Good Evening!

It is wonderful to be back on here. I hope everyone is doing well. I actually had a tremendous week because I was able to finish my display on the WILPF and I have become working on the life of Joan Heath Fortner. I have just finished writing a little summary about her that I will include in my final display. It still requires a little bit of editing, but this is what I have so far.

Joan Heath Fortner was born in 1932 to Mr. and Mrs. Norbert A. Heath. She is an alumna of Immaculata High School (1950), Mundelein College (1954, BFA), the New York Fashion Academy (1955), and Loyola University (1979, M.A. in Education). From a young age, Fortner was extremely passionate about art and she actually became the youngest person to win the Chicago Tribune American Fashions Competition. In addition to this award, she was the 1950 recipient of the Bishop O’Brien scholarship to the Art Institute in Chicago. In 1953 she won a second scholarship to the New York Fashion Academy for a design she submitted to a contest by the Evans Fur Company.

During her lifetime, Fortner has been involved in art organizations in Chicago and suburbs for years. She is currently the president of the Des Plaines Art Guild and the executive director of Art Cubes, a nonprofit art service organization funded by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council that brings the arts to older adults. Due to the dedication to her work, Fortner has won many awards and today she is still extremely active in her community. Along with teaching art classes, she is currently working on watercolor and acrylic paintings. This exhibit will highlight various works of Fortner and the impact she has made on Art and Fashion. 

I am extremely excited to continue my work on this project because this individual is quite different from anyone I have worked on before. She is quite talented in the Arts and has this immense passion for fashion. I share this interest with Fortner in that I am a major fan of runways and clothing designs so it is quite an honor to work on this exhibit. I hope I do her justice! I will continue to work on this next week so please stated tuned!

Also, here is the link for my latest display. Please check it out.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/wla-archives

Take care!