National Organization of Woman Debuts Sarasota Artist’s Design
Pat Kaufman designed and created a piece of wearable art showcasing strong women for the group’s 2014 national conference in New Mexico. The local NOW chapter is marketing it as a membership initiative.
(Sarasota, FL) The National Organization for Women Sarasota/Manatee chapter recently debuted Sarasota artist Pat Kaufman’s design at the 2014 national conference, Faces of Feminism: Strength in Diversity, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Kaufman designed and created a scarf specifically for the event—a piece of wearable art showcasing strong women and making a strong statement, in Kaufman’s signature style.
Why a scarf?
“I wanted to create something that would work as a unique fundraiser for NOW,” she says. “Everybody has buttons, t-shirts and coffee mugs. I wanted to do something more original.”
The vignette of two women featured on the scarf is a detail from “Not Dead Yet,” Kaufman’s large-scale painting of six, multicolored women. She describes the scarf’s accompanying poem as, “Fighting words in response to an overcritical boyfriend. I wrote the poem in 1972 to inspire other women to stand up and fight back against ridiculous sexist accusations. It was really a form of political consciousness-raising.”
Kaufman says that women everywhere instantly grasp her vision. She notes that she first took the prototype scarf on a test run in New York City a few months ago. “Women came up to me asking where I got it and where they could get it. I think I struck a nerve!”
Jennifer Cohen, the president of the Sarasota/Manatee chapter of NOW, says the organization plans to market the scarf as a membership initiative. “We’ll be offering the scarf at half its actual cost as gift for anyone who becomes a new NOW member,” she says, adding that membership begins at $40. “Pat’s work shows beautiful, strong and happy women from different races and cultures. It’s a unique gift for unique women.”
Kaufman is currently working on four more designs which she plans to show to national retail outlets. The NOW scarf can be purchased on NOW Sarasota-Manatee’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/nowsarasotamanatee/fundraiser.
Kaufman, who is also an established author, has published dozens of plays, screenplays, and books and describes herself as “a storyteller in paint and fire words. “I critique, with humor I hope, the absurdity of the human condition. The human face, figure, psyche and soul have always been the centerpiece of my work. I celebrate freedom while taking a slightly comedic and irreverent scalpel to the puzzles of life and justice.”
For more information about Pat Kaufman’s writings and artwork, visit www.patriciakaufman.com.
