“YELLOW ROSES: EMILY MORGAN AND THE MYTHIC AND HISTORIC WOMEN OF TEXAS”Bihl Haus Arts Special Events Series  Titles, Brief Summary of Lectures, & Bios of Participants Denise McVea reads from her book“Making Myth of Emily: Emily West de Zavala and the Yellow Rose of Texas Legend”Saturday, February, 23, 2 pm, Bihl Haus Arts

www.bihlhausarts.org YELLOW ROSES: EMILY MORGAN AND THE MYTHIC AND HISTORIC WOMEN OF TEXASFeb. 22 - Mar. 22 at Bihl Haus ArtsOpening Reception and Performances: Fri., Feb. 22, 5:30-8:30 pm San Antonio, TX – January 26, 2008.  Yellow Roses: Emily Morgan and the Mythic and Historic Women of Texas, organized by Jacqui Dorsey and presented at Bihl Haus Arts, focuses on the image of Texas women and the general absence of information on them in Texas histories. This show is titled Yellow Roses, an obvious reference to Emily Morgan and a metaphor for all women of Texas, from every ethnic and cultural background, who have been generally excluded from the 'official' history of the state.  Yellow Roses presents art works that explore this subject from multiple perspectives by artists who themselves also come from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. We include the word "mythic," which also allows us to explore the oral histories and thus mental ”pictures” of Texas women like Emily Morgan.  The exhibition opens on Friday, Feb. 22, the first day of the siege of the Alamo, continues through the 13-day siege period, and closes on March 22nd.  The scheduling of the show also coincides with Black History Month (February)--Emily Morgan and the position of African American women vis-a-vis Texas history will be featured--and Women's History Month (March).  Artists in the Yellow Roses exhibition include: Maria Isabela Aguilar, Margie Beedie Bowzer, Ruth Buentello, MD Davis, Jacqui Dorsey, Lista Franks, Linda Sioux Henley, Leticia Huerta, Catherine Keyt, Deborah Keller-Rihn, Denise Knebel, Anita Holmes Knox, Loretta Young Medellin, Joan McIver Moss, Nemo, Emma Ortega, Mary Frances Robinson, Dina Vipp Scales, Gayle Spencer, Joyce Stache, Bernice Williams, Linda Xemora Hernandez, Dolores Zapada Murff, and others. The show opens with a reception, on Feb. 22^nd, from 5:30-8:30 pm, and short excerpts will be performed throughout the evening. These short performances--'historic' statements, really, by women from varied backgrounds, some dressed in ethnic garments and regalia—will highlight the evening. Participants (personas/themes in parentheses) include Linda Xemora Hernandez (Coahuilteca), Delores Zapada Murff (Adelita), Kitty Williams (Yellow Rose), MD Davis (Pecos Rock Art), Miranda Key (Orisha), Nettie Henton (Black Betty), Judy Quiles (Curandera),and Felicitas Luna (Mexican). Rounding out the program will be readings by mother-daughter pair Rose and Denise McVea.  Rose will read “Phenomenal Woman,” a poem by Maya Angelou, and Denise will read a short excerpt from her new book on Emily “Morgan,” a preview of her longer reading on Saturday, Feb. 23, at 2 pm. These performances and readings are intended to give voice to women in the official history of Texas who have been forgotten, exploited, or ignored. In addition to these short performance statements on the night of the opening, we'll also host four more related events. (For more on these lecturers and their presentations, please see attachment.) ·         Sat., Feb. 23, 2 pm: Reading by Denise McVea from her new book Making Myth of Emily: Emily West de Zavala and the Yellow Rose of Texas Legend (Auris 2007) ·         Sat., Mar. 1, 2 pm: Austin poet and historian Teresa Palomo Acosta presents "Tejana Legacies for the 21st Century." She is co-author of Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History (UT Press, 2003).·         Sat., Mar. 8, 2 pm: Native American storytelling by Emma Ortega, a Lupan Apache.·         Sat., Mar. 22, 2 pm: "Committed Lives: Selected Stories of African American Women in Texas History," by Anita Knox, Director of the Kansas African American Museum.Some of the participating artists, mostly women, will also take part in a separate March 15th event, when we celebrate the Dawn of Art, a multi-cultural ceremony that begins at 6 am (!) at Bihl Haus Arts. We'll drum up the sun in the native tradition, bless the gallery with Linda Xemora Hernandez, "Greet the Dawn" with yoga masters Blanca Bird and Dr. A. R. Sreedhara, from India, and perform a cleansing ceremony with a feng shui master. After everyone has loosened up, Joyce Stache will lead participants in a gestural large-drawing exercise. We’ll finish off the morning with a vegetarian breakfast on the barbie!  Dawn of Art is the first in a day-long series of arts events, titled Luminaria, that takes place across San Antonio on March 15th.  Yellow Roses: Emily Morgan and the Mythic and Historic Women of Texas is presented by Bihl Haus Arts (www.bihlhausarts.org), a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery on the premises of Primrose at Monticello Park Senior Apartments, an affordable housing community.  The gallery is made possible with the generous support of The Potashnik Family Foundation.  The project was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“YELLOW ROSES: EMILY MORGAN AND THE MYTHIC AND HISTORIC WOMEN OF TEXAS”Bihl Haus Arts Special Events Series  Titles, Brief Summary of Lectures, & Bios of Participants Denise McVea reads from her book“Making Myth of Emily: Emily West de Zavala and the Yellow Rose of Texas Legend”Saturday, February, 23, 2 pm, Bihl Haus Arts 

“For years, historians have discussed two women connected to the Yellow Rose of Texas legend: Emily West, the beautiful mulatto servant who allegedly distracted Mexican general Santa Anna to help win the Texas Revolution; and Emily West de Zavala, the rich white woman who employed her.  Were there really two like-named women, one white and one black, so close to the San Jacinto battlefield in April 1836? Making Myth of Emily takes an unorthodox look behind this enduring legend to show how the Yellow Rose of Texas myth resulted from determined efforts to hide the racial identity of Emily West de Zavala. In compelling detail, Myth shows that Emily, the wife of Texas’ rebel vice president, was beautiful, cultured, wealthy – and black. Award-winning investigative journalist Denise McVea presents valuable new evidence that shows how Texas historians, blinded by racial sensibilities, split one woman into two. Along the way, the author recalls the Texas Revolution from a refreshing perspective. Following the Zavalas through New Spain, the United States, Paris, Mexico and finally, to Texas, McVea tells the story of one woman of color who intimately experienced some of Texas’ most significant historical events.

In this talk and poetry reading, poet and writer Teresa Palomo Acosta will share the values and strategies that have guided Mexican-origin women in the land that became Texas.  As a writer, Acosta has sought to re-imagine and re-write Tejana and Tejano history as a means to provide her people with cultural, intellectual, political, and spiritual sustenance, as well as historical memory, to carry with them in their everyday lives.

Teresa Palomo Acosta, Project Lecturer, holds an MS in Journalism and is the author of the poetry collections Passing Time, Nile & Other Poems, and In the Season of Change, and coauthor with the late Ruthe Winegarten of the ground-breaking general survey of Mexican-origin women, Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History. Las Tejanas was awarded the 2004 T.R. Fehrenbach Award of the Texas Historical Commission, the 2004 Texas Reference Source Award from the Reference Round Table of the Texas Library Association, and the Good Neighbor Heritage Award of the Webb County Heritage Foundation. This lecture was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“My name is Emma Garcia Ortega. I was born into a Mexican, Apache, and Carrizo family in San Antonio, Texas.  I was raised in both cultures and was taught to respect and appreciate our traditional ways.  Stories have always been around me.  As a child, while visiting my Mamá Grande (Grandmother) in Benavides, my family would sit around the kitchen table or in the front yard under a big orange tree.  But my best time was when the weather was cold and I sat with my parents in a one-room house around a wood-burning stove drinking hot herb tea (because there was no milk) and listened to the stories.  It was magic.  We are the story keepers of our ancestors, and I have been privileged to share my stories at libraries, pow wows, museums, schools, and universities across Texas.  Thank you.  Emma G. Ortega.”

The rich and often turbulent history of Texas is deeply rooted in the lives of all who chose to live in this expansive part of the America.  African Americans as well have contributed to the development and enrichment of the history and culture that is “Texas.”  My focus will be a small but hopefully significant glimpse into the lives of a select few African American women who made and those who continue to make a contribution to not only the heritage and traditions in Texas but this nation as a whole.  We often concentrate primarily on those individuals who achieve celebrity status.  There are those who will never receive the acclaim of a Barbara Jordan or a Bessie Coleman. My intent is to recognize these outstanding women and to also highlight women who have also lead committed lives of service to their families, their communities, and their state and country.

Jacqui Dorsey, Guest Curator, is a painter, sculptor and muralist. Themes she addresses in her work include character studies, autobiography, and people she has encountered from childhood through adulthood.  Historical figures who have influenced her are especially important.  Those figures appear throughout her work, and appear most importantly in her murals that include depictions of well-known Black women, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, as well as historical Texans.  The murals of the Ellis Alley project, funded and developed by Jump Start and executed with students from Douglas Elementary School (the first public school to educate Blacks in San Antonio), include portraits of Mrs. Artemesia Bowden and Mrs. Brisco.  The Dorie Miller Center, a city-funded project, included portraits of famous African Americans of Texas and the U.S.  Jacqui especially liked working with children on this project: their names appear on the wall with those of famous people as positive reinforcement that they, too, can become famous.   Jacqui takes great pride in participating in projects like these because Texas and Black History are important topics in San Antonio.  The concept for the current Yellow Roses project developed out of a conversation between Jacqui and Kellen McIntyre over Jacqui’s portrait of Emily Morgan that was exhibited at Bihl Haus Arts in February 2007.