The Women’s Visionary Congress (WVC) invites you to join us for a weekend salon near Santa Fe, New Mexico that will present the work of local visionary women. Held at the beautiful Synergia Ranch, the event will take place on Friday March 8^th and Saturday March 9^th 2013. The event begins 7 pm Friday evening with a presentation of photographs and video from social documentarian Lisa Law who will celebrate her 70^th birthday with us. We will gather again on Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm to hear artists Jean Nichols and Requa Tolbert discuss their work and personal history. Come join us for a spring gathering in the desert with extraordinary artists whose biographies are posted below. Men are also welcome to attend. Tickets are $25 per day and can be purchased at the event. Ticket price includes a Saturday luncheon. If you plan to attend, please RSVP by contacting info@visionarycongress.org or by calling 415-637-5262. The WVC also encourages participants to stay at Synergia Ranch where comfortable rooms are available from $35 or $58 per night. Those wishing to book a room may contact Marie Harding mharding@synergiaranch.com. We look forward to seeing you in New Mexico.

Lisa Law

Lisa Law’s photographs, films and video images have chronicled the social and cultural changes in America for four decades. Her award-winning film documentary Flashing On The Sixties http://www.flashingonthesixties.com/pages/video.html captures the vibrancy of the ’60s and has been enjoyed by millions of viewers on Cinemax, The Discovery Channel and PBS. Lisa’s book, of the same title, published by Chronicle Books and Square Books, is now in its 4th edition. Her newest book, Interviews with Icons http://www.flashingonthesixties.com/pages/books.html was released in 2000 by Lumen Press. Lisa’s photographs of The Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Velvet Underground and other well-known artists have been widely published and collected by many museums including the Smithsonian. Her still photographs of the indigenous people of north, south, and Central America document their struggle for sovereignty and survival. Lisa served as a photographer for President Barack Obama in Northern New Mexico during both of his campaigns. Her dream is to establish the Lisa Law Museum of the Sixties in Santa Fe so that she can share her collection of art, photographs and memorabilia with others.

Jean Nichols

Jean Nichols is an activist and artist who has founded a series of non-profit projects centered on creativity and well being. She also produces a prolific array of art in many mediums. Her Art for the Heart Studio www.art-for-the-heart.org and Hersday women’s group serve her local New Mexico community and are an inspiration to many who gather to celebrate creativity and circle with other women. Jean’s Art for the Heart Gallery http://www.art-for-the-heart.org/gallery.shtml features the work of more than 25 local artists. A visionary, problem solver and long-time activist, Jean helped stop large scale logging in her community and led annual April Fools Day pro-jests to the State Capitol, Los Alamos, the Nevada Test site, and other locations. Jean also built a ReUse Center out of shredded paper bales, bottles, and cans, organizes a popular Glam Trash Fashion Show in Taos, and has started an UpCycled Fashion project www.upcycledfashion.com to create jobs, save clothes from the landfill, mentor youth and provide the public with affordable one-of–a-kind “clothing with a conscience.”

Requa Tolbert, RN, MSN

All of the gifts of Requa’s genetic lineage, formal education and life in the desert Southwest have combined to promote her development as a medicine artist. Requa is a psychiatric nurse (retired) in a long maternal line of nurses.  In 1986, together with her husband, George Greer, M.D., Requa co-authored an early clinical study of MDMA. Requa’s interests in plant medicines and archetypal consciousness shaped her early artworks of hand-painted and collaged photographs. In 2001, a collection of Requa’s images called themselves into becoming a deck of 32 medicine cards — the Stormrider Calling Cards http://www.stormridercards.com/. She is also the author of a companion book entitled, Pick a Card, Essay Into the Stormrider Calling Cards http://www.stormridercards.com/Book.html. Requa believes that medicine may be a specific remedy, a big project, or enduring practice. Her work embraces medicine art that is realized when fine arts skills are employed for the construction of objects of devotion or installations to effect change on a spiritual level. Requa enjoys punctuating sacred times with ritual, and helping others to craft their own medicine of the moment.

Thanks for all your support in the 2012 season.