An intense awareness of the need to create new information and access older, buried information also ran through many different artistic endeavors. The talents of women in the visual arts and creative writing soared to produce festivals, curate exhibits, and publish books and ephemeral publications (exhibit items 27, 28, 29, 35, 37, and 40). Women celebrated themselves, past events in women’s history, and their search for liberation from traditional constraints. For example, the flyer publicizing the 1975 exhibit "From a Woman’s Darkroom" (exhibit item 29) invited viewers to the New Orleans Public Library to see the artistic interpretation of the personal and the political. Distaff (1972-1982) a mostly monthly women’s newspaper run by Mary Gehman, alongside Donna Swanson and many others, provided impressive coverage of a wide variety of happenings in the lives of Louisiana women (exhibit items 35, 57, and 63). Gehman operated the newspaper from her home; she and the paper’s editors and writers juggled family life and outside work amidst responsibility for the newspaper. Together they created a truly remarkable record of the time -- liberal, multi-cultural, and filled with ties that exist still today. These were also the days of many small study groups whose position papers reflected a multiplicity of topics. The alternative print community flourished with newspapers (many short lived) such as Sunflower (exhibit item 39).