“Happy Ever After All” by Lisa Cantrell, who is scheduled to perform Friday night (4/27) at WE7. See our Schedule for more information, then visit Cantrell’s page at Bandcamp to listen to more of her music.

Trained Eye Arts Center, the very cool venue hosting WE7, spent Saturday (April 21, 2012) celebrating women with their Queen’s Day event. Two women-empowering events two weekends in a row?… TEAC loves the ladies! Send a little sugar their way on Twitter — they’re @trainedeyearts.

Watch above as Mike Burchfield, resident graffiti artist and chairman of the Beautification Committee for Trained Eye Arts Center, busts out a live painting. Subscribe to their Youtube account for more video dandies. 

Haven’t been to TEAC yet? Here’s a Google Map link to their studio, which is off the B-Line trail and just a hop, skip and a jump away from glass of local brew at Upland Brewery. Bonus!

Today was The Center for Sustainable Living’s (one of WE7’s fabulous sponsors) Trashion/ReFashion show! Click on the link up top (with the arrow) to read about it in the Indiana Daily Student. 

Did you go? Did you model your own garb du garbage there? Tell us about it!

PS — We’re excited about Discardia, the project growing out of the Trashion/ReFashion showcase. Find out more about it here and here.

Jenn Burch croons and strums the uke in this clip from a 2011 performance at Max’s Place, where she played alongside Elsie White, John Peters and Becca Jones. Burch will be performing at WE7 at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 28.

See out our Schedule page for more performances!

Please note the time and ticket info corrections for the screening of Raw and the Cooked, A Culinary Journey Through Taiwan, a film by Monika Treut at IU Cinema on Sunday, April 29. The film begins at 6:30 p.m. and tickets are $10 (available at the IU Auditorium Box Office or at the door 30 minutes before the screening).

Did we mention that Cafe Django is hosting a reception after the film? Join us for organic Asian cuisine 8 p.m. at Bridgwaters Lounge at the Neal-Marshall Black Cultural Center. 

Be sure to stop by the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project/Boxcar Books table to learn more about their zine distro project. Check out their catalogue of radical theory zines that volunteers will send to people who are incarcerated in Indiana, sign up to participate as a letter, or just hang out and read some of the zines, which cover topics from class and labor issues to queer and trans theory.

 _{”The Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project is an organization made up of volunteers working in their spare time to provide free books to prisoners. Our volunteers are concerned citizens and activists interested in rehabilitation, rather than punishment… Prisoners are not strangers: they are brothers sisters, friends, cousins, mothers, and children.” — Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project website.}

A killer photo animation of Women Exposed 6 by Erin Robinson Grant. 

Did you see Women Exposed looking lovely in this month’s edition of The Ryder? Run, don’t walk, to the nearest newsstand for your copy today!

Many thanks to Mia Beach for the photo.

“My experience with WE has been so brilliantly beautiful.  I started this baby when I was volunteering at both The Rise and The Middle Way House and a Bachelor of Arts student at IU.  I am most satisfied when all my passions in life come together.  With the combination of how The Rise and The Middle Way House moved me, being an artist and student at IU, a feminist, a social butterfly/lover of Bloomington’s beautiful and fabulous community, and a gal that likes to throw a mean party for a darn good cause - this was the birth of WE.  The inspiration came from so many places but started with what deeply moved me and that was the outcome of women I saw within the Rise and The Middle Way House. The empowerment I saw within the women there and their children and all the people that worked there and their compassion and drive for this beautiful organization.  I loved seeing strong men, women and children from both ends of the spectrum — whether they worked At The Rise or were there to re-build themselves —  both so strong and moving.”

     ”I was an expressive arts instructor and basically went in there and went about each lesson organically with ideas in mind but ever day was different.  We’d usually end up listening to some feel-good empowering music by Bonnie Raitt, The Staple Singers, Sweet Honey In The Rock and more, and just get to work. It was beautiful.  We’d do collaborative pieces, paintings, write, or simply talk - no matter what, it was always held within an uplifting light empowering energy. I remember just thinking of how all the lovely, moving, passionate things in my life could all come together and WE was born! I basically called all my dear friends and discussed the idea and asked for there help and we formed a collective of Women to support women (and of course all the supportive men linked as well!) This was a family affair of abundant love from Bloomington’s vibrant and embracing community- the artists, musicians, business owners, IU faculty and students, art galleries, and the women, children and faculty of The Middle Way House and Rise. This whole event was and has always been fueled by this gathering of hearts and minds and it has been so incredible to watch it grow from afar.  I moved away to San Francisco in 2005 and miss Bloomington so much, but when WE happens I almost can’t handle the levels of missings I have for that sweetest slice of pie town.  It is and always will be home to me.  With all my love to all you blooming-darlings!”

— Margaret

Take a two-minute-and-30-second break and watch the trailer for Monika Treut’s documentary The Raw and the Cooked, A Culinary Journey Through Taiwan. The film will have its American debut during Women Exposed 2012 on Sunday, April 29 at 6:30 p.m. at the IU Cinema.

WE is made up of artists and volunteers who value women, transgender and human experiences. 

WE believes that Art is one of the most powerful forms of expression. Therefore:

WE embraces “female values and experiences as a legitimate basis for the creation of art”(Broude & Garrard) in order to better challenge hegemony and patriarchy. 

WE welcomes diverse aesthetic ideologies ranging from traditional feminine “crafts” to high art.

WE serves as a venue for artists and performers in a nontraditional community-based space.

WE gathers annually to sustain a community in solidarity with Middle Way House to help empower their members.

WE departs from the traditional patriarchic hegemonic model for the selection of art, which privileges an individual expert over the collective process of art making and sharing.

WE welcomes critical view and values the experience and feedback of its participants.

WE is volunteer-powered, community supported and 100% not-for-profit.

The Hudsucker Posse hoops it up during a performance at the 2011 Lotus Festival. Don’t miss them during Women Exposed 2012 on Friday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Dark Side Tribal, shown here at a benefit in 2007, is scheduled to perform during Women Exposed 2012 on Saturday, April 28 at 5:45 p.m. 

Link: http://youtu.be/HBkJ-DGR_no