2015 Visual and Literary Arts Program
Professionalism +
Mentoring +
Advocacy
Pen Brush Program Overview:
Pen and Brush (P+B) is a unique non-profit organization presenting the work of women in the visual and literary arts. In addition to its historic mission of bringing this work to the public through its current programming, P+B is more significantly also bringing that work to a diverse group of professionals, who in their spheres of influence, provide those artists and writers with career advancing
opportunities.
2015 marks a new era for P+ B, as the organization celebrated its 120th anniversary with the acquisition of a new state of-the-art facility in New York’s Flatiron district and a renewed focus on advocacy and mentoring to bolster the presentation of high quality, professional work by female artists and writers. With this in mind, the organization has surveyed the evolving art and literary landscapes, restructuring its programming and adapting best practices from curatorial and publishing models to create a vetting system that offers reviewers the opportunity to select work each believes has merit and is deserving of
exposure. Arts professionals who are willing to contribute their time, expertise, and individual perspective will be supporting Pen and Brush’s mission to
advocate for gender parity in the visual and literary arts. They will review works submitted by professional women artists and writers working nationally and internationally, and select work on merit as each determines it, for inclusion in Pen and Brush's exhibition or publication platforms.
Re-launch Program Context:
Pen and Brush’s historical programming offered women in the visual and literary arts opportunities to present their work in large group shows and in writing contests and readings. While these activities brought this work to a public audience, it did not attract any critical review or press and far too few women were able to use their exhibition or writers’ contest experience to find commercial gallery representation or publication that materially advanced their professional working careers. In 2009, P+B clarified its mission statement, re-emphasizing its commitment to advocacy for women to have equal opportunities for professional careers in the arts and parity with their male counterparts in the marketplace. A critical examination of its programming revealed to P+B that for the organization to have any degree of success achieving these objectives, its programming had to be restructured. Conversations with curators, arts administrators, educators, literary agents, publishers, writers and artists yielded much information about conditions, obstacles, and opportunities as they exist in the contemporary visual and literary arts worlds. This information led to the programming described below which will be focused on artists and writers who are emerging and mid-career professionals.
Program:
By creating a vetting system comprising a diverse body of outside arts
professionals, Pen and Brush is calling on industry influencers to review work created by women, making selections based solely on merit for public
presentation through P+B’s platforms (i.e. exhibitions and publications), and exposure to a professional pipeline of curators who it is hoped will become supporters and advocates for those artists’ and writers’ works.
The program is both democratic and transparent. It is democratic because all women artists and writers who submit professional work have equal opportunity based on merit to have their work selected by any one of a diverse and
constantly refreshed pool of selection reviewers, (i.e. visual arts curators/literary arts curators). The process is transparent in that artists and writers submit works, which are made available to a diverse body of curators from the visual and literary arts communities for review. Their selections will constitute P+B’s programming: group and feature exhibitions, and publication on P+B’s website and through its eBook imprint P&B Books.
Pen and Brush, as an organization, will remain outside the review process,
believing it is more important and productive for professional artists and writers to be exposed to a broad range of curators from all areas of the visual and literary art worlds, who, if they agree to participate in P+B’s program, will rotate in and out of the review process so that the pool of selected work will reflect current perspectives and multiple points of view, as broadly as possible.
Visual Arts Platforms: Group Shows & Featured Exhibitions Group Shows
Pen and Brush remains committed to the group exhibition as a forceful means of dispelling the misconception that too few women produce consistently high level artwork. The group show model also provides exposure to the public for the largest number of artists. Group Show selections from all reviewers constitute the pool of eligible work for the group show(s) and selections will be assembled based on the number of available works, space, and P+B’s exhibition schedule. Pen and Brush staff will facilitate the exhibition of the works.
Feature Exhibitions (Sets and Themes)
Beyond Group Shows, any curator may select artists s/he feels should have further exposure in a Feature Exhibition. Feature Exhibitions are fully curated shows giving the artist a platform offering deeper insight into the artist's body of work.
Feature Exhibitions may be either sets of “solo” shows, or a small grouping of artists based on a theme evidenced in their work (e.g. content, media) and developed by any individual curator. Feature Sets may include any number of artists (or sets of artists) whose work is unrelated in content, form, or media. The number of works for any Feature Exhibition can range from 1-12 works, with exceptions for any individual artist depending on the medium and size of the work, and nature of the exhibit, for example: while an installation artist or
sculptor working in large scale format may be asked to exhibit one work that fills an entire gallery, an artist producing two-dimensional work on small to medium canvases may be asked to exhibit 12 wall-hung works. The timing of these exhibits will not be predetermined, but will be scheduled when a curator has selections s/he feels constitutes a viable exhibition. All forms of exhibitions will be on view for a period of not less than three weeks and not more than six weeks.
Literary Arts Platforms: e-Publication through P+B Website and P&B Books
Pen and Brush will offer two forms of e-Publishing: e-Publication through P+B’s website and/or as an eBook under our imprint P&B Books. Groupings will take into account literary curators’ preferences, comments and selection notes.
Publications and previews of e-Publications will be available on tablets at the Pen and Brush for reading by visitors to P+B’s physical space. Authors will retain copyrights to their work, but Pen and Brush may be the copyright holder for its publication format.
Pen and Brush will start the Literary program limiting the forms eligible for submission to Literary Fiction, which will be further limited in this first phase to novels, novellas, short stories, long-form poetry and short-form poetry. As the publishing program evolves, additional genres may become eligible.
e-Publication through P+B Website
P+B website publications will offer a platform for exposure to a wide variety of literary works live through our website based on recommendations of the
selecting curator. These writings/authors will be featured on our literary arts main page for a limited time period, after which the literary work will remain accessible in an online archive of all e-published material.
Publication groupings may be related or unrelated through content and form. For example: individual writings may be published in their entirety, or in the case of novels, may be serialized first and made available online in their entirety at the conclusion of serialization, and/or grouped with any number of long/short-form poems, and short stories. A volume may also include several works by the same
author. Pen and Brush staff will coordinate selections at the discretion of all curators and facilitate the publication of volumes through P+B's website.
e-Book through P&B Books
Beyond the e-Publications through P+B's website, any literary curator may select writers she or he feels should have exposure as an eBook. In addition to
selecting the writer(s) work(s) for the eBook, the literary curator will have flexible ways of organizing work(s) for publication. For example: eBooks may be of a single complete work by one author, multiple works by the same author, or feature multiple authors centered around a theme evidenced in their work(s) and developed by the literary curator.
Visual Artists: “Need to Knows”
• Open Rolling Submission / No entry deadlines. We are now accepting entries and our visual arts curators are reviewing on a continual basis. Curators are considering works for exhibitions that will commence at the beginning of 2015 in our new facility.
• All visual arts media will be accepted for consideration. No size
limitations. All work(s) submitted for consideration must be available for exhibition and must be for sale. All work submitted must have been created within the last five years.
• Portfolios of works by artists will be submitted for consideration in electronic form. Artists have the option of submitting a minimum of 6 works/maximum of 12 works*. Artists can choose to submit their works for review by our rotating pool of curators for a period of 6 months (entry fee $60.). An artist statement and C.V. must
be uploaded with your submission. *Minimum number of works required may be waved for large-scale sculpture and installations.
• The 6 submission period encompasses only the time period the
portfolio is under review and does not include the time period it will take to schedule, facilitate, and mount an exhibition of work(s) if selected. When an artist’s work(s) are selected for a Group Show, her portfolio will remain under review. When an artist’s work(s) are selected for a Featured
Exhibition her portfolio will be removed from the review process and arrangements to schedule and facilitate the Featured Exhibition will commence.
Writers: “Need to Knows”
• Open Rolling Submission / No entry deadlines. We are now accepting entries and our literary curators are reviewing on a continual basis.
Curators are considering works for publications that will commence at the beginning of 2015 with our new facility.
• Pen and Brush will start the Literary program limiting the forms eligible for submission to Literary Fiction, which will be further limited in this first phase to novels, novellas, short stories, long-form poetry and short-form poetry. As the publishing program evolves, additional genres may
become eligible.
• We do not accept simultaneous submissions. Due to the structure of our review process, upon submission, all work must be available for publication and adhere to the terms outlined in the author participation agreement. All work submitted must be in English.
• Work by writers of literary fiction will be submitted for consideration in electronic form. Writers have the option of submitting:
1 novel or 1 novella (15,000 - 110,000 words / 60 - 440 pages) 2-3 short stories (500 - 7,500 words per story / 2-3 pages per story) 2-3 long form poems / 5-6 short poems (no ranges required for poetry; author identifies category according to length in terms of form, style, and intention) Word/page ranges as outlined pertain to the body of the work and do not include front/back matter, ie. title page, table of contents, credits, or acknowledgements.
• Writers can choose to submit their works for review by our rotating pool of curators for a period of 6 months (entry fee $15.). A writer’s statement of work and C.V. must be uploaded
with your submission.
• The 6 month submission period encompasses only the time period the portfolio is under review and does not include the time period it will take to facilitate, and a publication of work(s) if selected. When a writer’s work(s) is selected for an e-Publication through P+B Website, her works will remain under review. When a writer’s work(s) is selected for an eBook publication her work will be removed from the review process and arrangements to facilitate the eBook publication will commence.
• Writers retain the copyright to their works; P+B only retains the copyright to published format. Therefore, P+B Publications do not restrict, but
encourage writers to publish through additional publishing sources. We do accept previously published work that continues to be in need of exposure providing that all terms and conditions of the author’s agreement
can be met at time of submission with regard to the previously published work.
