A busy fall semester means that I’m only now posting about the two great conferences I was able to attend this fall. At the end of October, two of my area colleagues and I teamed up for a panel session at the Alliance of Artist Communities Conference in Kansas City. Hurricane Sandy meant that not all of the scheduled presenters and keynote speakers could make it to the conference, but there were some great sessions nonetheless. In our panel, “Sustaining Artist Communities in a Midwestern Town,” we discussed the ways in which we have sought to create and maintain arts-based communities (in music, dance, visual arts, and art therapy) and creatively forge partnerships to foster viability. It generated lots of good discussion and it felt so productive and energizing to hear ideas from people doing similar things all across the U.S.

In the middle of November, I presented at the third annual Feminist Art History Conference at American University in Washington, D.C. I gave a talk on the visual campaign for reproductive rights in Weimar and it felt good to get back into that topic, after writing on other subjects this fall. While in D.C., I was also able to catch up with some old friends and colleagues from far and wide.  A review of the conference can be read here.