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Art World News
Tri-County Arts Council hosting Ellicottville Fine Art and Craft Market this September
ELLICOTTVILLE — The Tri-County Arts Council will welcome the community to the inaugural Ellicottville Fine Art and Craft Market Sept. 2-3 on the lawn of the 1887 Building at the intersection of routes 219 and 242.
This event is a partnership between the Tri-County Arts Council, the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club of Ellicottville.
This juried show features the work of some of the region’s best-known artists and fine craftspeople, many of whom also have international reputations in galleries and fine art shows throughout the United States and abroad.
An intimate evening of fine arts and crafts, Ellicottville Fine Art and Craft Market is an opportunity to add to or begin an art collection, purchase a one-of-a-kind gift and meet the artists and makers behind an impressive collection of works.
Indeed, the Tri-County Arts Council is comprised of member artists and craftspeople who reside in Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties. Many of those members will be part of the Ellicottville Fine Art and Craft Market, including fine artist Sean Huntington, TCAC Exhibitions Coordinator.
“We want to expose the residents and visitors of Ellicottville to the amazing talent that this region has to offer,” Huntington said. “Plus buying from local artists that you can actually meet and form a relationship with is so much more satisfying than getting some anonymous art from a big box store. Fill your home with pieces that mean something to you.”
Participating artists include Robin Zefers Clark, Lisa Conn, Denise Drummond, Pam Gifford, Ed Green, Bonnie Hedden, Lisa Hodge, Michelle Hoff, Sean Huntington, Keith McKale, Kaylee Taylor, Eileen Weishan, Mike Weishan, Mikel Wintermantel and many more.
Their mediums include oil painting, gouache, watercolors, wood, sculpture, mosaic, glass, photography, pottery, sculptures, fiber, jewelry and so much more. We have so much talent in this region, and this is a great place to experience it.
The inaugural Ellicottville Fine Art and Craft Market promises to be a great event in Ellicottville. “We are hoping to make this an annual event,” said Paula Bernstein, Executive Director of TCAC. “This is a wonderful opportunity for people to enjoy fine arts and crafts right in their own community, beyond the walls of a gallery.”
TCAC is currently looking into sponsorship for the event. Call (716) 372-7455 for more information.
The market will be held rain or shine. The event is free with plenty of nearby parking. For more information, visit tricountyartscouncil.org.
Sthenjwa Luthuli Evokes Ancient African Traditions and Spirit Worlds in Meticulously Carved Paintings
“Inzalo Yelanga” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 184 x 136 x 4 centimeters. All images © Sthenjwa Luthuli, courtesy of Unit London, shared with permission
In the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, a mysterious, human-built structure known locally as Inzalo Ye Langa rests in the hills. Three monolithic dolomites complement a network of stone circles, which like other monuments of its kind around the world, align with the celestial calendar. Also referred to as “Adam’s Calendar” or the “Birthplace of the Sun,” the site provides a well of inspiration for artist Sthenjwa Luthuli’s newest body of work, now on view at Unit London.
Luthuli’s exhibition Inzalo Ye Langa: Birthplace of the Sun draws on the rich fabric of African culture, history, and folklore, exploring ancestral connections and ancient heritage. He creates meticulously hand-carved surfaces from wood in a meditative process that reveals intricate geometries and fluid figures. The painted circular patterns are influenced by traditional African healing methods, which often utilize colorful beads arranged in various formations to treat ailments and chase away bad spirits.
Representing the missing identities of the artist’s forebears, headless figures appear to dance, roll, or slip through Luthuli’s compositions as if out of control and lost in time. Separating the head from the body also connects to ideas around the human spirit. Drawing on tales of ancient African birth rites, the artist considers how elders often recognized the reincarnation of past generations in newborns as part of a continuous cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Without faces or consciousness, each figure represents the essence of an individual before they transform into flesh and blood.
Inzalo Ye Langa: Birthplace of the Sun is on view in London through August 24, and you can see more of Luthuli’s work on Instagram.
“Great Pyramid” (2023), hand-carved super wood block, mixed media, and paint, 92 x 136 x 4 centimeters
“Izimpande” (2023), hand-carved super wood block, mixed media, and paint, 92 x 136 x 4 centimeters
Left: “Spirit Before Flesh” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 136 x 92 x 4 centimeters. Right: “AbaseKhemu” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 136 x 92 x 4 centimeters
“The Presence of the Physical” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 184 x 136 x 4 centimeters
“Ububele” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 136 x 92 x 4 centimeters
“Umcebo Wokhokho” (2023), hand-carved super wood block and mixed media, 184 x 136 x 4 centimeters
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Sthenjwa Luthuli Evokes Ancient African Traditions and Spirit Worlds in Meticulously Carved Paintings appeared first on Colossal.
Transforming Local Communities Through Artistic Leadership (SSIR)
(Illustration by iStock/mustafahacalaki)
Addressing entrenched social problems in local communities like inequality, violence, or environmental degradation is as much about changing local cultures and mindsets as it is about reworking the socioeconomic structures around them. Cultural norms and values, such as gender roles and attitudes toward nature, guide economic and social interactions in communities. Challenging or redirecting established values is therefore at the heart of structural change.
Some of the most powerful tools for challenging established norms and for raising awareness about social problems are cultural artifacts like art, music, and film. However, artists and artistic projects have the power to do much more. Indeed, they can play a vital role in community change. Given the right support and strategy, artist-led efforts can empower communities to craft desirable futures, make social issues visible beyond the community, and promote long-term investments in local transformations.
But where exactly does the power of art for social change lie, and how can artists, communities, and funders effectively promote art-based change projects? Here’s a look at three artist-led projects that have made a significant impact in local communities through a combination of visual art and documentary films, as well as five strategies for funders to best support these types of projects.
Empowering Communities to Craft Desirable Futures
Artistic projects have a unique capacity to empower communities to envision a world different from their present reality. Indeed, the creative process can be particularly useful in contexts of poverty and hardship, where it can be difficult for people to think beyond their immediate opportunities and constraints, and imagine alternative futures.
The Gypsy Magna, a digital C print by artist Vik Muniz. The artwork appears in the documentary Waste Land and was created in partnership with catadores, or “collectors” of recyclable materials at a landfill near Rio de Janeiro. (Image courtesy of Vik Muniz Studios)
The 2010 documentary Waste Land offers a good example. The film portrays a collaboration between Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and a group of catadores, or “collectors,” who gather recyclable materials in Jardim Gramacho, a large landfill near Rio de Janeiro. Muniz works with the catadores to create artworks from materials they have collected, including variations on a Renaissance Madonna, Jean-François Millet’s painting The Sower, and Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Death of Marat. The process takes the catadores on a transformative journey that helps them see themselves differently. They develop a newfound sense of pride and value in their work, and a new outlook on their roles as recyclers contributing to environmental sustainability. They also develop new artistic skills.
The documentary ends with an auction, where one portrait sells for more than $64,000. Muniz returns all sales revenues to Jardim Gramacho, supporting catadores to improve their working conditions. Muniz and the filmmakers also donate $276,000 to the workers’ cooperative Association of Collectors of the Metropolitan Landfill of Jardim Gramacho, money that has since been used to purchase computers, install a library, and finance a small-business training program. In 2010, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received more than 50 film awards, including the Best Documentary Award. It was also a nominee for the Best Documentary Feature category at the 83rd Academy Awards. Although public interest in the project peaked with the film’s release, and notwithstanding the closure of Jardim Gramacho in 2012, the documentary imparts valuable insights into labor conditions in landfill environments and more generally retains the power to mobilize people to take proactive stances on societal issues.
Making Issues Visible Beyond the Community
Artists and filmmakers can also make local issues visible and relatable to a wider audience through their work, not only inspiring other communities suffering from similar conditions, but also generating new resources and support for local change. Our analysis of film-based impact campaigns shows a strong link between reaching global audiences and effective community change, in part because broad exposure mobilizes support and puts pressure on local stakeholders to promote change.
For example, The Interrupters is a 2011 film that tells the story of three ex-gang members who mediate, or “interrupt,” gang conflicts and prevent shootings in Chicago. The film was included in 44 film festivals in 15 different countries and ultimately seen by 3 million people worldwide.
Ameena Matthews is the daughter of a former Chicago gang leader and one of three change-maker protagonists in the anti-violence documentary The Interrupters. (Image courtesy of Kartemquin Films)
The Interrupters focuses on Chicago’s CeaseFire program, an effort that aimed to mobilize communities to reduce gang violence in the city. On release, the producers launched a $154,000 outreach campaign in Chicago and nationwide, organizing screenings and conversations in 44 US states about the roots of violence and improving social services. More than 16,000 people saw the film at around 400 moderated community screenings, 300 of which were held outside Chicago. One of the film’s protagonists, Eddie Bocanegra, also organized a special screening around an exhibition dealing with community violence at Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art. The event shared art and stories by local youth, featured a discussion on the role of art in processing post-traumatic stress, and promoted art mentorships as a pathway to college.
The film and related campaign ultimately inspired the Mayor of Chicago to allocate $1 million for CeaseFire to support more “interrupters,” and while the longer-term effects have been somewhat mixed, the project likely contributed to a 40 percent reduction in local shootings and homicides in 2013. Importantly, the Interrupters film campaign also inspired other US cities to launch programs similar to CeaseFire.
Promoting Long-Term Investments in Local Transformations
Artist-led projects have the potential to create long-lasting impact, because the cultural artifacts they produce—films, paintings, sculptures—remain long after the projects launch. These artifacts can inspire people and generate awareness about social issues through multiple generations. In doing so, they support long-term shifts in values that can lead to new sources of income and careers in the local community.
In 2012, local artists in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda—the “Rwenzori Founders”—began crafting, exhibiting, and selling sculptures of extinct and endangered species in the region, both to raise awareness about the consequences of deforestation and to finance local replanting and rewilding initiatives. Over time, many artists have joined the effort, with great results. Since the project began, well over 20,000 trees have been planted in the area, and wildlife diversity has increased. Today, 203 bird species populate the area compared to 50 bird species in 2007. At the same time, the project has created new jobs for locals such as bronze cast workers, tree planters, security guards, cooks, and gardeners.
Issac Okwir, one of the Rwenzori Founders, makes an animal sculpture to celebrate the beauty of wildlife diversity in Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains.
(Photo by Zuleika Kingdon, director of The Rwenzori Rainmakers and cofounder of Films for Change)
In an interview, Rwenzori Founder Isaac Okwir describes a virtuous cycle: “The artists come in, they observe and make artworks inspired by the culture and wildlife, which are sold in the local gallery, and the profits return to the community or back into the rewilding project. And as a result, the biodiversity increases, more endangered species come back, and this becomes a source of inspiration for more artists.”
The project has led to a culture shift in the community. In the past, locals perceived wildlife mainly as hunting game, now they see them as a source of identity and worthy of protection. To support this transformation, the Rwenzori Founders organize regular school visits to the gallery. Okwir explains, “If we want the project to be sustainable, we need the younger generation to carry on our dreams.”
In 2021, the project caught the attention of UK filmmakers Zuleika Kingdon and Jacqui Doughty, and inspired them to make The Rwenzori Rainmakers, a documentary about the project. The filmmakers’ Kickstarter campaign raised more than 25,000 British pounds (about $32,000 US dollars), which funded tree saplings for the reforestation effort and employed Ugandan talent as film crew. The filmmakers have run creative workshops and helped launch collaborations between regional and global wildlife organizations, which will generate more funding opportunities.
Supporting Artist-Led Change
Support for artist-led change projects isn’t just about funding the art itself. To be effective, support can and must take many forms. When possible, it should include the following five elements.
1. Funding for a campaign manager. Funders can boost the impact of artist-led projects by helping artists team up with campaign managers who organize special screenings and events; design social media campaigns; and craft educational materials to promote awareness-building, behavioral changes, and policy changes in local communities. For example, the producer of The Interrupters, Kartemquin, teamed up with outreach professionals to organize local screenings, in partnership with communities and city officials. The Impact Field Guide by Doc Society provides rich insights into running impact campaigns and the role campaign managers, or “impact producers,” can play. Campaigns aiming for policy change and regulation and community transformation seem to particularly benefit from them. But they require special funding, especially if professional impact producers get involved.
2. Contacts and collaborative opportunities. As with other social change efforts, funders and foundations can help artists and filmmakers build alliances with governments, NGOs, and community organizations. In the context of Waste Land, the portrait of Tião, one of the catadores involved in the project, was sold at Phillips de Pury, an auction house in London, and a retrospective exhibition featuring the artistic works of Vik Muniz was inaugurated at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio. Both the auction sale and the retrospective exhibition provided an opportunity for greater visibility and engagement with wider audiences, enabling the dissemination of the project’s core message and impact. Funders can also raise the visibility of artist-led projects among other funders that support social or environmental causes.
3. Support for public events and exhibitions. Funders can also help expand the impact of artistic projects by making public spaces available for events, exhibitions, or screenings. For example, the Public Art Fund supported artist Ai Weiwei’s large-scale Good Fences Make Good Neighbors project in New York City, which addressed the global refugee crisis. The citywide exhibition, which ran from 2017 to 2018, encompassed more than 300 site-specific works, displayed in a wide range of locations, including the Lower East Side in Manhattan and Corona Park in Queens. This use of public spaces fostered dialogue about the fundamental concepts of borders, migration, and belonging. Funders can also support community workshops that use artwork and films to inspire collective change processes. Doing workshops properly may require professional facilitators and counselors who can help participants as they engage with traumatic issues such as gang violence.
4. Educational resources. Supporting art-based educational programs can enhance the impact of art and artistic projects both short- and long-term. For example, in 2012 the MacArthur Foundation and the Burberry Foundation made $2.2 million available to help youth in Chicago develop new skills and confidence, in part through learning opportunities at libraries, museums, schools, and arts venues. Partner organizations of The Interrupters campaign, such as Yollocalli Arts Reach, used this funding to develop art-centered educational programs that empower youth in the community and help them deal with violence and trauma. Funders can also support the development of learning materials around documentaries, which teachers frequently use to introduce students to complex social and environmental issues in the classroom.
5. Artist mentorship. Funders can share expertise in areas such as project management, marketing, and strategic planning to help artists develop the skills they need to lead successful projects. For example, the International Centre of Art for Social Change, an initiative focused on supporting community-engaged art and art for social change, conducts research, provides professional development opportunities, and facilitates knowledge-sharing and networking within the field. The center offers workshops, conferences, and lectures to enhance professional skills and promote the exchange of ideas among artists.
The Interrupters, Waste Land, and the Rwenzori Founders illustrate how artist-led change projects can get communities emotionally invested in their own transformation and in creating real, structural change. For funders, supporting artist-led projects can take many forms, including dedicated funding for a campaign manager, access to potential partners and public space, and providing educational and mentorship opportunities. By coming together, artists, community members, and funders can find creative pathways to making social and environmental issues more visible, and inspiring and empowering communities to take an active part in the process of change.
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Read more stories by Stephan Manning & Yeşim Uygur.
Using Red Thread, Rima Day Intertwines History, Nature, and Human Experience in Striking Embroideries
All images © Rima Day, shared with permission
Pondering the beguiling aspects of human experience, artist Rima Day (previously) embroiders a labyrinth of undulating root systems and sinuous veins. The Tennessee-based artist entwines fleeting sentiments of humanity with bodies and nature, using a range of surfaces that converse with red thread. “I imagine that the needle for me is like a writer’s pen. The shape represents the transience and vitality of the human mind and body, but at the same time, I suggest the similarity to trees and other aspects in nature,” she tells Colossal.
Cascading across a cyanotype, surging from the center of a delicate corset, or proliferating from the gutter of an open book, each of Day’s fiber iterations call to the notion of connection. “I felt like if I could see love, this is how it should look like,” she says. “Just like tree roots or blood vessels, my thread matrix split into thinner appendages as if to absorb or distribute nutrition. It translated into human passion and desire in my mind.” Although these threads formally mimic capillary connections and circulatory systems, they simultaneously ponder the microcosmic relationship between emotions and the entangled pathways that frame our world and bodies.
With a background in fashion design and garment construction, Day is also inspired by 17th to 19th-century sartorial history. Considering feminine garments worn during this time period, the artist contemplates emotions that women may have felt while they wore complicated and restrictive attire. Portraying passion through the color red and using clothing as her canvas, she reflects on how women often had to conceal their true desires, hopes, and liveliness under the constrictions of social standards that dictated their clothing.
Day will be participating in Museum of Contemporary Art Nashville’s pop up exhibition TMP2: Up in Arms this August. You can buy her stitched cyanotype prints on Etsy, and view more artwork on Instagram and her website.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Using Red Thread, Rima Day Intertwines History, Nature, and Human Experience in Striking Embroideries appeared first on Colossal.
Does the punishment fit the crime? Art fraudsters face erratic sentencing
The recent sentencing of the Palm Beach art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz, after he pled guilty to laundering money from the sale of counterfeit works by artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, raised eyebrows in May. Not because of the crime (it is hardly the first time a Warhol has been faked) but because of the sentence itself—27 months, plus three years’ supervised release and a $15,000 fine. In comparison to recent fraud and laundering sentences in the art market, two years and three months seems pretty lengthy.
That is not to say that the crime was inconsequential. Sales of fakes for between $75,000 and $240,000 are clearly significant to the victims (indeed, one bought five works totalling $860,000). But given the scale of the crime, two years and three months appears punitive when compared with the three-and-a-half years given to the former art dealer, Angela Gulbenkian, for charges linked to the fraudulent sale of a $1.4m Yayoi Kusama sculpture; or the 18 months received by the Manhattan dealer Ezra Chowaiki in 2018 for scams totalling over $16m. It is even more jarring considering the 82 days spent in prison by the dealer Glafira Rosales for her role in the Knoedler Gallery fraud case, which involved works valued at over $80m.
So, are the courts still confused about how to handle art crimes?
Bewildering logic
The logic behind sentences can appear bewildering if not considered in the context of the myriad factors underpinning a judge’s decision.
“It is not an apples-to-apples comparison with each case,” warns Georges Lederman, a New York-based special counsel at Withers. “Although wire fraud and laundering crimes carry a maximum statutory term of incarceration of 20 years [which is rarely imposed], the underlying conduct of each case is different. It is not the nature of the asset involved in the fraud—in this case, art—that determines the sentence to be imposed.”
Lederman adds that circumstances considered within sentencing include the characteristics of the defendant; the loss amount to the victim; the potential deterrent effect on the defendant; the need to avoid sentence disparities among similarly situated defendants; and restitution to the victims. Jurisdictions also vary in severity of approach.
Glafira Rosales (centre) served 82 days for her part in an $80m fraud involving Knoedler Gallery, the judge acknowledging she had suffered domestic abuse Photo: Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Judges will often note their reasoning. When sentencing Rosales, Judge Katherine Polk Failla explained her belief that the former’s situation within an abusive relationship and concern for her daughter would “exactly motivate what you did”, and subsequently decided to not return her to jail.
Nevertheless, there is a growing sense of injustice in debate around convictions concerning fraud or laundering within the market.
“My view is that these fraudsters tend to get off easily,” says Christopher Marinello, the founder and chief executive of Art Recovery, which represented a victim in the Gulbenkian case. “In the art world, if you are white, rich—or Instagrammably rich, with fake wealth—the justice systems in many Western countries go easy on the perpetrators. Art crime is considered a rich person’s problem. If you are lucky enough to get a conviction and a money judgment, good luck getting back your artwork or stolen funds.”
Need for deterrent
The majority of criminal cases are linked to subsequent civil litigation and claims, but criminal sentences remain significant as a message.
Judd Grossman, a US-based attorney who has represented buyers defrauded in major cases, including victims in the indictment brought against Chowaiki, notes the example of Inigo Philbrick, where the court “specifically noted the strong message that a hefty sentence there would potentially send to would-be fraudsters”.
“Especially given the last decade-plus of high-profile art-fraud cases, our courts are becoming increasingly aware that some aspects of the art market make it particularly vulnerable to fraud, heightening the need for deterrence in sentencing, in addition to the punitive component,” Grossman adds.
Concern from governments does not necessarily filter down into sentencing guidelines, which primarily focus on types of crime, rather than on the assets or sectors involved. An exception to this was seemingly made in 2016 in the UK, however, when the Sentencing Council issued specific advice for sentencing on theft offences involving heritage or works of art.
The apparent ease with which scams are seemingly growing in number is concerning. That Anna “Delvey” Sorokin launched a much-hyped podcast from her apartment—while still under house arrest for multiple counts of larceny and lying about owning a $67m trust fund in order to set up an arts foundation—is a case in point.
“Prices for art have soared; the market has seen an increase in opportunities for bad actors to engage in ever more audacious types of fraud,” Lederman says. “This trend has not gone unnoticed by the courts, and we should expect to see sentences for art-related crimes increase as a consequence”.
Who got what? Sentences for well-known art fraudsters
Who? Daniel Elie Bouaziz
What? Selling counterfeit works of art from his gallery
When? May 2023
Where? Miami, US
How long? 27 months’ imprisonment, three years supervised release, $15,000 fine
Who? Inigo Philbrick
What? Pled guilty to an $86m wire fraud, including selling works to multiple investors, without the others’ knowledge
When? May 2022
Where? London, UK, and US
How long? Seven years and ordered to pay $86m forfeiture
Who? Ezra Chowaiki
What? Defrauding art dealers and collectors of more than $16m
When? September 2018
Where? Manhattan, US
How long? 18 months
Who? Timothy Sammons
What? Using art to defraud clients, between $10m to $30m thought to have been stolen
When? July 2019
Where? US, UK and New Zealand. Jailed in New York state, US
How long? Four to 12 years
Who? Angela Gulbenkian
What? Fraudulently claiming to sell a sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, valued at £1.4m
When? July 2021
Where? UK
How long? Three and a half years
Who? Subhash Kapoor
What? Burglary and illegal export of idols belonging to the Varadharaja Perumal temple. Wider claims of an international smuggling operation have suggested more than $140m worth of transactions can be linked to him
When? November 2022
Where? Kumbakonam, India
How long? Ten years
Who? Glafira Rosales
What? Pled guilty to charges of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion within the Knoedler & Co fraud case
When? January 2017
Where? US
How long? 82 days in jail and nine months of house arrest
Who? Gary Snell
What? Selling unauthorised sculptures by Auguste Rodin (his associate, Robert Crouzet, received a shorter sentence for his role)
When? April 2019
Where? France
How long? One year suspended sentence and €500,000 damages to the Musée Rodin.
Who? Michael Zabrin
What? Multi-million-dollar, international fake art ring
When? June 2011
Where? Chicago, US
How long? Nine years. His second prison term—in 1992, he pleaded guilty to selling $800,000 worth of counterfeit fine art prints and served a reduced one-year term after he helped authorities convict another fraudulent art dealer
Who? Lawrence Salander
What? Pleaded guilty to 29 felony counts of grand larceny and one count of scheming to defraud, for his role in unauthorised sales of art (totalling an estimated $120m)
When? March 2010
Where? New York, US
How long? Six to 18 years in prison
At 25, the Unblurred art crawl abides
This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon.
As with many Pittsburgh neighborhoods, it’s hard to recall how different the stretch of Penn Avenue through Bloomfield, Garfield and Friendship was in 1998 — the year of the first Unblurred monthly art crawl.
Unblurred grew out of the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, an effort by community-development groups to enliven the street with art galleries, studios and the like. (The idea was to reverse the “blur” of the strip’s storefronts through motorists’ car windows.)
At the time, the street was home to some neighborhood-serving retail, but in terms of visitor attractions, there wasn’t much more than a handful of small restaurants; Garfield Artworks, a gallery and event space; and, nearer to Negley Avenue, the studios of Dance Alloy.
But by the mid-2000s, with help from new additions like the Pittsburgh Glass Center and Modern Formations gallery, Unblurred was the place to be for local arts types every first Friday.
And, despite changes in venues and feel over the years, it’s both the longest-running monthly art crawl in town and the biggest. (The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawls individually draw more people, but are quarterly.)
It certainly felt that way at the July 7 Unblurred. Given good weather, the corridor was teeming with visitors ducking into galleries, heading to restaurants, sampling the food, beverages and crafts on offer from sidewalk vendors, and even listening to live music played by an acoustic combo using a front porch for a stage.
In truth, the crawl is less art-centric than during its initial heyday, a decade or more ago. Galleries like Garfield Artworks, Modern Formations and Most Wanted Fine Art have closed. Some tenants, like dance troupe Attack Theatre (which used to host game nights during Unblurred), have come and gone. Others have moved in and stayed, including Bunker Projects and Assemble: A Community Space for Art + Technology.
There have been more recent art-based additions, including the venerable Silver Eye Center for Photography, which relocated to Penn in 2017, and the Pedantic Arts Residency, which opened last year. But in latter years, most of the newcomers have been brick-and-mortar eating and drinking establishments (Two Frays, Soju, Mixtape), vintage stores, and those aforementioned street vendors, who add so much life to the scene.
There’s also the Garfield Night Market, a collection of 20 or so vendors who take over a block of North Pacific Avenue every Unblurred. The Night Market, which began a decade ago, hosts live entertainment and local vendors of everything from food to crafts.
One of the newest attractions, since May, is a sort of indoor bazaar organized by Boheme Pittsburgh, the Lawrenceville business incubator that rents space to makers of artwork, jewelry, clothing and more. About 15 Boheme vendors participated in July’s Unblurred. Boheme owner Sarah Ponsoll said they’ll be occupying the donated storefront space on Penn during Unblurred at least through September.
Long-time Unblurred denizens include Sheila Ali, who opened the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, a gallery and educational center, in 2009. It’s arguably the busiest gallery on the corridor, with a new show every month, and live music at its opening receptions. Ali said Unblurred crowds lately feel a bit more conservative than in the old days, with “less people in wild outfits.” (She recalls one Unblurred-goer dressed as Abe Lincoln, and another as a tree.) But she enjoys the big turnouts, and adds, “We’re selling art, which is good.”
Nonetheless, the pandemic definitely changed some things. BOOM Concepts, whose storefront gallery had been a keystone of Unblurred since 2014, no longer opens its doors for the crawl; instead, it’s focusing on its own artist residencies and on supporting the Night Market.
BOOM co-founder Thomas Agnew said Unblurred crowds last year were small, which he attributes to the pandemic hiatus leaving people unsure it was still happening. He called the bounceback “amazing.”
“It has a momentum all its own,” says Rick Swartz, executive director of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., which helped launch the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative and oversees Unblurred. Swartz likes that Unblurred attracts young people to the neighborhood (though I’ll note that July’s event also drew plenty of visitors old enough to have experienced Unblurred when it was new).
The BGC — which owns a number of commercial and residential buildings along Penn — estimates that Unblurred draws from 1,000 to 1,500 visitors each month to the most active five blocks of the corridor. “It’s a great way to introduce people to Penn Avenue,” he said.
The next Unblurred is this Fri., Aug. 4. The venues are mostly between Mathilda and Negley, and they’re all open by 7 p.m.; peak traffic seems to arrive between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., though the street stays busy well after.
More information on Unblurred is here.
The Art of Telling Forbidden Stories in China
On an August evening in 2021, the best-selling Chinese novelist Hao Qun, who writes under the name Murong Xuecun, was procrastinating in his one-bedroom apartment. He needed to be at Beijing Capital International Airport around 6 the next morning to catch a flight to London, but he found it hard to pack. Though Hao had a valid tourist visa to Britain, the Chinese government had kept tabs on him for years, and it was possible that he would be prevented from leaving; other public intellectuals had tried to travel abroad only to discover that they were under exit bans. Hao might have been packing for a life of exile or a futile trip to the airport.
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His forthcoming book, “Deadly Quiet City,” would be published soon, and Hao’s editors were worried for his safety. A collection of nonfiction, it was about the terrifying, Kafkaesque early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, where residents had been subjected to an unrelenting information-suppression campaign. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was considered the pandemic’s origin point, but the state had strangled reporting on daily life there. When Hao arrived at the shuttered market in April 2020, he was met by tired guards, who, to discourage him from taking photos, presented coercion as patriotic duty. “You know, the Americans are exhausting their ways to frame our country,” one of them said. “It’d be no good if your photos were used by foreign media. Please cooperate.”
Hao was not deterred. Square-faced and of average height, he has the look of a Chinese everyman. You can picture him striking up conversations with ease, and over the course of his reporting trip he talked to people from all walks of life — office employees, store owners, taxi drivers and migrant workers. Some introductions were made by reporters, who were forbidden to cover many aspects of the pandemic. These meetings were often hourslong affairs. “At the time, people had a strong desire to talk,” Hao recalls. One interview with a citizen journalist named Zhang Zhan lasted from noon until after dusk. All the while, he tried to shake off the eerie suspicion that he was being watched. It was a paranoid hunch, but it wasn’t an irrational one. After all, the guobao, or Chinese secret police, had shadowed him for the better part of a decade. In Wuhan, he conducted conversations at odd locations: on a street lined with office buildings abandoned during the pandemic, or by the windy bank of the Yangtze River.
In his hotel room, he sometimes made phone calls under a blanket to ensure privacy. One night, the sound of two men speaking in hushed voices outside his door left him thinking of citizen journalists who had disappeared after posting reports from the city. A distant memory flashed: Five or six years ago in Beijing, Hao was invited to a celebration at the Swedish Embassy. A couple of guobao officers showed up at his home a day before the event. “You won’t be able to go,” one of them informed Hao, hinting that they would physically stop him if he tried. Feeling rebellious, Hao insisted that he would go, but the guobao taunted him. “Look at yourself,” one of them said. “How many blows would you be able to withstand?” The men in the hallway eventually left, but Hao was covered in cold sweat. Days after he departed from Wuhan, he got word that Zhang had been arrested.
“Deadly Quiet City,” which was published in the United States in March by the New Press, captures how such state-enforced silence, combined with inadequate access to medical care, intensified ordinary people’s despair during the crisis. Reading these stories, you not only feel for Hao’s subjects but also fear for the political trouble Hao’s unflinching clarity invites. After Hao submitted the manuscript to Hardie Grant Books, his Australian publisher, in spring 2021, his editors urged him to leave China out of concern for his safety. He equivocated. A few years in prison was a price he was willing to pay for the book’s publication.
His editors continued to press him, and by midsummer he had decided to flee. He boarded the flight to London successfully and, after a spell, moved on to Melbourne. When he spoke to me in late January, he seemed to be in a bit of disbelief at where his life ended up. Exile in Australia was worlds away from the circumstances in which he first rose to prominence. As China strove for a larger role on the international stage at the turn of the century, the arrival of the internet and a relatively relaxed political environment sparked an unprecedented boom in self-expression. Afforded new license, many writers of Hao’s generation tested the boundaries of Chinese literary culture, writing stories that portrayed the lives of the rapidly growing middle class and the opulent nouveau riche while revealing the ethical toll an increasingly materialistic worldview took on their nation. These writers experimented with subjects that were quotidian but taboo on the page — corruption, sexual desire and evolving gender roles — often wielding confession to upend convention.
There is a Chinese idiom: “Spilled water will not flow backward.” This period opened a floodgate of creation that forever altered contemporary Chinese literary culture. Where the government once vetted all writing for its conformity to state values, the internet provided a marketplace of ideas where writers could independently attract tremendous audiences. In today’s China, though, the pursuit of free expression requires writers to weather new political pressures and operate under the ever-watchful eye of a complex state surveillance system. This can resemble a high-stakes game of Whac-a-Mole in which writers, editors and online publishers try to outmaneuver the Chinese Communist Party’s apparatus, using any opportunity and resource at their disposal to chronicle life as they see it.
In 1978, as China emerged from Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution and decades of isolation, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping inaugurated his Opening Up policy. This was both an overture to foreign business and a kind of domestic glasnost. Over the next few decades, “openness” became a political buzzword. By 2001, that ethos had borne its most symbolic fruits: After campaigning for more than a decade, China became a member of the World Trade Organization and was selected to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
Jiang Zemin, Deng’s successor, applied the old man’s vision to cultural work, which, as he said at the 2002 national party congress, should be “geared toward modernization, the world and the future.” Soon the government introduced policies, like tax relief for companies that transitioned from state-owned bureaucracies to market-driven enterprises, that equipped creative industries to produce dynamic and competitive work.
This general openness coincided with the popularization of the internet, which was new enough that it largely eluded outmoded print-era censorship. For much of the first decade of the new millennium, the Great Firewall — the infrastructure that bans an ever-growing list of foreign websites — hadn’t yet been erected. Chinese citizens could access Facebook, Wikipedia and Google somewhat freely, and the state had yet to develop a robust mechanism to track sensitive words as a way to curb the spread of inconvenient information. By the end of the decade, scholars and writers debated public affairs on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. Elsewhere, vibrant communities emerged around niche passions. The poet who writes under the name Xiaoyin remembers the new poetry websites of that era as chaotic and fun spaces. On sites like Poetry Life, his peers quarreled daily over matters like the possibilities of colloquial poetry writing. “Anyone could start their own bulletin boards,” he told me. “It was like bandits occupying hills and claiming to be kings.”
This internet-based community constituted a sea change for Chinese literature. Until the mid-1990s, jobs were assigned by the government. For generations of writers, membership in the state-sponsored writers’ association and staff jobs at party publications or state news agencies were more or less the only path to a career in letters. Some of China’s most prestigious novelists — like Yan Lianke and Mo Yan, known for their realist novels about the village life of their youth — published their debuts while serving in the People’s Liberation Army. But by the 2000s, such formal affiliations were no longer a prerequisite. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection could share his or her work on literary forums, where censorship was nascent and piecemeal. Free from the scrutiny of editors and censors, writers had a more direct relationship with their readers, who relished their refreshingly unabashed accounts of their historical moment.
Explaining the differences between these generations to me over the phone, the celebrated novelist who writes under the name A Yi borrowed concepts from classic martial-arts stories: Traditional writers, he told me, inhabited miaotang, or temples and courts, whereas writers of the internet age inhabited jianghu, or the unkempt natural world. Unburdened from the institutional gaze, they explored subjects and feelings that didn’t align with the state’s values. One essayist, writing under the name Muzimei, earned her reputation by publishing sex journals detailing her one-night stands and flirtatious encounters with rock stars and other public figures. If the era’s cosmopolitanism was thrilling, it was also morally ambiguous. Sometimes, upward mobility could engender a spiritual hollowness.
Without the relative freedom that the open internet provided, Hao might never have started writing. After testing into a university in Beijing and studying law, in 2000 he got a job in H.R. at a cosmetics company and moved to the southern metropolis Shenzhen — the heartland of Deng’s reforms. When Hao became a writer, he was an untethered man: His parents, who had been farmers in his rural home village, had both died by the time he was in college. He was briefly married in the late 1990s, but that relationship ended in divorce in 2000. Browsing one of the literature bulletin boards, he came across a serialized novel titled “My Beijing,” published under the pseudonym Drunken Fish. The story of a group of friends finding their way in the rapidly growing and suddenly wealthy capital inspired Hao to try his hand at a story that reflected his own time in China’s urban environments. “We wrote about the stories happening around us, our own anxieties, expectations and sense of rootlessness,” he told me.
Soon he had begun a novel about a recent university graduate in the southwestern city Chengdu navigating office politics and questioning his marriage. By April 2002, he was posting chapters to several bulletin boards under his new pseudonym: Murong Xuecun, a name reminiscent of a hero in a martial-arts novel. Eventually titled “Leave Me Alone,” the novel captured the hopes and delusions of recent college graduates who, like Hao, grew up in modest circumstances and now found themselves surrounded by temptations of fast cash and meaningless sex. Hao’s depiction of Chengdu’s seedy underbelly became a sensation on forums like Tianya, one of the period’s largest blogging platforms. Once, a colleague recommended the novel to Hao without knowing that he was Murong Xuecun. Within two months, he was approached by booksellers and publishers, and the novel came out that December. He enjoyed the spoils of success, frequently treating friends to fancy dinners and letting them borrow money when they needed it. Beijing is divided into six concentric rings radiating from downtown; generally speaking, the closer to downtown, the more prosperous the neighborhood. By 2010, Hao lived in a penthouse in the third ring.
Hao’s fiction tended to explore imperfect protagonists, abuse of power and the moral corrosion of city life. In his 2008 best-selling novel, “Dancing Through Red Dust,” the narrator, Wei Da, is a well-connected partner at a law firm who moves with confidence through gambling dens and corporate offices alike. Wei comes from a simple family, but in a world where money keeps everything in motion and compassion is weakness, his survival instincts and desire for influence overwhelm his better nature. In one scene, Wei runs over a poor farmer while driving drunk; in the end, the farmer is forced to pay Wei for damaging his car. Hao’s transition from a pulp-fiction writer to a daring documentarian and critic of the government was a natural progression. “From the get-go, he has been completely obsessed with how people are corrupted by the environment in which they live,” says Megan Walsh, author of “The Subplot,” a book about contemporary Chinese literature. In reading his work, she says, you come to believe that people can exist in and perpetuate “horrendous cycles of injustice.”
Authorities mostly viewed Hao and other newcomers with suspicion. At National Writers’ Association conferences, leaders urged “literature workers” to fight against “diversification of thought” — ideas that subverted authoritarian, patriarchal norms. Later, at a propaganda meeting, the deputy party secretary of Chengdu criticized Hao’s fiction for damaging the city’s image. A more “correct” local performance artist, Li Boqing, accused Hao of failing to present the city’s “mainstream features.” To him, Li said in an interview, Chengdu was “a beautiful, kind and tolerant mother, who also has a graceful figure.” Disgusted by the lust and greed portrayed in Hao’s work, Li insisted that writers should focus on the city’s relaxing atmosphere, famed history of brocade production and beautiful Chinese hibiscus.
As Hao went through a political awakening, that distrust turned into persecution. In 2011, Hao learned that his close friend Ran Yunfei, a scholar of classical Chinese, was arrested and charged with subversion after he warned that if China didn’t make reforms, it risked an upheaval like the Jasmine Revolution protests in North Africa. On Weibo, where Hao had millions of followers, he denounced the arrest and called Ran “the conscience of the country.” Ran was released from detention that same year, but Hao’s encounter with state repression radicalized him. “Until that point, I had enjoyed my life as a best-selling author and avoided getting into trouble,” he says. “But when their hands reached those close to me, I had to step up.” Hao’s writing steered to social commentary, and he began contributing to The International New York Times.
The repercussions were swift. Hao was banned from Weibo, and before long it became clear that he was blacklisted. In 2014, he started to receive invitations to tea — slang for informal police questioning. In the next few years, he had tea about 40 times, as often as once a month. Sometimes, as if they were old friends, officers would ask what Hao had been up to or what he had been thinking about. His writing career essentially came to an end: He never published another book in China, and he made his living by ghostwriting screenplays for movies and TV shows. When, out of habit, he reached for the bill while out at dinner, friends dissuaded him and insisted that he needed to think about his future. By the time he left China, he had rented a studio apartment outside Beijing’s fifth ring. Thirty-six of his friends — writers, scholars, activists and lawyers — had been detained or sentenced to prison. Late at night, as he fell asleep, he wondered when his turn would come. “I didn’t have long-term plans,” he says, “because I felt that I had one foot in prison already.”
Under President Xi Jinping, who took office in 2013, the Communist Party has sought to assert China’s position as a rising global power. Domestically, Xi’s government has shown less tolerance for the kind of writing that Deng’s reforms fostered and has been keen on creating a centralized discourse that nurtures national pride through an emphasis on “telling China’s story well” — a piece of ubiquitous political boilerplate that Xi introduced into the national consciousness. In the spring of 2013, less than two months after Xi became president, state outlets reported on a party central document that instructed cadres to prioritize “the struggles in the ideological sphere” and to “reinforce our management of propaganda on the cultural front” and “cut off channels of erroneous ideologies and speech at their headwaters.” This course correction was a tacit admission that Deng’s Opening Up policy stoked growing conversation about notions like feminism, queerness and civil rights — and that their discussion needed to be curbed.
To that end, the state has developed a robust surveillance and censorship apparatus. The guobao, local police officers, publishing authorities and digital surveillance tools are all mobilized into a multifaceted operation whose purpose is to control “China’s story.” That machinery has transformed the internet from a place of experimentation into Exhibit A of the state’s power. This often takes the form of a 404 error page — a notice that the state has deemed an article or a piece of social media content unfit for public consumption. No one is immune: In 2021, former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao published an essay remembering his mother, writing that China “should be a country full of justice and fairness.” On the popular social media app WeChat, users couldn’t share Wen’s essay on their timelines or private chats.
Xi’s approach has strangled free expression. According to Freedom House, which surveys internet freedom around the world by tracking control measures, the freedom of the Chinese internet has dropped by 40 percent since 2011, and for the last eight years, China has earned the ignominious distinction of being the “most repressive” among the countries that the organization monitors. In publishing, each new title requires individual approval, which can result in an exhausting process: Once a publisher decides to pursue a book proposal, it will be reviewed by in-house editors before they submit a request to the National Administration of Press and Publication, which decides whether the idea will materialize. In the last decade, the publication of new titles categorized as “literary” has decreased by 15 percent. Seven out of 10 literary titles published in 2013 were new works. By 2021, reprints made up half of publications.
In this environment of intense censorship and fractured cultural infrastructure, writers must be flexible, willing to forgo old forms and move fluidly among genres if they want to continue making meaningful work. Journalists become serial entrepreneurs who dream up new ways of creating to fill the lacunae they see. When one project becomes infeasible, they move on to another.
Zhang Wenmin, a veteran journalist who writes under the name Jiang Xue, became known for her coverage of a 2002 civil rights case in which four policemen showed up at a newlywed couple’s home because they were watching porn. Among many colleagues, there had been the consensus that no matter what, they had to try to say a little more, Zhang recalls. Sensing increasing pressure, she quit institutional journalism in 2015 to become a self-publishing blogger. With long, straight hair, Zhang dresses simply. In contrast to the steely insistence on common sense in her writing, there is a vulnerable shyness in her physical presence. “I’ve never been cool,” she joked softly, her arms draped in front of her body. On WeChat, she wrote stories about dissidents, something no news outlet would allow, she said, because it’s like violating a tiantiao — a statute sent from heaven. She was uninvited from journalism events. She lost her Weibo and WeChat accounts, becoming virtually invisible. “Friends and family think I went too far,” Zhang said. When her city, Xi’an, went into lockdown, a friend offered her own WeChat account to publish Zhang’s journals. They went viral but also drew attacks. “The worsening media environment in the last 10 years makes people see things upside down,” she said. “When you do the most normal thing, it appears abnormal.”
Elsewhere, an even more bottom-up kind of writing community appeared. Its participants are assisted by affordable technology — three-quarters of the Chinese population are smartphone owners — allowing a wider swath of people to publish more varieties of writing. While Hao’s generation of writers was predominantly middle class and upwardly mobile, the spread of internet-enabled technology has allowed working-class people without degrees to pursue literature. On social media platforms like Kuaishou, where users post short video clips, factory workers, masseuses and truck drivers started to compose poems. In 2017, a 44-year-old single mother, Fan Yusu, became a literary star almost overnight after her autobiographical essay, “I Am Fan Yusu,” went viral on WeChat. Beginning with a striking line — “My life is a hard-to-read book: Destiny bound me poorly” — it narrates her rural youth and eventual employment by an uber-rich Beijing businessman who hires her to take care of the child he shares with a mistress. Six days a week, she leaves her own daughters behind and attends to the love child. She started writing in her free time because, she thought, “to live, you have to do something besides eating.”
The journalist and editor Yang Ying has been a champion for overlooked stories and the platforms that host them. She has managed to build a successful career despite cycles of setback and rebirth: A former reporter for a business weekly, she left that magazine in 2014 after growing dissatisfied with conventional media. Along with a couple of other editors, she started a popular digital outlet whose name translates to Curiosity Daily that covered subjects like the Shanghai Pride Parade, a Texan who moved into a dumpster for a year to explore sustainable living and the work of the Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda, who once commented that creators should keep influence of the state at bay. After the authorities suspended the outlet twice for “illegally building a news gathering and editing team,” the outfit dissolved in 2019. Yang persisted, following that project with a digital magazine called Xiaoniao, or Little Birds, in which she published literary writing on subjects that could no longer be explored in journalism. “Literature is our last refuge,” Yang told me.
“In stories, people can communicate with one another,” Zhang Jieping, a journalist turned media entrepreneur and founder of the fellowship Zaichang, or “On the Scene,” told me. “Their joys and sadness become relatable. With today’s news outlets, it’s increasingly hard to achieve that.” As journalism institutions collapsed, Zhang built Zaichang to create a community and a ladder for aspiring journalists to learn to tell such stories. Editors like Yang and Zhang want to correct that dearth of connection by normalizing what Yang called “everyday messiness” — topics that the state considers counterproductive, like disappearing traditional villages and the rising diagnosis of anxiety in the aftermath of disasters. In Xi’s China, though, publishing this work means courting unwanted attention. During Shanghai’s Covid lockdown, Xiaoniao published a special edition that collected haunting real stories, including one about a young woman who evaded the rules to cross the city to see her critically ill father. Soon, Yang was treated to tea by her local police. Apparently swamped with tea appointments, they asked her to remove the entire issue from the publication’s mobile app. She complied.
Without public distribution channels, the special issue of Xiaoniao lives as a PDF passed around among friends. “I have no idea how far it has reached,” Yang said. “There is something samizdat-like to it,” she said, referring to the underground literature of 20th-century Eastern Europe, which circulated hand to hand. In today’s China, people create knowing that publishing is transient in nature — online articles can be taken down; books can be removed from the shelves; writers can be blacklisted; bloggers can be “disappeared.” (One of the websites Xiaoyin frequented, Poetry Life, announced its shutdown on July 13. “Poetry Life was born on the internet where it will dissipate,” the announcement read. “It has been a mirage as well as our real land.”)
Yet many people go on writing in whatever capacity they can manage. “If the goal was to escape censorship, then we wouldn’t be in this business,” Yang said. They focus, instead, on creating a new possibility of public writing: a vibrant, breathing thing. “Here, people are quick to forget,” she said. “Sometimes they are forced to forget. Other times, new events overwrite the old before you know it. It’s like we live in an environment where people can’t keep going if they don’t learn to forget.” She paused to search for the precise words. “Literature is a good way to help people remember things.”
Earlier this year, Zhang Wenmin and Hao were introduced by mutual friends and met while they were each traveling. Pondering her future, Zhang was both curious about and daunted by the examples of Hao and other expatriate writers. At a dinner with other Chinese writers, she spoke almost to herself. “How does a writer come to accept their status of exile?”
In Melbourne, Hao is curious about his new surroundings. Every experience presents opportunities for discoveries: After contracting Covid and speaking with a public-health official on the phone, he was prescribed free medication. “Isn’t this socialism?” he wondered. He went to observe a local election and chatted with people outside. “It’s eye-opening,” he says. “There is a party representing sex workers. There is also a party for animal rights.”
Hao is eager to master his new language but is baffled by the choice of other exiled writers, like the late Milan Kundera, to abandon their mother tongues in their work. The act of writing — of making sense of one’s experiences — is so bound up in the language a person speaks, along with all the little intricacies and inexplicable imagery within it. To abandon it is almost like abandoning yourself. He told me the story behind his favorite Chinese phrase: huangliang yimeng, or “a fleeting dream as the golden millet cooks.” It refers to a story in which a young man falls asleep at an inn as the innkeeper steams a pot of millet. In his dream, the man marries a beautiful woman from a wealthy family, rises to power in court politics and narrowly escapes death after jealous rivals set him up. After a lifetime, he wakes up. The millet isn’t done yet. Which is the reality: eventless destitution or surreal splendor punctuated by viciousness?
Hao has readily joined a growing community of Chinese activists and writers in exile. “As the environment grows dire,” he wrote to Zhang on Signal, the encrypted messaging service, “we are a generation that’s destined to be uprooted and scattered, to drift through the world.” Privately, though, Hao is still processing the past. Since self-exiling, Hao has experienced a measure of survivor’s guilt. His tally of arrested friends has risen to 41. Last fall, when thousands of citizens protested the arbitrary Covid policies, Hao had an intense feeling of missing out. One day, perhaps, he thought, he would decide to return home as abruptly as he left. In his early essays, Hao depicted himself to be a somewhat feeble man. When he encountered physical conflict in the streets, he tended to avert his eyes and avoid getting involved. It’s different, however, when the conflict is intellectual. He finds himself oscillating between wary caution and reckless bravery. He cannot stomach the government’s authoritarian grip on China’s literary culture and public life. “Who gives you the right to rule this way?” he wondered aloud.
Last year, Hao began writing fiction again at the age of 48. He is in the middle of a new novel he is calling “Homeless Dog.” The working title is inspired by a friend’s experience during a tea session when a guobao officer scolded him: “Don’t fancy yourself to be some kind of big figure. To me, you are merely a homeless dog.” Seen in this light, the title poses a question: Who gets to define writers like Hao? “I had to make many difficult choices, but I’m proud of the life I lived,” Hao says. In May, he was touring for his Wuhan book in Norway. In drizzling rain, on a train passing through unfamiliar cities, he dozed. A dream came: He was 18 again and about to take the college entrance exam. He was feeling unprepared. He woke up feeling jittery, then remembered that the old days are long gone. He is far from home.
Han Zhang is a journalist on The New Yorker’s editorial staff. She has written about the political and literary narratives that have shaped Chinese culture and identities. She is also the editor at large for Riverhead Books, where she is working to introduce contemporary Chinese-language literary works to English readers.
Art on every corner in August
Miriam Pickens
Ginger Alberti of Sew Cranky helps Nila using hand crank machines to put together a quilt
The Eagle Harbor Fair has a wonderful lineup of artists, plus the large tent where members of the Copper Country Associated Artists gather and share music, conversation and crafts with guests in a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere August 12 and 13.
This summer Dolly Luoma, Millie Little, and Jeanne Rosemurgy, all fiber artists, share the Featured Artist position.
Art in the Park in Copper Harbor has features artists and crafters, plus a main stage featuring regional musicians as well as grilled corn, brats and more.
The whole town is in celebration mode the weekend of August 19.
Miriam Pickens
Stacy Lay Coax in front of her booth at the Hancock Tori and Farmers Market.
Closer to home, I’ve been admiring the Public Art Walking Tour in Hancock, a collaboration of the City of Hancock with the Copper Country Community Arts Center.
This is a collection of 13 pieces from the Permanent Collection at the CCCAC of pieces donated by notable local artists. Pieces are reproduced onto weatherproof display boards placed around the city.
At Porvoo Park on the Portage Canal, you can see “Shift Change” by Kevin Breyfogle, a depiction of Copper Miners going to work in the snowy weather, and “The Cliff” by Alice Reynolds.
Nancy McCabe, whose painting “Flowers for Mimi” is at the Ryan Street Garden, used to tell me about her friend Alice Reynolds who was locally famous in the 50’s and 60’s for her painting on ceramics. Breyfogle is known for his large, vibrant precisely painted scenes, some of which are currently for sale at the CCCAC.
I love to check out the art at the Tori Market on Thursdays on the Quincy Green in front of the Hirvonen building.
Finnish American Folk School
Dishtowels now displayed at the Finnish American Folk School held up by John Gale.
Besides the fresh veggies and baked goods, I enjoy browsing the artist booths, including one where you can find cool tye-dyed clothes and jewelry by Stacey Lay Coax from Elo, between Tapiola and Pelkie.
Joyce Kosenmaki’s “Bear and Stars” and John Haro’s “The Construction Workers” are displayed on Quincy Green.
Kosenmaki taught art at Finlandia for many years. Her paintings and sculptures depict the spiritual connection with nature. I enjoy checking out her work at the Gallery on 5th in Calumet and the CCCAC.
Haro was a local architect who designed some beautiful local church buildings including the Finlandia Chapel and the Range Apostolic Church in South Range, as well as many buildings in Ann Arbor on the University of Michigan Campus.
Haro passed away at the age of 91 in 2020.
You can find a map of the Public Art Walking Tour at the CCCAC or City Hall in Hancock. You can get pretty close to most of them by car, but some will require a little exercise.
I stopped by Sew Cranky on Quincy St. in Hancock where Ginger Alberti was working with Nila on a quilt, which will be a gift for her mom. Besides her group classes where customers of all ages learn to use the hand cranked sewing machines to create an assortment of goods, Ginger also works with private students on larger projects.
There are some really cool art events coming up in August and September.
The Finnish American Folk School is getting geared up again to bring us the Bark & Willow Symposium from September 8 through 13. This will include workshops and demonstrations by Karen Tembreull and Poppy Hatinger, on the art of basketry, beadmaking, cordage and bookbinding. This symposium is sponsored in part by the Michigan Arts & Culture Council and the CCCAC.
Registration is required, and you can find more information at https://www.finlandia.edu/fahc/finnish-american-folk-school/.
If you get a chance, check out the display of works from the Finnish American Folk School that were completed in the 2022/23 season. One display of interest is the collection of handwoven dish towels.
Five expert weavers from the folk school set up warps on five looms, and each weaver wove at least one towel on each warp; a sort of round-robin. There are more than twenty-five towels displayed on this clothesline, and each is unique and beautiful. In addition, there are examples of cotton rugs, ceramic wall flowers, Nuno felting and Birchbark art.
“Finns Love Alliteration” is the title of the new show opening today at the CCCAC Gallery featuring Duluth artist Lenore Lampi.
Lampi is well known for her ceramic work depicting intricate birchbark designs on functional ware as well as wall hangings. The opening reception and gallery talk will be this evening from 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Finally, there is an upcoming project which is dear to my heart.
Art for Peace is a collaboration of Keweenaw Faiths United with Keweenaw CAPE, the Community Alliance for Progressive Education. Children around our community at summer programs and Faith Communities have been listening to stories about Peacemaking, and have been encouraged to think about what Peace means to them. They are drawing pictures about Peace, and the pictures will be displayed in the Youth Gallery at the CCCAC in September.
On Thursday, August 17 from 5:30-7:30, Trinity Episcopal at 205 East Montezuma Ave. in Houghton will host a free supper and a Peacemaking session open to the community.
For more information call Reverend Sarah Diener-Schlitt at 906-482-2010 or email the church at trinityepiscopalhoughton@gmail.com.
Artwork on display at the farmers market
Sitting among her pieces of art on display at the Waxahachie Farmers Market, Victoria Garcia is completing a portrait of a cat while her mother, Alma Villarreal, is working on a landscape.
“This is very relaxing, and I really enjoy the many art crafts that I work on,” said Garcia, a sixth-year art education teacher at Walnut Grove Middle School in Midlothian. Her artwork includes handmade bead necklaces, different pottery items, paintings, and drawings.
