Fifty-four incredible artists lovingly donated their art to share a part in history. This project

really started for me over ten years ago when I took my first “Problems in American

Women’s History” class. While taking this class, I realized for the first time in my life that I

counted. I realized that my gender had an enormous impact in history, and that women had

made a difference. It was like finding my family after being lost for a long time. During those

years I studied and read all I could about women’s history, the women’s movement, and

made all the art I could about it. This art marked my path from the past into the present and

documented all the stories of the women in my family and my personal journey.

When I set about creating The Women’s History Deck I had the idea in mind that I wanted to

involve as many artists as possible so that I could raise awareness of women’s

contributions as well as leave a visual piece of art that could be easily accessible.

With my interest in art and Women’s history in 2003 I decided to curate a month long art

showing of art inspired by women. I held it in March, which is officially Women’s History

Month, at The Pacific Northwest College of Art. I wanted to see visually how women had

inspired people in their art and publicly commemorate this for others to see. I had an

overwhelming number of submissions in all media by both male and female artists.

The most interesting thing that happened was each artist had a story to share with me.

Because of this project I became privy to people’s personal stories of inspiration and

strength about their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and best friends. This moved me

to think about how I could keep spreading this concept of every woman’s counting and

importance in this world.

Amazingly, I had a friend who was doing Artist Trading Cards and trading them with artists

all over the United States. I started doing some research on the Internet behind how this got

started and it was basically a way for artists to share their art and get to know other artists.

This turned into the Women’s History Deck idea for me. This deck is not all-inclusive but is

an interesting selection of women and I’m hoping it will inspire further study. Making this

deck is my contribution to Women’s History: putting the information in peoples hands about

the incredible strides women have made and are making, past and present.

It is my hope to raise enough money to be able to donate decks to elementary schools

across the country to help introduce and establish Women’s History programs into early

education. The deck includes an address to my site that has links to information about each

of the women being honored in the deck and their contribution to society. I have also

included personal information and stories from those artists who chose to share with me. In

each deck there are also artist’s contribution cards that have the name and web site of each

of the participating artists. This gives people a way to find out more about the artist and

access more art. Each card has a daily affirmation that can be pulled at random each day to

add inspiration to the viewer’s day.

It is my continuing effort to promote equality in society and equal opportunities for all. This

will help future generations to have more respect for one another and inspire our youth to

follow their dreams and live their greatest visions by learning about the struggles and

successes of our past.


About The Art


When I released the Call for Artists I left it totally open to artist interpretation. I said it could

be any media or style as long as I was able to size it down to the standard playing card size.

This caused a bit of a stir. I received several  emails about what the jury process would be

and a lot of questions about what media to use. I kept my “anything goes” attitude and

assured the artists that everything would be fine and anxiously checked my mailbox for the

art to come in. And just as I suspected, accepting art with no boundaries was magnificent.

Each card amazed me with so many styles and techniques and media. Because every artist

chose a figure that they had a passion for, they put a tremendous amount of love into the

project. Each card is very inspirational and my hope is that the deck will stir the viewer to

create art about this important subject as well.

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