Experience MICA

Mothers Institute for Collaboration and Art, MICA, brings Artistic Mothers to the front of the line. MICA hosts pop-up multi-artistic performances spotlighting artistic mothers combining creativity, innovation, and sustainability. 

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MICA: where M/otherhood and Artistry Unite 🎨 Calling all m/other artists! Submit your proposal for the next MICAfest by January 31! 🎭Mothers Institute for Collaboration and Art (MICA) is celebrating m/other artists with their 2024 festival MICAfest Art for Change: The M/others' View, a city-wide, month-long celebration of diverse m/otherhood experiences in Northampton, MA, this May! Push boundaries, challenge perspectives, ignite conversations. We seek visual artists, performers (dance, music, theatre), writers, and storytellers who dare to explore the many facets of m/otherhood through unique artistic visions. Showcase your work: Opportunities include performances, exhibitions, and Arts Night Out events at renowned venues like Anchor House of Artists, Northampton Center for the Arts, and First Churches of Northampton!Cracks in the porcelain cradle: Share art that shatters stereotypes and dives into the raw, the real, and the unspoken. 🌈 Illuminate the spectrum: single, chosen, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and beyond.📅  Submit your proposal by January 31st and let your artistic voice spark change. Learn more and submit: http://experiencemica.org/micafest-2024-art-submissions/ Follow ExperienceMICA on Facebook ExperienceMICA on Instagram

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Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!! Scratch that-oh, mom, oh, mom, oh, mom. The festival is 26 days away!!! The tickets are ready to be bought! This is going to be such an amazing event. Let's get bodies on the floor! Support the arts, support women in the arts, support mothers in the arts. Support MICA!!! Share with your friends and networks. Share far and wide! Want to help? We are definitely looking for volunteers, donations, and sponsors! Help a mom out here. You guys are amazing, these women are amazing, the artists are amazing, the performers are amazing, and the supporters are amazing. Have an amazing day. Hooray, hurrah, huzzah! https://www.instagram.com/p/CjN7xLoLHsT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Dancers! We are looking for you! MICA’s Artistic Mothers festival is shaping up to be a killer event, but we would love to get a couple more #danceperformances. Where are you at? Have we not found you yet? What’s your #dance genre? MICA is for all artistic mothers. Are you a #choreographer? Do you dance or have a dance group? Do you already have a dance put together? We have #dancers coming in from outside of #WesternMass, so where are our local dancers? We know there are choreographers who are mothers around here! So, where are you? Show the world your talents. We are finalizing our performance schedule, so we want to squeeze you in, but you have to apply now. #MICA has the venue @nohoarts we’ll publicize, and get the word out about you! We are paying $100 per person in your group up to $500. Apply now at https://experiencemica.org/art-submission-form/ (or links in our bio in IG). #holyokema #springfieldma #dancemoms #artistmothernetwork #massachusetts #pioneervalley #experiencemica (at Northampton, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChsJ7-0Odqm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Some of you have been very patient with us while you awaited our email. If you filled out the form we should have replied to you by now. If you didn’t get an email, then email us at [email protected]. Thank you to everyone you applied. #motherarts #experiencemica #artfestival (at Northampton, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChNQnsJLmBo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Well, Sunday is nearly over, and so here is our MICA Meme coming to you on the tail end of Sunday.

British artist Sarah Lucas is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her use of eggs in her art has been a recurring theme from her 1996 “Self-Portrait with Fried Eggs” to her recent 1000 Eggs for Women. Her art is provocative with critical and risqué humor. Sarah Lucas was born in London, England, in 1962.

So, if self-portraits are our Sunday theme, then who are we missing? Think, women, right? #micamemes #femaleartists #femmephotographer https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg-0qGHMsR2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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#motherartists we want to hear from you. Tonight is the last night to submit for our #artsfestival in #northamptonma . This is for all you #creativemothers to show us your #motherart signup at #experiencemica .org submissions are due tonight! #westernma #pioneervalley #pioneervalleyartists (at Northampton, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgvSV8KsFev/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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French artist Suzanne Valadon, started her career as a model, modeling for artists such as Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. She lived a bohemian life with rebellious vision. As a lover of Toulouse-Lautrec, he nicknamed her Suzanne (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon). La chambre bleue is an oil on canvas painting from 1923. Housed in Musée National d'Art Moderne, it has been called a radical subversion of the traditional female nude in art. Contrasting the tradional depiction of the nude, idealized female form, she portrays a relaxed Valadon wearing casual loungewear; relatable, and on women’s terms, not as an object of men. Valadon began working as a model in 1880 in Montmartre at age 15. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo, who she gave birth to at 18 years old. She became a full-time painter in 1896 after her marriage to stockbroker Paul Mousis. After her marriage to the well-to-do banker Paul Mousis, in 1896 Valadon became a full-time painter, they divorced in 1913, and she married painter André Utter, a 23-year-old friend of her son in 1914. Utter went on to become manager to both Valadon and her son. #experiencemica #femalepainters #motherpainter #motherartist #hampsihirecounty #womeninthearts https://www.instagram.com/p/CgsNvAWP7su/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Normal? What’s that. #creativemom #artistmom #artistmomlife https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgc2YN8v7F2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Georgette Chen(1906-1993) was an essential figure in the development of modern art in Singapore. She was born in Zhejiang, China, and studied in Paris and New York. Chen lived through local and global conflicts, including the Chinese Revolutions of 1911 and 1949, and World War I and II. She settled in Singapore in 1953 where she taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts for nearly three decades. Georgette Chen’s influence on pop culture. In 2007, playwright Ng Yi-Sheng's musical Georgette was staged by Musical Theatre Ltd. In 2014, National Gallery Singapore published Eisner-nominated comic artist Sonny Liew's graphic novel, Warm Nights Deathless Days: The Life of Georgette Chen. Commissioned by the National Gallery Singapore, Channel NewsAsia produced a three-part docudrama, The Worlds of Georgette Chen, starring actress Rui En as Georgette Chen. On 1 November 2021, Chen would be celebrated in a Singapore and Malaysia-specific Google Doodle coinciding with the 91st anniversary of her first exhibition at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. Sources: https://www.nationalgallery.sg/georgettechen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgette_Chen #experiencemica #postimpressionist #femalepainters (at Northampton, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgZOPLZuV3A/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Yeah, go Artemisia, reading the rules in the 17th century. #strongwomen #probablyamom #artistmothers #micamoms #femalepainter (at Hartford, Connecticut) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgJ8XZqMplL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Marie-Gabrielle Capet, born in Lyon in 1761, she became the pupil and close friend of the French painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard in Paris in 1781 . Before Until the French Revolution, the Royal Academy of Art in Paris only allowed four female students at a time. Many of her miniature portraits are housed in Le Louvre. Among them is portraits of Madame Martin de Lesseps, Madame Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI, and Mademoiselle Mars. We love the blue ribbon in her self portrait here. #femalepainters #micamemes MICA is all about #artistmothers #femaleentrepreneurs Source. Wikipedia https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf2K7IILGkW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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What are Friday night’s like in your house? #micamoms #experiencemica #artistmomlife #artistmom https://www.instagram.com/p/CfxIx5nPQJF/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Theatre History Thursday. Better late than never. There’s a journal entry in The William and Mary Quarterly from July 1948 by Robert H Land called The First Wlliamsburg Theatre. Well, early American theatre did not take off as quickly as 18th century Europe. Have you been to Colonial Williamsburg? It was a favorite place to visit when the firstborn was younger. It would be cool to see if there’s any sign of it now. So, there you have it, Thursdays over in most of the world, but it’s 11pm here on the east coast. #theatrehistory #theatrehistorythursday #theatrewomen #femaleplaywrights #raisetheroof it’s #artistmothernetwork https://www.instagram.com/p/CfvDoirMe8m/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Martha Graham was deemed the “Dancer of the Century” by Time Magazine and one of the female “Icons of the 20th Century” by People magazine. Among her plentiful awards were The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. Graham was among the most influential artists of the 20th century in company with Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Her 1936 ballet “Horizons” was composed by Louis Horst with Alexander Calder as the set designer. In the ballet, Calder’s mobiles were attached to the dancer’s bodies. Graham was a prolific choreographer, creating 181 ballets. Her impact on dance is astounding and has revolutionized the art forms of dance and theatre. Source: marthagraham.og #innovativewomen #influeceondance #avantgarde #femaleartists Martha Graham was deemed the “Dancer of the Century” by Time Magazine and one of the female “Icons of the 20th Century” by People magazine. Among her awards were The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. Graham was among the most influential artists of the 20th century in company with Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Her impact on dance is astounding and has revolutionized the art forms of dance and theatre. Source: marthagraham.og https://www.instagram.com/p/CflzJaPu4CU/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Lois Mailou Jones had a long career starting out as a textile designer for Boston and New York design firms. She felt frustrated by the anonymity of textile design, “[O]nly the name of the design printed on the borders of the fabric was known, never the name of the artist who created it. That bothered me because I was doing all this work, but not getting any recognition.” She then turned to painting, signing every piece of work. In 1930, she joined the art department at Howard University where she taught generations of African American artists. In 1970 she became the cultural ambassador to Africa for the United States Information Agency. (source: National Museum of Women in the Arts) #blackfemalepainter #womeninthearts #femalearthistory https://www.instagram.com/p/CfjMY8vuXJ0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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July? Where is the time going? Thank you to those of you who have filled out the submission form. If you emailed us but didn’t fill out the form, please do! We have one playwright who is looking for actors. So if you can be at @nohocenterforthearts for the festival, definitely drop us a line. #northamptonartists #northamptonnights #westernma (at Northampton, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfhwDAAPxpn/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Amrita Sher-Gil’s painting Self-Portrait as Tahitian (1934) is apparently responding to Paul Gauguin's stylization of the female nude. The artist, a part-Indian, part- Hungarian painter, moved from Hungary to Paris at the age of 16 to attend Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts. #westernmassartorganization #micamemes #femaleartists #motherarts https://www.instagram.com/p/CfRXcClNCoR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=