The Search, 1975 

In the spring of 1975, the burgeoning collective was feeling inspired by the successes of their exhibitions and they started discussing the idea of a space of their own. There was precedent on both coasts for this kind of space—women-owned, women-run and women-centered places dedicated to supporting the work of women artists. A.I.R. Gallery, a collectively run feminist art gallery was established by twenty women in New York in 1972. In 1973, Judy Chicago, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and Arlene Raven founded the Woman’s Building, a feminist arts and education center. 

During a brainstorming session, WARM members produced a large sketch of their dream building with space to house the slide registry, a gallery, a lecture hall or theater, education spaces and studios with a frame shop and deli on site. With this vision in mind, Alice Towle, Louise DeMinte, Carole Fisher, Gaile Dietz, Janice Helleloid, Quimetta Perle, Diane McLeod and Mary Griep formed a committee in early May 1975 to investigate a Woman’s Building for the Twin Cities. Within a month, the committee began actively exploring space options. The following is an excerpt from a notebook of handwritten meeting minutes, dated 1975.

June 3, 1975 Carole Fisher’s house
West Bank Gallery--possibility of sub-leasing gallery for two years. Reservations expressed about the reputation of the gallery, [and] the commitment members of the group are willing to make. The gallery is ready, useable space, $2000.00 year and utilities. Could be a good interim solution for women’s bldg. 14 people expressed interest in working and paying for gallery

A Diamond in the Rough

Meetings and negotiations with the landlord of the West Bank Gallery continued over the next few months. Just as the members seemed ready to sign a lease deal with West Bank Gallery, word of another space in an industrial area of Minneapolis came to their attention. The following is an excerpt from the committee’s handwritten meeting minutes: 

August 26, 1975  Char Zhan’s studio
Gallery Committee: 
    1. [The landlord of the West Bank Gallery] accepted lease… Has agreed to sublet to us for 22 months.
    2. 8th & Hennepin  2 floors
Larger space  First year free rent
Space needs to be fixed - painting, lighting, etc…
How important is location???
Contacts to get together to look at space on Hennepin

While this note indicates the gallery was located near Hennepin Avenue and 8th Street in what is now the heart of downtown Minneapolis, the description of this space is very similar to that of the actual space WARM eventually settled on for their gallery. Their eventual location became the Wyman Building on the corner of 1st Avenue and 4th Street, also in downtown Minneapolis. Regardless, it seems this possibility was enough to call off any arrangements with the West Bank Gallery.

Jan 6, [1976] Joan Carlson’s Home
Gallery Committee - Found space.  Memberships are open to WARM members of 1975 IF  you decide by Sat Jan 10th… Meeting at 9:30.

Registry members who made the commitment to become gallery members would have the opportunity for joint exhibitions on a rotating schedule.  They would also be part of annual group exhibitions. Each gallery member bore a portion of the operating costs and agreed to serve as a gallery attendant on a monthly basis. The initial gallery members’ first major undertaking was the work to remodel the space. From building and painting walls, to scraping linoleum and mastic and refinishing the hardwood floors, 36 women took up the challenge to create a gallery space for WARM.

In a matter of three months, the space was completely renovated. Funds were raised for lighting, the group produced and distributed posters, flyers, and press releases, gallery schedules were introduced and exhibitions were scheduled. The gallery was named by consensus at a meeting sometime between January 6, 1976 and a press release distributed on February 17, 1976. Several members recall the group sitting in a circle on the floor of the yet-to-be-finished gallery discussing all possible gallery names, from poetic and metaphoric monikers to an elegantly pragmatic title that built on the collective’s established reputation. The group agreed on WARM: A Women’s Collective Art Space. 

The gallery opened to the public on April 10, 1976. Over 1,500 visitors attended the inaugural opening and the event made a splash in newspaper reviews. Miriam Shapiro, who was in the Twin Cities as a visiting artist through a cooperative effort by the College of St. Catherine, the University of Minnesota Art Department and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, complimented WARM’s gallery in an  interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune: 

“[Schapiro] praised the recently opened Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota gallery. She said that it is the most elegant of the five such collective art galleries in the United States and that it is very professional.”

The gallery would become the locus of the organization, housing the slide registry and hosting meetings, openings, lectures, slide sharing events and a variety of programming. Membership outside the gallery, first called “at-large members” and later “associate members,” continued to grow. WARM’s Steering Committee report for 1978 noted the struggle to maintain this level of growth and activity.  

“We initially set ourselves up as an association of women artists with a gallery on the side. In February of 1978 [we] became a gallery with an association of women artists on the side.”

“We’ve had the growth of twenty years in two, and we’re tired.”

Perhaps they were tired, but the members continued to pursue their ambitious goals, to fundraise, to expand their feminist art programming and to reach broader audiences.  

 

Artists included in the inaugural exhibition of WARM: A Women’s Collective Art Space

Mari Lyn Ampe
Marilynn Anderson
Heidi Arvin
Patricia Atmore Neer
Lynn Ball
Julia Barkley
Sandra Bastien
Beth Bergman
Claudia Brown
Sally Brown
Susan Fiene
Joan Carlson
Carlotta Collette
Gemma Rossini Cullen
Cherie Doyle Reisenberg
Carole Fisher
Linda Gammell
Karen Helland
Janice Helleloid
Vicki Johnston
Sandra Kraskin
Jenny Link
Joyce Lyon
Carol Ann Mackay
Linda Magozzi McNary
Susan McDonald
Diane McLeod
Pamela Moore
Marty Nash
Dorothy Odland
Patricia Olson
Jane Starosciak
Alice Towle
Jantje Visscher
Bonnie Wagner
Char Zhan