Shop unique new merchandise online to support the arts through Monday
Prior to Thanksgiving, ArtsWave, the engine for the arts, announced the launch of an online store at ArtsWave.org/POWERmerch to provide POWER OF HER merchandise now through early December as a holiday fundraiser and capstone to the 18-month initiative, celebrating women in the arts, presented by Procter & Gamble with support from the Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee, LPK and various community leaders.
The new merchandise line celebrates women in the arts and women throughout the Cincinnati region. The store includes something for everyone – from onsies and youth t-shirts, to adult shirts, masks, mugs, postcards and more. The store will be online from now through December 7.
Three of the items have been created by local artists and entrepreneurs. Erikka Gray, owner of District 78, a lifestyle brand and vendor of handcrafted candles and part owner of Pause, a MOTAR-created alternative wellness venture on Short Vine Street, has developed a special POWER OF HER candle. The new soy-based, long-burning candle scent is as bold as Gray is and it is her reflection of the daring, inclusive, celebratory and declarative strength of Cincinnati’s women artists, entrepreneurs and leaders.
Dawn Grady, owner of Junebug Jewelry Designs, a pop-up store on Vine Street and also a MOTAR graduate, has created a limited edition pair of POWER OF HER earrings that are made of Argentium silver, which is tarnish-resistant, hypoallergenic and responsibly resourced. Grady combines this brilliant metal with three semi-precious gemstones – citrine, rhodonite and turquoise – each with energies reflective of the POWER OF HER concept. Grady mentions, “Each stone was chosen to reflect a woman’s ascension to her own personal royalty.” For instance, the turquoise used is meant “as a symbol of wisdom, nobility and power” says Grady.
In addition, ArtsWave’s “Imagineers, Impresarios, Inventors: Cincinnati’s Arts and the POWER OF HER,” will be featured on the merchandise website. This book, released in summer 2020 and edited by Kathy Merchant, former President/CEO of Greater Cincinnati Foundation and ArtsWave Women’s Leadership Roundtable member, celebrates nearly 200 women who have shaped Greater Cincinnati’s arts. The book includes 120 essays in total told by 34 journalists, freelance writers and authors.
The POWER OF HER brand concept was created by globally recognized and local brand design and innovation marketing agency LPK on a pro bono basis and as a reflection of its longtime work with ArtsWave and so many Cincinnati cultural institutions. LKP Creative Director Jessica Owens Stephens has volunteered additional time beyond her role at LPK to design the branded merchandise in the store.
Over the last 18 months through the POWER OF HER, the arts sector has come together through hundreds of female-centric works and an array of events to celebrate women in the arts. POWER OF HER salutes and honors female leadership with woman-centric works of all kinds, underscoring creativity as the vehicle for inclusion and equality. Inspired by the many Cincinnati cultural and civic organizations which were founded by women and have celebrated anniversaries over the past year,* POWER OF HER encompasses art forms of all types. Here are the remaining POWER OF HER events presently on the schedule.