Kentucky Foundation for Women
Encyclopedia
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
by awarding grants to individual artists and organizations, providing time and space for artists and activists at its retreat center, sharing information, and building alliances.
The Kentucky Foundation for Women is a 501(c)3 private, independent foundation that was established in 1985 by author Sallie Bingham
Sallie Bingham
Sallie Bingham is an American author, playwright, poet, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.Sallie Bingham’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961. It was followed by four collections of short stories; her latest, published by Sarabande Books in October 2011, is titled...
of Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. At the time, Ms. Bingham’s philanthropic gift of $10 million was the largest endowment to any women’s fund in the United States. The mission of the Kentucky Foundation for Women is “to promote positive social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
by supporting varied feminist expression in the arts.”
The foundation funds two grant programs annually, they are Artist Enrichment and Arts Meets Activism. Both grant programs are artist-centered, feminist in nature, and demonstrate high artistic quality. Applicants to both programs are expected to be able to express their commitment to feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and their understanding of the relationship between art and social change.
Grant awards range from $1,000 to $7,500 per project. Social change, as defined by the foundation, includes “eliminating societal barriers to women: neutralizing discrimination against women based on age, ethnicity, sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, physical ability, economic condition, and geographic origin; and producing actions, conditions, policies, attitudes, and behaviors that benefit women.”
Between 1985 and 2005 the Kentucky Foundation for Women awarded 1298 grants to individuals and organizations totaling $7,140,831.
Hopscotch House is a program of the Kentucky Foundation for Women; it is first and foremost an artist retreat center for feminist artists. It is also used by a variety of groups and organizations that are working to better the lives of women and girls in Kentucky.Hopscotch House was purchased by the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 1987 and was first used by a group of women writers known as the Wolf Pen Writer’s Colony. In the early 1990s Hopscotch House became available to other women artists
Women artists
Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
and women’s groups. Over the years, Hopscotch House has served hundreds of women including artists, activists, feminists, eco-feminists, art critique groups, drumming circles, quilting groups, social justice groups, girls’ empowerment groups, arts organizations, and social service
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
organizations.
The property is considered a "classic" Kentucky farmstead and is located 13 miles east of downtown Louisville
Downtown Louisville
Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jacob Streets to the south, and 9th Street to the west...
. The house has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a library of women’s literature and reference work
Reference work
A reference work is a compendium of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed. Reference works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end...
s, a large living room/dining area, a sun room, and a deck. The large kitchen is fully furnished and well equipped so that residents can prepare their own meals. Separate studio space for artists is available upon request.
Highlights of Other Foundation Activities and Support
The Kentucky Foundation for Women has provided financial gifts for special projects such as the National Sculpture Conference: Works by Women held in Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
in 1987. The conference honored American women sculptors ages 67–88. The honorees were: Selma Burke
Selma Burke
Selma Hortense Burke was an American sculptor.Born in Mooresville, North Carolina to a farming family, she demonstrated an early interest in art. Her parents insisted she study a more marketable profession, and she graduated from the St. Agnes Training School for Nurses in Raleigh in 1924...
, Elizabeth Catlett
Elizabeth Catlett
Elizabeth Catlett Mora is an African-American sculptor and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged....
, Clyde Connell, Dorothy Dehner
Dorothy Dehner
-Biography:She grew up in Cleveland.In 1918, she took classes at the Pasadena Playhouse, and studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.In 1922, she moved to New York City, and studied at the Art Students League....
, Louise Bourgeoishttp://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/bourgeois/index.html, Claire Falkenstein
Claire Falkenstein
Claire Falkenstein was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures.-Early life and education:...
, Sue Fuller, Louise Nevelson and Claire Zeisler
Claire Zeisler
Claire Zeisler was a noted American fiber artist who expanded the expressive qualities of knotted and braided threads....
.
The Hot Flash Fan, purchased by the foundation, was a collaborative project completed by more than 50 artists. “The project is a fan incorporating needlework, knotting, quilting, and painting in an expression of feelings associated with menopause.” Lead artists for the project were: Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator.Chicago has been creating artwork since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into the art world coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance...
, facilitator; Ann Stewart Anderson, originator and principal coordinating artist; Ada O’Connor, principal embroidery artist/coordinator; Judith Myers, quilting coordinator. The Hot Flash Fan was on display at the Water Tower
Water tower
A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....
, home of the Louisville Visual Art Association
Art association
An art association is an association for artists and others interested in art, typically visual art.- Examples :* * * * * *...
, before being added to the Foundation’s permanent collection.
The Kentucky Foundation for Women published 50 issues of the literary journal
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
The American Voice, which featured international and Kentucky writers. The editor of the Pan-American journal was Frederick Smock and was published trianually from 1986 to 1999. During that time The American Voice published two stories that were awarded the Pushcart Prize
Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....
that honors the best poetry, short fiction
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, and essays published in the small presses. It was a feminist publication that was known for featuring works by well-known authors such as Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
, Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
, and Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price
Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...
alongside Kentuckians Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
, James Still
James Still
James Still was an American poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky...
, and Sena Jeter Naslund. The journal also nurtured the work of less established, home-grown talent and published early work by the award-winning poet Aleda Shirley, novelist Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...
, playwright Naomi Wallace
Naomi Wallace
Naomi Wallace is a playwright, screenwriter and poet from Prospect, Kentucky, United States.-Life:Wallace obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College and did graduate studies at the University of Iowa....
, and children’s author George Ella Lyon.
The Sallie Bingham Award was established in 1996 to recognize individuals and groups who have made outstanding contributions toward changing the lives of Kentucky women through feminist expression in the arts. Recipients are given a $500 cash award, a gold-plated
Gold plating
Gold plating is a method of depositing a thin layer of gold onto the surface of another metal, most often copper or silver , by chemical or electrochemical plating...
Ginko pin and plaque. The award is announced at KFW Day, an annual celebration held each fall at Hopscotch House.
Past Recipients:
Mary Jefferson, author
Alma Lesch, textile artist
Ann Stewart Anderson, visual artist
Laverne Zabielski, author
Nana Yaa Asantewaa
Yaa Asantewaa
Yaa Asantewaa was appointed queen mother of Ejisu of the Ashanti Empire—now part of modern-day Ghana—by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Okpese, the Ejisuhene "ruler of Ejisu"...
, storyteller
Pat Buster, poet and longtime KFW staff member
Lorna Littleway, theatre artist
Kentucky Feminist Writers Series, Elizabeth Oakes and Jane Olmsted, editors
Kentucky Women Writers Conference
Judy Sizemore, poet
Carridder Jones, author
Gail Burrus Martin, activist and KFW board member
External links
- Sallie BinghamSallie BinghamSallie Bingham is an American author, playwright, poet, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.Sallie Bingham’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961. It was followed by four collections of short stories; her latest, published by Sarabande Books in October 2011, is titled...
Collection at Duke Universityhttp://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/bingham - Women’s Funding Network http://www.wfnet.org
- Pushcart Prize http://www.pushcartprize.com
- Arts Across Kentucky Magazine http://www.artsacrossky.com
- National Museum of Women in the ArtsNational Museum of Women in the ArtsThe National Museum of Women in the Arts , located in Washington, D.C. is the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay...
http://www.nmwa.org - Feminist Art Project at Rutgers Universityhttp://feministartproject.rutgers.edu
- “Feminist Synergy: Kentucky Foundation for Women Celebrates 20 Years” by Molly Cunningham, LEO Weekly, 2005http://www.leoweekly.com/?q=node/969
- Alliance of Artists Communities http://www.artistcommunities.org
- “Raising Women’s Voices” edited by Caitlin Stokosch, Alliance of Artists Communities Newsletter, September 2005http://www.artistcommunities.org/RaisingWomensVoices.pdf