Get involved in the
Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts!

How You Can Help...

There are plenty of ways for to get involved in FQA. The Board has its hands more than full with trying to keep the organizational house in order. The "nurturing and showcasing" is up to all of us!

FQA suffers from the usual "smallorganizationitis": Too many ideas, too little time, personpower, and money. All we can do is experiment with possibilities as way opens.

Here, then, are some of the needs we see. Other ideas and suggestions are welcome. Please bear in mind, though, that the first questions are always

Who will do it?
How will it be paid for?

Join us!

You can print off and mail our membership form on this site.
We currently ask an annual contribution of $25 for individuals
Or for $50 a meeting, arts group, etc can take out a group membership.

Membership is our main source of funding; we depend on membership contributions to finance Types & Shadows, the directory, the web site, postage and operational expenses.

Special projects—publications, art shows, grants to individual artists, and the like—require special funding. Fundraising ideas and efforts—and donations—would be gratefully received, as would feedback on what kinds of projects are most needed.

Help build our base of support.

Organize local or regional Quaker arts groups and events; send us information about them
Urge others to join FQA—not just artists, but all who are interested in supporting the arts among Friends.
Ask your Meeting or local arts group to take out a group membership, or to include FQA on the list of Quaker organizations it contributes to. .

Become a Local, Regional or Yearly Meeting FQA Representative!

We would like to hear from Friends willing to lift up FQA in their area, and to send us news of Quaker artists' doings. We can send you a package of up to 20 copies of Types & Shadows (current issue and/or back numbers if available) for distribution at yearly meetings, local and regional gatherings, as well as items for sale such as our pamphlet, Beyond Uneasy Tolerance, or FQA T-shirts when available.

Consider serving on the Board.

Our bylaws provide for a board of 8 to 12 persons. Currently we have seven, some of whom are suffering from burnout.

Two qualifications imposed by our shoestring budget: For the present, Board members must live within reasonable distance of Philadelphia—say between New York City and Washington DC. Our meetings move around, the western limit has so far been State College, PA, although our clerk is now moving to North Carolina! We cannot provide travel expenses, but we can arrange overnight hospitality.

It is also important that board members have email and preferably internet access. We confer by email on matters that come up between meetings, and have experimented with using a chatroom to discuss single issues (with mixed results—see Chats? Business Meetings Online?.

Volunteer at the Lemonade Gallery.

If the Lemonade Gallery is to continue, we urgently need someone to serve as assistant curator at the 2002 FGC Gathering in Normal, Illinois, and to take over as curator in 2003. More information

The gallery's opening hours depend on having enough volunteers to be present when it is open, especially in the afternoons. Sign up for one or more shifts.

Setting up a display table in the display area is something which has fallen through the cracks in recent years.

Contribute to Types & Shadows.

Articles and epistles. Tell us:

who you are,

how you conceive of—and carry out—your arts ministry,

how you experience art as spiritual discipline and as prophetic witness,

how you struggle to integrate your calling and your faith,

what nurture you have or have not found in Quakerdom....

Interviews of other FQA'ers

Poems and other short literary works.

Information about Quaker arts groups and events, past and future, in your meeting or area.

Graphics.

Ink drawings, photos, and other works of art (or photos thereof) which could be reproduced in black and white for Types & Shadows, (color versions can be used on the web site). scannable photos (no slides please) or images in .tif, .gif or .jpg format.

Feedback!

Help with FQA web site.

Since we lost our webmistress in early 2000 we have been limping along. It is developing into a large and complex site; I would be grateful for help in thinking through the organization, and also for expertise on style sheets.

Areas in which we particularly need help are the visual parts—graphic design, making .gifs and jpegs. We hope eventually to have an online art gallery, but that is way beyond my competence.

An online literary magazine is another project which hasn't got off the ground. "Therefore Choose Life: A Call to Arts," the new feature of Types & Shadows inspired by the events of 9/11, will fill the gap somewhat, but can only accommodate very short works. Chuck Fager edited a premier issue of Quaker Arts Online; we would like to hear from anyone interested in editing another issue.

Other projects on our wish list:

Traveling exhibit

Feasiblity study for archiving work by Quaker artists in other than print media

Galleries and other venues for visual arts shows and performance events.

Do you have ideas—and energy?
How could FQA serve you better?
Is there help you could offer FQA beyond what is suggested here?

There are many good ideas, but again, there are always the questions "Who will do it?" and "How will it be paid for?"