A women’s art magazine in Christchurch

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 8

A women’s art magazine in Christchurch

“Spiral”, a new magazine devoted to women’s art, was launched in Christchurch this week. The quarterly magazine is printed and published in Christchurch by women, for women. Christchurcu feminists held a fund-raising dinner and poetry reading recently to raise funds for the magazine. The first, 52-page issue contains poetry, prints, li.erary criticism, and thoughts on women’s special place in the world of art. Contributions are from New Zealand women. They include Patricia Godsiff, one of this country’s inter-nationally-known poets, paintings by a Canterbury artist, Stephanie Sheehan, whose work in the women’s art exhibition at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery won critical acclaim last year, and Joanna Harris, a Banks Peninsula artist, who reviews Elizabeth Tufts’s book, “Our Hidden Heritage: Five Centuries of Women Artists.”

In Christchurch, the women’s art movement is also being given impetus by the Christchurch Women’s Artists Group. The group met again recently for the first time this year. It aims to help create understanding among women artists, and to provide a supporting environment for individual female expression. The magazine costs $1.50, a yearly subscription, from P. O. Box 21069, Edgeware, $6, which also has details of next year's National Radical Feminist Caucus. Another new magazine, “Circle”, will be produced alternatively in Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland by lesbian feminists. The spring issue will be pro-

duced in Christchurch late in September. Plans are under way for the National Radical Feminist Caucus which will be held in Christchurch early next year. The week-end caucus will open at Glen Tui on January 28. Arrangements will be discussed at the next Womenshouse Collective meeting on August 16.