Changing Houston, Changing Women's Lives:
The Houston Women's Caucus for Art, 1978 - 1988 (Continued)
By MaryRoss Taylor

Mary Jane Connolly took over as chapter president, and the gallery opened its Fall 1985 season with "Men of the Caucus" and two solo exhibitions by Houston-area women artists. The "Never Ending Story" show in January 1986, presented a kind of "exquisite corpse" undertaking in which members responded to work circulating on paper. Fotofest provided a March 1986 show of documentary photography by Wendy Watriss (Houston), Annie Leibovitz (New York) and Ruth Morgan (San Francisco). "K - Z (Kinetic Zone)" was an installation with performance in April by Houston artists Charlie Sartwelle and Anne Skupin. The annual curated show open to all Houston artists was held in May 1986 at Stages, a small nonprofit theater.⁷⁰  A new challenge became public in May of 1986: Houston would host the 1988 national conference of the College Art Association and the Women's Caucus for Art. The national art community wanted to see Houston's new and internationally celebrated Menil Collection.

Seltzer Bryant orchestrated complex hospitality and transportation plans. At a chapter meeting on July 28, 1987, Randolph suggested approaching galleries to show art by women. Margaret Smithers-Crump and Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak launched a computer-based Caucus campaign of letters and visits resulting in commitments from forty museums and galleries to present exhibitions by women during the conference.⁷³  The chapter organized one of the few books on Texas women artists, No Bluebonnets, No Yellow Roses: Essays on Texas Women in the Arts, in conjunction with the Conference.⁷⁴  A six-page tabloid newsletter from the chapter in February 1988 itemized the unprecedented array of exhibitions and introduced conference participants.⁷⁵

While the conference committee was developing a masterful event, the chapter confronted reduced circumstances. Johnson created a restructuring plan for the Executive Board to discuss on July 2, 1986. First on the list was building membership by delivering services members valued. From that project would come revenues to pay off debts if the gallery operated at low cost or, through user fees, as a profit center. Her checklist of ethical issues emphasized prohibiting artists from judging their own work for shows or trading professional favors, a continuation of the Caucus history of concern about the misuse of authority in a feminist organization. Power would rest, as before, with the whole board; meetings would no longer be devoted to chapter business, but would offer members value for their dues in the form of programs.⁷⁶

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