Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD) is non-profit arts organization focused on environmental and social justice art by female identified artists and researchers.

History

WEAD (originally called Women Environmental Artists Directory) was founded in 1996 by

Jo Hanson Jo Hanson (1918–2007) was an American environmental artist and activist. She lived in San Francisco, California. She was known for using urban trash to create works of art. Biography Jo Hanson was born on August 1, 1918, in Carbondale, Illi ...

, Estelle Akamine, and Susan Leibovitz Steinman as a printed reference directory for entities interested in finding artists working with environmental issues. Currently the directory takes form as a website with member-managed portfolios. The directory lists a wide variety of activist feminist artists, such as

Agnes Denes Agnes Denes (Dénes Ágnes; born 1931 in Budapest) is a Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York. She is known for works in a wide range of media—from poetry and philosophical writings to extremely detailed drawings, sculpt ...

; Mierle Ukeles;

Betsy Damon Betsy Damon (born 1940) is an American artist whose work has been influenced by her activism in women's, gay, and environmental rights. Early life and Family Damon was born in 1940 to George Huntington Damon and Harriet Atkins. Damon is an aun ...

;

Jackie Brookner Jackie Brookner (1945 – May 15, 2015) was an ecological artist, writer, and educator. She worked with ecologists, design professionals, engineers, communities, and policy-makers on water remediation/public art projects for parks, wetlands, river ...

;

Marina DeBris Marina DeBris is the name used by an Australian-based artist whose work focuses on reusing trash to raise awareness of ocean and beach pollution. DeBris uses trash washed up from the beach to create trashion, 'fish tanks', decorative art and o ...

, a

trashion Trashion (a portmanteau of ''trash'' and ''fashion'') is a term for art, jewellery, fashion and objects for the home created from used, thrown-out, found and repurposed elements. The term was first coined in New Zealand in 2004 and gained in usag ...

artist;

Betty Beaumont Betty Beaumont (born January 8, 1946) is a Canadian-American site-specific and conceptual installation artist, sculptor, and photographer. She is an internationally recognized artist known to explore cross-disciplinary media, interweaving the e ...

, often called a pioneer of environmental art;

Judith Selby Lang Judith Selby Lang is an American artist and environmental activist working with found beach plastic. Selby Lang is known for sourcing beach plastic from a single site: 1000 yards of Kehoe Beach along the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern Cal ...

; Robin Lasser; and Shai Zakai. WEAD has been listed among the best projects relating to

environmental art Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example ...

, and has sponsored a number of exhibits about activist eco art. Co-founder

was instrumental in founding the San Francisco Recology Artist in Residence Program, located at the San Francisco dump. The WEAD co-founders were featured in a discussion about women artists of the American West whose art was about current social concerns.

Publications

WEAD publishes an annual environmental and social justice magazine which focuses on such topics as dirty water and the legacy of atomic energy. Guest editors have included: Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty, founder of ''Wholly H2O'', and speaker at events such as

Pacific Gas and Electric Company The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...

conference on

water conservation Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, to protect the hydrosphere, and to meet the current and future human demand (thus avoiding water scarcity). Populati ...

and

Tuolumne County Tuolumne County (), officially the County of Tuolumne, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 55,620. The county seat and only incorporated city is Sonora. Tuolumne County comprises the ...

's conference on

greywater Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater from ...

; and Dr. Praba Pilar. Notable magazine contributors and featured artists include

Mildred Howard Mildred Howard (born 1945) is an African-American artist known primarily for her sculptural installation and mixed-media assemblages.Baker, Kenneth"Artist Intrigued by Interaction of Materials, Ability to Revise at Will", ''San Francisco Chronicl ...

and

Linda Weintraub Linda Weintraub is an American art writer, educator and curator. She has written several books on contemporary art. Her most recent works address environmental consciousness that defines the ways cultures approach art, science, ethics, philosop ...

, the author of well known books on art and activism such as ''To Life!.''

References

{{reflist

External links

Recology Artist ResidencyOfficial Website
Arts organizations established in 1996 501(c)(3) organizations Arts organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Directories Environmental art Women artists 1996 establishments in California History of women in California