• Femina Potens
  San Francisco, California

• Our Goals are:
• To foster a supportive network of female and transgendered artists.
• To encourage women and trans folks to voice their political and artistic views.
• To expand and celebrate our community of queer, genderqueer, transgendered, and female artists, family, and friends.
• To inclusively exhibit talented emerging and well seasoned artists of color, queer, female, and transgendered artists, young and old.
• To stimulate artistic growth in a non-hierarchical space free of ego.
• To share and learn from each others artistic and political experiences and endeavors.
• To provide a safe and accessible venue for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, classes, ages, abilities, and sexual orientations.
• To offer queer and questioning youth resources and tools for education, empowerment, and expression.
• To increase the visibility of queer, genderqueer, transgendered, women and youth artists and activists, encouraging- through their voices and visions-acceptance, understanding, and education in the world.
• To create a space of constant movement and progression in art and in life.

Femina Potens is a non-profit arts gallery and performance space dedicated to the advancement of women and transgendered artists. First founded in 2001 by artistic director Tina Butcher and Madison Young, who recognized a need for greater visibility of women and transgendered artists and set out to create Femina Potens with no financial backing for the project, only a mission and a vision.

Femina Potens first started in a small garage space in the upper Haight in which the gallery gathered community support and quickly outgrew the small cement walls which confined their growing feminist position within the art scene.

By 2003 Femina Potens had found its way to an 800 sq ft gallery space in the San Francisco Mission District where the gallery flourished. In the four years between 2003 and 2007, Femina Potens produced nearly 300 art and cultural events for the LGBTQ, women, trans, queer and kink communities in San Francisco. Producing monthly spoken word open mic events, queer film screenings, music and dance events, and month visual art openings. Femina Potens has been recognized for its work in the community by Bitch Magazine, Curve Magazine, MTV's LOGO,Herbivore Magazine, Japan's FOIL Magazine, HERE TV, QTV, San Francisco Guardian, SF Weekly, SF Chronicle, Skin Two Magazine and more.

In 2007 Femina Potens moved into a 1300 sq ft store front space in the Castro District that had been inhabited for 25 years by Image Leather - a landmark in the Castro neighborhood.

Femina Potens has successfully brought the best women and transgendered artists to the community, coupling world-renowned visual and performing artists with talented new emerging artists. These multi-generational performances and exhibitions encourage newer artists to thrive while well-established artists and heroines stand on the same stage or placed on the same wall acting as mentors for fledglings.

Femina Potens has had the honor of presenting such luminaries as Judith Halberstam, Annie Sprinkle, Michelle Tea, Carol Queen, Diane Diprima, Charlie Anders, Thea Hillman, Lynn Breedlove, and Nina Hartley, and collaborating with organizations such as Ladyfest Bayarea, Fresh Meat Productions, United Genders of the Universe, BAVAC, Sex Workers Film and Art Festival, and The Center for Sex and Culture.

Femina Potens Gallery
2199 Market St., SF, CA 94114
feminapotens@gmail.com
415-864-1558

Gallery hours are Thursday - Sunday, noon - 6:00 pm. For directions, see map below.

Femina Potens is always looking for new artists and new volunteers and interns. Please send all visual art submissions to our postal address:

Femina Potens
1305 Franklin #600
Oakland CA 94612