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BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
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You’d think that there would be a lot more clones of Hera Gallery around the country. It was established as the Hera Co-operative Art Gallery in 1974, to circumvent the art museum-commercial gallery establishment’s traditional neglect of women artists. There weren’t more than a half-dozen other such women-run galleries. One, Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, closed this year after three decades of operation, and the overall number has barely increased over the last three decades. At Hera, roughly half the shows in a given season are by members and half are curated, whether topical, juried or invitational. With the original membership drawn from academically trained artists, most with MFAs, the commitment to serious, quality exhibitions and member artists has been maintained. The Wakefield gallery currently has 15 members. Hera’s walls have also been open to male artists from the beginning, and the gallery now has two male members. The neglect of women artists at the time of the Hera’s founding can’t be overemphasized. A couple of examples from The History of Hera, written by Valerie Raleigh Yow and published by the gallery in 1989, lend an idea. In one, a gallery owner states, "We already have two women — can’t use any more." In another, "He holds her slides up to the light, looks at them, munches a Danish, drops crumbs on the slides, and says, ‘No need to put them in a projector.’ " A member of the gallery from its first months, Alexandra Broches, the president of Hera’s board, has been one of the most active members in recent decades. A former art teacher at Rhode Island College, she now works as a full-time artist. Also instrumental in keeping Hera alive has been printmaker Barbara Pagh, a professor of art at the University of Rhode Island. Surrounded by the work of a recent show, they discussed this New England institution. Q: Take us back to the beginning, Alexandra. What was the situation with the arts in 1974 that had the original artists looking to establish an artist-run gallery especially for women artists? Broches: The situation we found ourselves in, in New York and all over the country, was that it was difficult to exhibit our work. We weren’t included in museum collections and exhibitions, and gallery rosters of exhibiting artists. We weren’t taken seriously. Q: What did Hera initially declare its mission to be? Broches: It’s pretty much continued to be the same mission from the beginning, and that was to bring opportunities for women to exhibit in Rhode Island, and to bring the work of local, regional, and national artists to southern Rhode Island. To expose the community to women’s art and other artists — and to bring in poets and performance artists. In those first few years, lots of events went on along with the exhibits. Q: It came out of a social phenomenon — Hera developed out of the feminist consciousness-raising of the 1970s? Broches: There were a couple of consciousness-raising groups here, and artists out of those groups got together. Marlene Malik and Elena Jahn had both talked about their long-term wish to have a gallery, and that’s how it came to be. So I think that we were the seventh women’s art gallery to be formed in those early years, in the ’70s. Q: Hera has done many invitational exhibitions. So reflecting the art scene at large has been part of your mandate, alongside presenting what member artists have been up to? Pagh: [We do] trends, things that are happening around the country. We may pick up on a theme, or we might be the first in the country, in some cases. And the chance for member artists to actually curate a show, not only showing their own work, but actually putting together an exhibition. That’s been important. Q: Barbara, you’ve been deeply involved with Hera for close to 20 years now. What pulled you into committing the time when you could have spent it in your studio making art? Pagh: I was here for two years, and Sylvia Gutchen kept stopping by my office at URI and saying I had to join Hera [laughs]. Then when I realized that I was going to be staying in Rhode Island, I joined the gallery. I was a little reluctant at first. Yeah, I wasn’t sure I wanted to join a women’s gallery. I was unsure whether I wanted to be in a narrow category. Broches: I think there are artists who don’t want to join a cooperative, never mind whether it’s a women’s gallery or not. Q: Preferring to be in a commercial gallery? Broches: For potential sales. The advantage of exhibiting here is that you’re not under any constraints that you might be in order to make your work salable. You can do just about anything you want. You can make installations and things like that, for instance. Q: So belonging to a cooperative gallery affects the art that’s produced? Q: Any organization that relies on volunteer help potentially runs into the problem of just a few people taking on the burden of most of the work. Has that at any point threatened Hera’s continuing? Broches: Maybe finances more than the lack of people who have the time. I think people are committed to a degree, but don’t have the time anymore. When we started the gallery, our lives were different, the pace of everyone’s life was different, and now people are working full-time or don’t live in the area anymore. Never mind not in Wakefield, but living in Boston — we have one member in California. Pagh: There are times when there are fewer people, and we have to make an effort to advertise for new members. All it takes is for one new person to come in and have a fresh idea — a show that they want to curate, a project that they want to do. Q: In 1981, Hera had to hold a yard sale to raise money. Did financial problems ever threaten the gallery’s survival? Broches: A couple of times, it was a little close, yeah. Never to the point of really thinking, we’re going to close. Pagh: We’ve had a few times. Two years ago, we sent out a special letter in the fall, to supporters in the past, and asked for a special donation. We were a little low. Q: Was that because grants you had been relying on had dried up? Broches: Actually, that time, yes. Our relationship to the state arts council changed, in terms of the category we were in, so we were no longer getting general operating support, and were applying for special projects grants. Later, we learned how we could do that better, how to write those grants. That was a difficult period . . . . The thing that got us was that your budget has to be $50,000 a year or more, and we didn’t fall under that. Pagh: They essentially eliminated the small organization category, of which there were only a few organizations.
Q: So, after 29 years, how much has opportunity for women artists changed? Pagh: It’s certainly the case today that there are more women in museums and in the Whitney Biennial and shows like that. It’s not 50-50, but certainly there are more. Broches: Access is still somewhat limited too, but, for example, Ann Hamilton represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. The future of artists — whether co-ops or nonprofits? I don’t know where the next wave of artists who want to be involved in this kind of organization will come from. Or if there will be, or how they will want to change these kinds of artist-run spaces. That’s still a question: what direction it’s going to go and where are the artists going to come from who want to be engaged in this way and focus into the community, rather than staying in their studios making their work, hoping that they can be exhibited someplace.
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