Call them Nasty Women. Call them feminists. They are the six artists of the the St. Pete Women’s Collective (SPWC), a non-profit designed to provide a safe collaborative female work space and empower women through art.
Ashley Sweet, president of SPWC, says fed up with sexism and priced out of their spaces at Bloom Art Center, the women formed the non-profit and found a new home for their studios. In January, SPWC leased a bungalow in the Historic Kenwood neighborhood, one of the few in St. Petersburg that allows live-work spaces.
It’s a cozy arrangement. While only two of the women live there, they each claim a room or nook. Tiffany Elliot creates jewelry on half of the enclosed front porch. Sweet designs her T-shirts on the other side.
Jeannette St. Amour creates with a laser cutter in the darkened sunroom. Emily Stone’s bedroom doubles as her multi-media studio. Jodi Chemes, an accountant, claims the dining room for her day job and her stained glass. Mitzi Gordon, a writer, artist and Bluebird Books Bus owner, lives in the small back apartment with her partner; their living room is a mixed media studio.
It helps that all members are rarely there at the same time. Ages 23 to 40, they have other jobs, primarily in the arts community.
Their first show, the Nasty Women Art Show, raised money for Planned Parenthood. Sweet says their community outreach usually occurs at other venues and often centers around sexual assault. They hosted “Adulting 101: Let’s Talk Sex,” at the Iberian Rooster. They co-sponsored “Healing from Sexual Assault Through Mindfulness, Writing & Yoga,” at the Body Electric Yoga Company in May. And on Fri., June 23, they're hosting "Let's Talk About Sex — With PRIDE" at Black Crow.
Most days the SPWC bungalow is closed to the public, which is how the women like it. St. Amour says they have all worked in art spaces with few, if any, barriers to men who made them feel threatened.
“All of us have had incidents where we questioned our safety because there wasn’t that filter,” she says. “We’re trying to get back that safety; we need that filter.”
Their concerns aren’t farfetched. One in five women has been raped, according to the Center for Disease Control. Those figures reflect only the women who reported it and don’t include sexual assault without penetration.
Stone says statistics don’t come close to reality.
“Almost every woman I know has experienced sexual assault of some sort, whether it’s verbal or physical,” Stone says. “Part of what we are trying to do here is because of that. Having a safe space is so important.”
