Dear Women… it’s all happening at GoMA!

This week is particularly exciting for us at GWL. Not only is Friday 8th March International Women’s Day, it’s also the launch of our fantastic Dear Women… Illuminated Letters project in partnership with the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow.

It all started when GoMA received a very generous donation of not only art works by Niki de St Phalle, but archive materials too.

I’d never heard of Niki before, but when I googled her and saw some of her Nana sculptures I loved the playfulness, the female sensibility and the striking use of colour. You can find out more about Niki de St Phalle here. But don’t go yet! I’ve still to tell you about our Dear Women…Illuminated Letters project.

THE INSPIRATION

Amongst the archive materials now to be stored at GoMA, were many of Niki’s letters. And Niki was a most unusual letter writer. Not only did she hand-write, she also drew and doodled. With the most startling results. But her unusual approach to letter-writing didn’t stop there. Like most of us, Niki often wrote to friends and family, but she also created letters to people who were dead.

HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED

Inspired by Niki’s creative and original approach to letter writing, we’re launching the ‘Dear Women… Illuminated Letters’ project on International Women’s Day. We’re holding a drop-in workshop where we’ll provide paper, pens, stickers and decorative stamps as well as hands-on help from artists and writers to help you create your very own illuminated letter.

The idea is that you write and illustrate a letter to a woman from the past who’s inspired you. And we’d especially like you to choose someone who lives on in the archive or on the shelves at Glasgow Women’s Library. Perhaps a suffragette or a union worker from the last century… an artist or a poet… an intrepid explorer or an academic?

You may want to choose a mythical woman or a goddess remembered in the spirituality books on our shelves.

(A little inside info here – I have it on good authority that our librarian, Wendy, has chosen the first female parachutist. Way to go, Wendy!)

Now, obviously if you can make it along to our launch event at GoMA on Queen Street on Friday – any time between 12.30 and 3.30pm – that would be great. But don’t despair if you’re at work or child-minding or not even anywhere near Glasgow. You can still be part of our project. All you need to do is write a letter – or card – to a woman from the past who’s inspired you, then pop it in the post to us at our new address:

Glasgow Women’s Library, 23 Landressy Street, Glasgow G40 1BP

We’ll be reading every single letter that comes in, and we’re planning an exhibition once we’re settled in our new home. Wouldn’t it be great if your letters came in from all over the world?

So what are you waiting for? Be inspired by Niki de St Phalle and get out the gel pens, glue and glitter and go crazy! Or, if you’re more of a traditional fountain-pen-kinda-gal, get your nib polished and sharpened and that ink a-flowing.

We await your letters!Whatever you do will not only be great and appreciated, it will be an original contribution to the way we record and celebrate the lives of women from all walks of life at Glasgow Women’s Library.

Magi 

ps Well-spotted! That’s not the REAL Women’s Library building in Landressy Street. Those aren’t HUGE postcards. Just thought you might like to see the model of the building we’re moving to. It was originally a Carnegie library – complete with a Men’s Reading Room. Ah, as John Knox would have it, “the onward march of  the monstrous regiment of women…”

pps It’s okay to hand your letters in at GWL in Berkeley Street. You can come in any time and browse the shelves, or take a look at our 100 Inspirational Women cards to help you decide on who to write to. We have letter-writing materials available at the library too.

ppps Want to to receive an email letting you know when there’s a new post? Then subscribe  by email here. Or get notification  in your RSS reader of choice here. Please share with friends too!