A recollection by Frances Hodges Carson, one of the founders of FLWAA

Florida Women’s Arts Association (FLWAA) is an outgrowth of The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), incorporated in November 1981 as a private, nonprofit museum. The NMWA is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women through the arts. Initially operating from the home of the founders, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay and Wallace F. Holladay, the museum purchased its building at 1250 New York Avenue in April 1983 with the inaugural exhibition American Women Artists, 1830–1930, curated by one of the country’s foremost feminist art historians, Dr. Eleanor Tufts.

I joined the NMWA as a Charter Member in 1982. It was clear that this was a serious enterprise that was going to be necessary for women artists around the World. I wanted to be a part of it. 

In April 1987, NMWA opened its doors at New York and I Streets 6 blocks from the Washington Mall and the White House. That Autumn, I did my senior thesis research on 20 women artists between about 1885 and 1985. None were artists represented in any museums I’d ever been to visit. At that time, I could only name 4 or 5 women artists with a piece or two anywhere in this country or Europe, and I’d been to a fair number. The most well-known were Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Katje Kollwitz, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

As stated on their webpage, “The idea for the museum grew from a simple, obvious, but rarely asked the question: “Where are all the women artists?” With this concept in mind, the Holladay’s committed themselves to build a collection of art by women, including the various racial and ethnic groups so sadly underrepresented. I believe the first US exhibition featuring Frida Kahlo was at the NMWA. 

Naturally, I and many others were thrilled the day in 2001 when we received invitations to join the nascent Florida Chapter of the NMWA. My dues were back in the mail within minutes.

The founding Board of Directors were Anna Schrieffer, Jean von Molnar, Jesse Lovano- Kerr, Sandra H. Sole, and Joan West as officers in July 1999 who ran the Florida State membership from Tallahassee.

 Locally, between 2001 and 2010, we met monthly at the Artisan Hotel and Restaurant, owned and run by Chris Soti and her husband at S. Woodland & Howry. Our regional leaders were Sylvia Cashion Saul and Sheila Blow, with the assistance of Mary Leone, the art coordinator. She worked tirelessly all the time to find venues. Banks, fundraisers, county buildings, businesses, galleries, rehab facilities, etc., all gave way to her lobbying for our benefit. She loved her work giving at least 2 or 3 hours a day to this project of getting women’s work out there from our region. When she scored another venue, the delight in her eyes was a joy.

 Sylvia recalls an unusual event when Peter Maxx came to a prestigious gallery in Winter Park where we were showing. She received a call that he had just landed and had decided he wanted to paint, but there was not a large enough easel. She shortly located one, and since two aviators were at her house, the required easel was delivered before the evening began. It was quite an exciting evening for all.

In 2004 the Florida State Chapter of the NMWA was honored with a show at the NMWA Museum in Washington DC which later toured Museums all around Florida. The State Board set all that up.

Sherrill Schonening was so generous with our members, and many were able to sell their art at her main street business in DeLand.

When we would have monthly dining, many would share their projects, ideas, or experiences in life and art.

Creative think tank regional members brought forth a full array of challenging ideas for our group. Alison Spiesman, Mindy Colton, Sharon Fithian, Brenda Star, Shelia Blow, Jennifer Kirton, Sandra Storm, Joan Baker, Marilyn Catlow, Mary McBride, and many more are to be named. The Florida Committee's goals were for patrons and artists to work together to support women's art being shown.

Ideas for traveling the world. Yolanda Vankoyet spoke many languages fluently, and entrepreneur Vincetta Ford. Those two were a dynamic duo for our group travels and travel opportunities. 

As a start-up in the early years’ state board meetings were held monthly in Tallahassee. Lunch and business up until about 5 pm. The regional leader was always expected to attend or someone as a designated substitute to vote when necessary.

Tammy Terry was our first and only treasurer. She brought a door we all signed to officially open Florida Women in the Arts at our first gathering at the Artisan.

Chuck Luther and Ron Freeman purchased and delivered the door to the Artisan for signing.  All Tallahassee Board arrived at the affair in a big white limo. It was so long and big that the limo driver had a big problem finding a place big and long enough to park it.

Annie Rebello, Ponce Inlet patron, was very generous in our region as we were starting up on a zero-emergency backup of cash. She collected many women's art pieces and was generous with NMWA. Of course, I could not say out loud about what she did in the early days. She could but chooses to be quiet about her help.

Alison Spiesman’s late husband was generous also and kept quiet about it.

Did I mention Mary McBride? Her art experiences and a vast resource of opportunities and contacts helped all of us in so many ways.

Our first name was the Florida Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Central Florida Region.

I am not sure when Sylvia learned that the restaurant in the historic Fish Building at the corner of New York Avenue and Woodland Boulevard was available. Still, she immediately saw it as a museum space for our group and set about getting it. She lobbied the City of DeLand to let us have the space. So many people were involved in the project, and we had wonderful plans. In 2008 the board in Tallahassee incorporated Museum of Art Angels, Inc., with Anna Schrieffer as President, Jean von Molnar, Jesse Lovano-Kerr, Sandra H. Sole, and Joan West listed as officers. The group's official name was changed to Florida Museum for Women Artists, Inc., on August 20. 2008. In 2008 Florida Museum for Women Artists was the only museum in the state of Florida and the southeast United States to provide art and other artistic disciplines exclusively by women artists. It included three galleries, a museum shop, a cafe, a meeting/lecture room, and a curatorial area. The original 7,000-square-foot museum was located on the second floor of the building,

In 2004 the Florida Chapter of the NMWA had a show in the museum.

While I and many others believed we would be opening an art facility more on the lines of the HUB in New Smyrna Beach with a combination of exhibition rooms and a teaching area with a library and small cafe where we could meet regularly, the founders above had a more ambitious program in mind. The museum exhibited contemporary art, collections, and traveling exhibits from quality institutions.

It is now the DeLand Museum of Art Downtown and is a fine museum. But although many of its exhibitions are by women, and it has the best-ever gift shop in what was formerly a haberdashery, it’s no longer dedicated to women artists. Neither a good nor bad thing, it turned out other than our original goals. Like much of life, eh?

Near the end of 2009, we decided to have a surprise party to thank Sylvia for her ten years of hard work. Her enthusiasm for our successes, individually and as a group, was unflagging. With Mary Leone's help, she kept us moving forward and growing.

We sent invitations to the board in Tallahassee and the other chapters around the state in hopes some of those people would come to honor Sylvia, too. Someone sent a copy of the invitation to the NMWA in DC, and all hell broke loose over my head. I got a blistering “Cease & Desist” using any mention of the NMWA in my correspondence.

There was NO SUCH GROUP as the Florida Chapter of the NMWA.

Naturally, I responded that I was sure there was, or at least had been, that we’d been in operation for a decade under the strong impression that we were a part of their organization and were acting in good faith.

Someone in Tallahassee had dropped the ball and forgotten to tell us. Part of the problem may have been that the NMWA required all chapter members to be museum members. In 2010 the museum dues were $60, and our dues were $25. We had a few members we comped because we felt it more important to encourage artists than to collect money if they couldn’t afford to pay.

After breaking with DC, we reorganized. Sheila Blow and I were asked to share the role of president. I lived only in Florida for six months (+ 1 day) each year. We were assisted by Sylvia and Mary Leone and Mary’s daughter-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Leone, as our treasurer.

We talked a lot the first year, before incorporation, about what to call ourselves. Some of the names were cute or funny—one, when Googled, connected to a cougar porn site.

OOPS!   Finally, I gave up on a consensus and picked the name we are still using because it described who we are and what we do, and we needed a name under which to file with the State of Florida and the IRS as a nonprofit.

I had a ton to learn about starting a business, and even though we are a non-profit, we are a business more than a club. I had to write By-Laws! OMG! What a pleasure that wasn’t. I don’t see them in the mounds of paperwork I borrowed back to refresh my memory, but they must still be lying somewhere. The most important parts I can remember, in my opinion, were the clauses that stated:

1. New Members who joined after the middle of the year were paid through the following year. I have always disliked joining a group in September and owing dues again in January. So unfair.

2. A quorum is 65% of everyone who cares enough to attend the meeting. If you don’t come, you don’t get to vote.

3. I think, I hope, there was a clause allowing for “scholarship privileges” for less well-off budding artists. I feel it is so necessary to support up-and-coming artists.

So, we incorporated August 18, 2011. We received our EIN from the IRS on September 16, 2011. We must annually file a 990-EZ e.postcard with the IRS to maintain our nonprofit status.

In 2011, our FLWAA Board included: Fran Carson, President; Sheila Blow, 1st Vice President; Sylvia Cashion Saul, 2nd Vice President; Aida McCuen, Recording Secretary; Pauline Kreitler, Corresponding Secretary; Mary Elizabeth Leone, Treasurer; Mary McBride, Curator Directors: Jennifer Myers Kirton & Diane Miller Deenya Sorensen; Advisor at Large, Mindy Colton.

Thanks to Mary Leone, we started meeting at the DeLand Conference and Business Center on East 15B (off of SR92) after the Artisan Hotel and Restaurant on S. Woodland Blvd. changed hands about 2008 or 2009. There was a large banquet room for our meetings and lots of wall space where we could hang monthly shows. We showed up often and everywhere we could. Later we met at the Clarion Hotel on International Speedway Blvd. in DeLand. I think the hotel has since been repurposed into a senior living home.

I served from 2010 to January 2014, when Giselle Long became President. Her officers were Treasurer Helen Benet. Carol Thornton and I served as secretaries. Babs Lapoli was vice president. Jill took us to Tomoka State Park for our First Plein Art weekend Art Party, including a potluck dinner.

That was the same year we participated at the DeLeon Springs “Annual Art Among the Trees.” Trish Vevera and Helen Bennet ran the Kids’ Zone,” and Jill Long and I set up her tent nearby with art displayed to promote our group. A fun day for all except for the very cute but nasty stinging caterpillars. Ugh! Some of us did it again in 2016 without our tent and me. One thought of hairy creepers was all I wanted to deal with.

We had our first show at the Art League of Daytona Beach in 2014 and our second in 2017. The 2017 show was juried by Carolyn Land. Yours truly placed very well, but I wouldn’t say I like to boast. Marianne Verna was president by then.

Marilyn Masters served as President after Jill’s two years, followed by Marianne Verna, Kathleen Pruett, Barbara Scapin-Forrester, and Lillian (LC) Tobey.

Mary McBride worked as a curator for most of the years I was involved and hung our work in the Peabody Auditorium Rose Room more times than I can count. Not only did she have individual members’ shows, but she also did group shows and stuck us in whenever a planned artist bailed out on her.

Pauline Kreitler got us a show at Gateway Center for the Arts in Deltona. Trish Vevera got us shows in Flagler Beach and rescued me from editing the newsletter I started in the mid-2000s.

Sharon Fithian, Pat Spano, and Barbara Ann Marshall deserve special mention for all the help they have been to support our cause.

Jill Long launched our first webpage at GoDaddy in 2014. We also bought a pop-up tent, and Jill and I designed and sewed hanging sides for it. Sadly, it blew away while on loan to a member during a quick but very strong storm a couple of years later.

In 2015 Joan Baliker and Carol Bertrand constructed a Labyrinth for Peace at Central Park on Hammock Lane in Ormond Beach.

Our meetings alternated between DeLand and Ormond Beach for a couple of years. It was a little tedious for everyone, and we finally found a temporary home at Stonewood Grill on A1A in Ormond Beach for our meetings. Last year the room got too small for us, so we hope we have found a new home at the newly refurbished Ormond Memorial Art Museum on Granada. It’s beautiful, and I am thrilled for our members.

Looking through the minutes after the years when I was active with the FLWAA, there is so much our successive presidents and boards have accomplished. I am humbled but so proud of everything they have accomplished. Our membership is growing bigger every year with more and more wonderfully skilled artists. I am so happy to have been a part of the endeavor. I hope FLWAA will endure many more years and become an essential part of our arts community.

Submitted with my love and best hopes,

Frances Hodges Carson