The F Word Project

The F Word Project: Five Feminist Fables for the Twenty-first Century is a body of art, collected in a series of feminist graphic novellas by Maureen Burdock. Each novella features a superheroine originating from a culture whose current traditions cause women hardship, despite which they emerge strong and triumphant. The F Word Project increases awareness of women’s struggles worldwide and the need for elimination of the injustices they experience. It provides inspirational role models for women by focusing on archetypes of strong women with solutions. In addition to the depiction of problems, the intelligence and goodness of human nature that make change possible are emphasized through the use of humor and engaging artwork.

The F Word Project novellas can be published individually as graphic novellas, as a series, as a boxed set, or as an anthology. Each is thirty-two pages long and presently has a format of 8.5 x 11 inches. The drawings and paintings for each novella are created as 18 x 24” oil paintings and framed panels, with the intention of being shown as fine art. The art from the first two books, which were independently published, has been exhibited in Mexico and the United States, and received numerous positive reviews.

Burdock received a Feminist Artists Under 40 Award from Judy Chicago/Through the Flower in 2008.

F Word Superheroines and Heroes Accept New Mission

The F Word Project is the basis of a nonprofit project that will bring facilitated empowerment groups to women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, prisons, schools, and the community at large. Maureen Burdock’s Five Feminist Fables will be used, together with a curriculum based on established narrative therapy techniques, to help those affected by violence re-author their lives. The strong feminine role models in The F Word Project speak to women’s sense of personal power and choice and encourage men to act as respectful, humanist allies. The F Word Fables bring to light contemporary women’s issues from around the globe, thus encouraging participants to see beyond their own circumstances and discuss themes of community, identity, visibility, activism, global awareness and solidarity.

The F Word Empowerment Project is cosponsored by F Word Project author/artist Maureen Burdock and Santa Fe-based non profit organizations, the Narrative Art Center and Dhaturra. Kelley Rainwater, founder and director of Dhaturra, holds an MBA in International Management Studies from the University of Texas and a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology with an emphasis on Goddess and Indigenous Wisdom from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She also holds advanced certifications in group process facilitation and in coaching. The project is advised by Kate Wolf-Pizor, senior clinical instructor and associate professor, and graduate students at the Transpersonal Psychology Institute in Palo Alto, California.

A growing team of professionals in Northern New Mexico and the San Francisco area are working to raise funds and create the pilot curriculum and program that will launch in the fall of 2009. Fundraising for this project is planned as a series of dinner parties inspired by the cultures of the F Word superheroines. The first dinner party is scheduled for June, 2009. After the pilot program’s successful launch, the F Word Project team plan to raise funds to make this process available to institutions throughout the United States. National rollout is anticipated beginning in 2010.