Women's Summit, Las Vegas Sun, March 9, 1998

‘Women’s Summit ‘98’ at UNLV Lisa Ferguson Monday, March 9, 1998 | 8:50 a.m. Georgia Ames didn't go searching for a photographic subject. But that's what she found while wandering around a New York University neighborhood. Posted on a utility box was a handmade, black-and-white photocopied poster of a muscle shirt-wearing male situated atop the hood of a car. His identity was reveled in block lettering: "He is an all-American. He is a rapist." "It struck me (as) propaganda that he was a date rapist, that this was such a common crime," Ames, a Henderson homemaker, recalls. "I didn't really know what it was all about, but it was pretty intriguing and (rape is) not an uncommon thing to happen to women, so I captured (the poster) on film." Her black-and-white photo, aptly titled "All American," is one of 14 artistic works created by Nevada women that are on display beginning today at the Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV. The exhibit, "Nevada Women: Living the Legacy ... Leading for Change," runs through April 9. It is being presented in conjunction with "Women's Summit '98," a two-day conference on March 20 and 21, hosted by the Nevada Women's Lobby and the Nevada Women's History Project. Of the 28 female artists from around the state who submitted pieces -- themed around women's issues or the 150th anniversary of the women's rights movement -- 10 were selected to have theirs exhibited. A pair of artists will be awarded cash prizes at a reception during the summit. A duty of motherhood is displayed in Las Vegan Susanne Forestieri's oil painting, "Pickup Truck," which was inspired by a nurturing moment between her daughter-in-law and young grandson. "She's kind of being solicitous to her little boy, leaning over either telling him something or helping him. It almost has a Madonna-like look, but in that incongruous setting," with a pickup truck in the background, says Forestieri, a painter for three decades, whose work was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1996. Roberta Shefrin, a longtime sculptor who teaches at the Las Vegas Art Museum, interprets her bronze sculpture of a female body, called "Woman," this way: "The woman that was just one degree above the indentured slave 150 years ago has emerged into a free human being equal to that of her male counterpart. "It has a sensual quality, too ... which also shows her sexual freedom," says Shefrin, a Henderson resident who has exhibited internationally and won numerous awards for her work, all of which depict women. "The reason being that I understand women, naturally. I'm really more interested in her soul and her spirit and her inner turmoils and feelings." Meanwhile, Mari Waits' watercolor and pen-and-ink piece, "Box of Memories," depicts the differences -- or lack thereof -- between an "old-fashioned" lady and a modern woman. "It's a surreal piece," explains Waits, a Clark County School District special programs employee, whose work has been exhibited locally at the Left of Center gallery. The two women in "Box of Memories" are separated by a chain of daisies which, she says, symbolizes "a lot of handed-down traditions and concepts and how you need to break the mold." The art exhibit is new to the Women's Summit, which first convened in 1996. (Last year, a "grass-roots lobbying" conference was held in Carson City.) This year's summit, titled "Women's Empowerment and Economic Independence: Celebrating 150 Years of Women's Rights 1848-1998," (which is open to the public for a fee) is expected to draw some 400 to 500 women. They will converge on UNLV to attend lectures and workshops presented by dozens of professional women (and men), representatives of state and national programs and organizations including the Ms. Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the American Association of University Women. "We try to get a handle on what's going to be of interest to women each year," explains Bobbie Gang, a lobbyist with the Nevada Women's Lobby and an organizer of the summit. Based on national studies and reports, she says, economics and independence rank high on women's list of concerns. "Their security, not only in their jobs, but also in their health and retirement ... these are issues that women are getting much more involved with," she says. So are child care, juggling work and family and breaking through the corporate ceiling, says Dr. Joyce Goodwin, a UNLV history professor who specializes in United States women's history. She will also speak at the summit. "If you sit and talk with women long enough ... you'll find that there are certain topics that come up for women who are in a position of supporting themselves and their families, and earning enough to do so continues to be an issue," Goodwin says. Women with young children also comprise the bulk of those who seek welfare. "While you may not think you would ever be on public assistance ... an accident, a loss of health insurance, an ugly divorce (can) put women in that situation who never though they would be," she says. It's no coincidence that the summit is being held in March, which has been designated National Women's History Month. "I think we learn from learning about our history and the women who came before us," says Jean Ford, who founded the Nevada Women's History Project in Reno in 1994. Ford, a former Nevada state senator (1978-82), spent five years leading a history course -- about the role women played on Nevada's frontier and continue to have in the state's rural counties -- at the University of Nevada, Reno, which was met with a favorable response. Upon recognizing that available archives contained "fewer women that we could research than I had in the class," Ford and her students took it upon themselves to start the Nevada Women's Archives now available at both UNR and UNLV. "Most of all, we wanted to get this information into the schools. We began to realize how little teachers had to work with," she says. The history project was soon formed and joined by numerous individuals and organizations, including the Girl Scouts and Las Vegas' chapter of the Mesquite Club, one of the oldest women's groups in Nevada. The project has spent the past three years hosting oral history and research workshops and cultural history tours throughout the Silver State. "We're really wanting lots of people to learn how to do oral histories," Ford says, "and then (for them) to go do them so that people's stories are preserved." That's the intent of "To Our Children's Children," a book co-authored by syndicated columnist Bob Greene and his sister, former Los Angeles Daily News columnist D.G. Fulford, who now resides in Virginia City. The book, which is in its 31st printing, asks evocative questions "that bring the memories that make telling a family history as easy as writing a letter," says Fulford, who will present a workshop titled "Let's Talk About Our Grandmothers" at the summit, the same as she did at the last one. "Sure enough, the room just started popping with stories people hadn't realized they remembered," she says. "We call it the softer side of genealogy. What we are telling people is that this is what makes history and this is what makes your history." Ford has devoted much of her research to the women of Northern Nevada's Comstock mining community of the late 1800s, many of whom helped build that community, she says. During the Victorian era, "in which women were pretty much expected to stay in the home and carry out those kinds of roles. But (these) women found they couldn't do that," she says. "If they were going to be the keeper of morality for their children ... they needed to see that the schools functioned well and that there were libraries, so women got involved in those endeavors as well." Says Goodwin: "I think any historian will tell you that while history doesn't predict the future, it certainly gives you a larger handle on it. "To look back on women's history, to simply assume that (progress) happened out of the good nature of human kindness, would really be missing a lot of the political history of the United States." archive