New York’s Pen and Brush Announces Relaunch
New York, NY, September 2014—Pen and Brush, the venerable 120-year old arts organization announces a relaunch of its historic mission to create a platform for women in the visual and literary arts. With a redesigned website, fresh programming initiatives and a brand new exhibition space and headquarters coming this winter, Pen and Brush is committed to providing a platform for the excellent work of talented women artists and writers.
Beginning now, Pen and Brush will accept visual art and literary work on a rolling basis, through its new and improved website, which will serve as an online hub for writers, artists and influencers. Later this year, the organization will unveil its state of-the-art, 5,500 square foot facility in New York’s Flatiron District, at 29 East 22nd Street.
As part of its programming overhaul, the Pen and Brush executive team surveyed the evolving art and literary landscapes to adapt best practices from curatorial and publishing models. The result is a vetting system that offers curators the chance to select work each believes has merit and is deserving of exposure. With this new approach, Pen and Brush will create a renewing supply of quality work and establish a pipeline to the marketplace for emerging women artists and writers.
This year, Pen and Brush will work alongside a distinguished and diverse group of visual and literary arts curators, including:
- Marla Prather (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- Rick Kinsel (The Vilcek Foundation)
- Kelly Kivland (Dia Art Foundation)
- Marcroy Smith (Independent Curator, graphic designer, illustrator and printmaker)
- Joni Evans (wowOwow.com, formerly of Simon & Schuster and Random House)
- Christina Granados (Soapbox Poets L.A. and Sundance Institute Documentary Fund)
- Kate Angus (Augury Books)
- Lindsay Edgecombe (Levine Greenberg Literary Agency).
These individuals not only support the Pen and Brush mission of advocating for gender parity in the arts, but their participation will also help move Pen and Brush’s writers and artists toward greater access and visibility in the worlds of art and literature.
Janice Sands, Executive Director, observes, “For the past three years—since we transitioned from our former headquarters in Greenwich Village—we’ve been laying the foundation that will take Pen and Brush into the next century and beyond. We are thrilled to announce our relaunch initiatives - website, logo, programming and of course, the new space - all, most importantly, with a renewed focus on advocacy, mentoring, and the presentation of high-quality, professional work by female artists and writers.”
Pen and Brush will open its new space later this year to accommodate the presentation of exceptional work by women to collectors, curators, editors, agents, publishers, and the public—in a way that it has never done before. These exhibitions, publications, readings and events will reflect the diversity of content and media found in the work of women artists and writers—and will debunk the notion that there simply aren't enough women consistently producing professional, compelling work.
Sands adds, “We recognize that gender-based inequality in the arts has a much larger historic societal context. But we also recognize that by concentrating our resources within our sphere of influence, Pen and Brush has the greatest chance of effecting real change for women in the arts.
To learn more about Pen and Brush, upcoming initiatives and the state of women in the arts, please visit http://www.penandbrush.org/.
