. “I might have to do another one.”

Maye decided to name the show  using the (Venus) symbol for women as the show’s title, prompting me to originally call this post ♀ : Formally known as Women Artists. in homage to Prince, but thought better of it. It is clever though, especially following on the heels of the Harwood’s show that put women front and center, not only in the museum’s galleries, but on the page also.

A few of the women who were included in that show will have work at Studio 207B. Zoe Zimmerman, Anita Rodriguez and Maye, among them. But there are others too, many of them. Anais Rumfelt’s painting appears on the invitation as well as the wall, Deborah Rael – Buckley (that’s her ceramic installation above), Juanita Jaramillo Lavadie (the baby floating in space), Gretchen Ewert (who showed with Maye in Magpie’s Two Women show last year), Izumi Yokoyama and several others.

Women it seems are no longer content to create in a vacuum, and nowadays, as Aretha Franklin notes in her seminal song, Sisters are doin’ it for themselves!

The show opens this weekend on March 10th with a reception for the artists from 4-7pm, and runs through April 15th.

You can call or email the gallery at 575 779-7832 or email studio107bgallery@gmail.com for more information.

Studio 107b is located at 107B North Plaza in Taos

All images thanks to Studio 107b