SWAMPSCOTT — ReachArts, an “artistic hub” in town, is celebrating International Women’s Day this week with events that commemorate “the cultural achievements of the many women artists and performers who live and work here in Swampscott,” according to Danuta Shasha, who is on the Board of Directors at ReachArts. International Women’s Day is on Wednesday.
“As a group, we are working with the following themes: gender and economic inequality, gun violence, nature as the ground for artmaking, reproductive labor, as well as responsibility and Interconnectedness,” a press release from ReachArts said.
The first event, “Meet the Artists,” will be on Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the ReachArts Gallery. The exhibit, “Art is Action!,” is being curated by Tereza Swanda and consists of “nine local women artists coming together to reframe our notion of value, of what is essential, outside the current patriarchal/capitalist lens,” Shasha said.
The artists include: Sammia Atoui, Lisa Boemer, Helene Falcon, Agatha Balek, Ingrid Pichler, Hannah Sharpless, Tereza Swanda, Stefanie Timmermann, and Cynthia Zeman. Lisa Boemer, the owner of The Hiccup in town, has three pieces in the exhibit, one of which is a self portrait.
“The other is a piece called serene,” Boemer said. “It’s two people sitting on a dock and it’s a beautiful impressionist type. They’re sitting on a dock looking at the water, and then what I added to it was a glass Coke bottle in front of it on a pedestal.”
When a viewer is looking at the piece they will question why the Coke bottle is there, she said.
“It was playing on the kind of product placement that we find so much in our lives,” Boemer said.
The idea for the Coke bottle came from a friend of hers.
“She said, ‘why don’t you take this painting and then put a Coke bottle in front of it to kind of do the product placement that well, you can’t have a great time unless there’s a coke in that picture somewhere,’ ” Boemer said.
Her third piece is a painting of a vending machine called “Heart Healthy.”
The exhibit will be open until March 22.
The next ReachArts event for International Women’s Day will be a women-only yoga class on Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Registration for this event is required and can be found at reacharts.org.
On Friday at 7 p.m. there will be “A collection of Dramatic Readings by Julie Butters, followed by songs and fiddle music by Susan Ruth” and a women’s history quiz with prizes.
“We close out our celebration on Saturday March 11 from 5-7 p.m. with a talk and discussion led by Sammia Atoui on Flowers, Women and the Male Gaze,” Shasha said. To close, “Ingrid Pichler will lead an art activity.”
