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Changing Houston, Changing Women's Lives: MaryRoss Taylor is a founding editor of ArtWomen.org. Click here to read her bio. The Houston Women's Caucus for Art celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2003. The Caucus was founded when Houston, already one of the largest cities in the United States, began to develop a large and institutionalized art community. It was an opportune moment for art activists, and from 1978 through 1988 the HWCA participated in local and national activities with extraordinary effectiveness. With no office, no paid staff, and certainly no financial angel, the Houston Women's Caucus for Art quickly accomplished a remarkable variety of goals. By 1988 the Caucus, hosting the national Women's Caucus for Art conference, persuaded forty museums and galleries to present exhibitions by local women artists. By the successful conclusion of the conference, political action no longer seemed necessary on the Caucus agenda.3 But political activism was never the only mission of the Caucus. Providing a supportive network of fellow artists was the first and most enduring function of the group.
The Caucus used these meetings to showcase work by Houston women. Not only did visiting experts see the exhibitions, but the local audience saw them as part of prestigious national programs. The energy to undertake an ambitious multi-faceted mission came out of the International Women's Year Conference held in Houston in 1977. On January 10, 1978, women gathered in artist Pat St. John Danko's Montrose home to start a chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art. They had heard about the national organization at the IWY Conference.5 The national Women's Caucus for Art "emerged from the College Art Association in 1972 in protest of male domination of that organization [of art historians and artists teaching at the post-secondary level] and of the arts in general."6 Local chapters began forming in the late 1970s and Houston women artists readily identified with the national cause.
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