Image © Rita Long, Dancers by Elisabeth Buchmeyer-Lewis © Hundred Heroines
Ever felt that life should contain something other than the daily round? Looking for something that sparks your curiosity, brings you together with other like-minded people and gives you a break from the outside world?
Enter the Joyful Women Collective!
And, by being part of the Collective, you’ll be supporting our Youth Programme working with young people across Gloucestershire.
You’re invited to join us in an evening of curiosity, creativity and connection! And each ticket helps raise funds towards our youth programme.
No previous experience is necessary and we don’t quiz you on your art skills, we’re just here to gather together for an evening free from the daily round.
JANUARY SESSION
📍 Hundred Heroines Museum (directions here)
📅 Thursday 8 January
🕒 18:30
🎟️ Members £15/Non-Members £25
Book via Eventbrite and pay on the door
Flags for Protest
We have two flags in the Collection – an original Suffragette flag with the slogan “Vote For Women” and France-Scotland from ORLAN’s trilogy of flags, which subvert the straightforward communicative capacity of flags. Flags in art often flip allegiance into defiance. Artists borrow their instant authority and then unpick it, turning symbols of nationhood into sites of dissent and women have been central to this reworking, prompting our next workshop.
Maggie Dutton will be helping us create our own protest flags. This workshop builds on Maggie’s recent project to reclaim the flag of St George from those using it to sow division and intimidate minority groups and instead turning it into a means of promoting positive values we share across our communities. The ‘shared values flags’ have been crafted from discarded curtains, bedding and clothing which was not suitable for re-use, and have seen action in Stroud, Stonehouse, Gloucester and Cheltenham, as well as in Nailsworth. You can see some of them on Red Selvedge,
At the workshop Maggie will help you to design a flag and applique your desired word or simple slogan. If you can, bring with you:
- Suitable used fabric for the background / colours for the flag you want to create
- Contrasting fabric for the lettering – this could be something meaningful to you – Maggie has used discarded family garments such as an old school shirt and even pyjamas!
- Ideas for your design – top tip – short and sweet is best!
If you can’t, please don’t worry! Everything, including sewing machines, tools, thread and fabrics, will be available.
About Maggie Dutton
Maggie has a life-long love of textiles and crafting. In recent years this has focussed on sustainability: recovering used fabrics to create decorative and household items as well as upcycling pre-loved clothes to extend their life-span. She has also embraced ‘Craftivism’ as a gentler but impactful way of promoting messages around social values and the environment. All this neatly complements her day job as an environmental consultant helping the waste management industry, as well as her other ‘jobs’ as Chair of Nailsworth Climate Action Network and as a Stroud District Councillor for Nailsworth.
About the JWC
A monthly initiative offering a space for the curious. Meeting monthly to share stories, explore creativity and become part of something glorious, our Joyful Women get involved in co-curation, enjoy artist talks and screenings, form friendships and develop their own creative practice. All in the inspiring surroundings of the Hundred Heroines museum and gallery space.
Everyone in the Collective will be invited to curate and stage the first ever JWC exhibition in November 2026, choosing the theme, the works and the interpretation.
Taking place on the first Thursday of every month, we provide the artists, the expertise, the drink and the cake to make the evening swing. All you need to do is bring yourself!
Membership comes in at four tiers:
The Joy Tier – unsure, or only want to come along occasionally? This level gives you flexibility and no large up-front financial commitment. A one-off fee of £25 (plus Eventrbite fees) per evening applies.
The Joyful Tier – keen to secure your spot at every session and make a commitment to being a Joyful Woman? A monthly subscription of £15 (or annual payment of £180) is all it will cost you (less than a coffee a week – and won’t keep you up at night).
The Joyfulest Tier – reserved for the generous and the public spirited, this level not only buys you a subscription but subsidises a free space to those who can’t afford to buy themselves one, but who would really benefit from being a part of the Collective. An annual payment of £300 gets you and one other person annual membership, our thanks and a special feeling of Joyfulness to revel in.
Finally, our Joyful Ally option for a monthly subscription of £5 directly supports our Youth Programme.
To join, email Tonia via hello@hundredheroines.org for more information.
Previously in the JWC …
November 2025
Launch event on 6 November at 6.30 pm. After a tour and informal talk about some of the great women artists featured in our collection including Dorothy Wilding, Helen Chadwick and Hannah Höch, the Collective created Dada poetry after Elina Brotherus, inspired by her Playground series.
- Elina Brotherus, John Cage’s Words Out of Joseph Beuys’ Hat, 2017. After Tristan Tzara: Manifesto on feeble love and bitter love, 1920.
To make a dadaist poem
- Take a newspaper
- Take a pair of scissors
- Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem
- Cut out the article
- then cut each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag
- Shake it gently
- Then take out the scraps one aft era other in the order in which they left the bag
- Copy conscientioulsy
- The poem will be like you
