It’s a lot of fun to celebrate Support Women Artists Now Day, and we hope you will join us this year. Since we have many new readers since SWAN 2011, we wanted to review the basic information about this new holiday.
Who Can Create SWAN Day Events?
Anyone is welcome to create a SWAN Day event, and the events can be in any art form. The goal is simply to celebrate women’s creativity and to create a sense of solidarity among women artists worldwide.
SWAN Day is a grassroots, do-it-yourself holiday, and there are no requirements of any kind except that your event should celebrate women artists. You can find free SWAN Day logos and free advice about fundraising and publicity for SWAN Day events on our website at www.SwanDay.org.
There have been over 700 SWAN events in 21 countries over the past four years. They have included parties, performances, readings, visual art exhibits, film screenings, concerts, workshops, panel discussions, and multi-day festivals. The one thing they all had in common was that they all featured the work of women artists.
We encourage you to use your imagination to create an event that is meaningful to you and the people in your community. Your enthusiasm and your commitment to your own creative work and the work of other women artists is more important than any specifics about the form of your event. Our energy is our power.
When Is SWAN Day?
SWAN Day is officially the last Saturday of March (Women’s History Month), but please feel free to celebrate it any time that is convenient for you.
Please Post Your Event on the SWAN Day Calendar
If you decide to create a SWAN Day event, please let us know about it so that we can keep a running tally of the number of SWAN Day events worldwide. If your event is public, you can post it on the free SWAN Day Calendar on our website. You can also contact us directly through the Contact Us link on our website. Contact Us>>.
Do I Have to Fundraise?
There is no requirement to do fundraising as part of your SWAN Day event, but we think the world needs a holiday where people make gifts to their favorite women artists every year. We want SWAN Day to be as popular as Mother’s Day – and we want women artists to get annual gifts of cash, as well as chocolate and flowers.
You are much more likely to get cash gifts if you ask for them. That is why we encourage you to include some kind of fundraising in your SWAN Day event. Whether you decide to do online fundraising, host a benefit, or meet with people one-on-one, for SWAN Day you can tell people that you are part of an historic world-wide movement of women artists. Ask them to help you create your best possible work for this global celebration of women artists.
Some artists use SWAN Day to raise money for their own work, and some use the holiday to raise money for other women artists. There have been several SWAN Day events that raised money for women artists who had medical expenses or for women art students who needed scholarships.
If you don’t want to organize a SWAN Day event, you could still use Facebook, IndieGoGo or other online fundraising sites to raise some money in honor of SWAN Day for your work or the work of other women artists. See our article about these sites in the Build Your Skills section of our website.
Will WomenArts Charge Me Anything?
No SWAN Day is free. WomenArts does not charge for any of its online services. Please note that if you do online fundraising, most of the services will take a percentage of the funds you raise. Please be sure to read the guidelines of each service carefully.
Where Can I Get More Information?
There is more information about SWAN Day at www.SwanDay.org. Also, if you have questions, please feel free to contact us. Contact Us>>