(This blog was originally posted under the headline "Local Artists Cross Cultural Divide Between US & People's Republic of China" on a internet website at The News Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tacoma, WA on 10/16/07 at a reader-generated site entitled "In Your Neighborhood.)
There's an art gallery I've never toured on an unknown street in the very old and history city of Yangzhou, China along the northern banks of the fabled Yangtze River that's been on my mind.
My general lack of familiarity of the landscape in this 2,500 year old city within the People's Republic of China, what sights and smells evoke this exotic Eastern metropolis in the memory of veteran travelers, as well as the moving panorama of day to night ambiance on this specific street, has little if any relation to the soaring levels of interest I've entertained in the gallery and a modest exhibition of art from the Pacific Northwest (October 12 - 19) concluding a run of just a week three days from today.
The show was organized by Tacoma's Asia Pacific Culture Center (APCC) and pieces were hand-carried to China by a group of local artists led by APCC's dynamic founder Patsy Surh O'Connell ably assisted by South King county artist, community activist and former educator, Amy Sie.
The roster of artists in the show include: Amy Sie, Ashley Wells, Barbara Stout, Becky Frehse, Bee Shyuan Chang, Bill Broderick, Evelyn Yee Yuen Chan, Faye Clerget, Jade Choe, Jan Karroll, Kim Shuckhart Gunns, Koomja Docter, Laurie Herrick Westdahl, Mizu Sugimura, Nola V. Tresslar, Pamela Gunn, Patsy Surh O’Connell, Susan Paredes and Teresa K. Owens.
What regrets I may have briefly entertained about being personally unable to take advantage of the center's trip to China with the group of artists who did has been tempered by the sheer delight two of my own "creative" children are in the show.
My kids were created by taking an assortment of colorful handmade block print, translucent tissue and one-of-a-kind manufactured papers and layering them before fused on rigid canvas-covered boards with thinner overlapping coats of paint and acrylic polymer medium.
The process is meant to suggest and ulimately convey equally alternating abd turbud mental levels of anxiety, love and loss vying for attention for the floor in our own brain when we watch as bystanders the progressive downward spiral the life of an older parent or loved one recruited by Fate to take a journey called "The Long Goodbye" as the disease of Alzheimer's has come to be known.
While it is not the first time the truth of the old Chinese adage "One picture says a thousand words" makes a circle and returns to the land of it's origins, the APCC sponsored show reflects the belief and confidence that pictures continue to cut through whatever cultural and ideological borders that we've erected between our nations.
It was not merely the pursuit of trade, adventure and fortunes along the Silk Road of Marco Polo's time that brought East and West together. The love and hope we equally bare for our parents, children, grandchildren and other important relationships and our mutual impulses of warmth, pride, joy and grief when they are lost are universal.
For wordless linkages in the blood between all members of our human family cement all what we share more fully - than whatever divisions the times, govermental policy and politics may suggest based on superficial perceptions, false information or heavily manipulated propaganda there are eternal differences between races, genders, classes, cultures, history and religious belief.
During the month of November 2007, selected pieces from the Yangzhou show will also be on display for viewers in the Tacoma area at the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, 934 Broadway, Suite #5 & 6. Check the museum website or call 253-833-3900 for more details.
According to the center's website the APCC: is a 501 (C)(3) non-profit organization formed in November 1996 from the vision of a small group of citizens representing three generations of Americans of Asian and Pacific Islanders heritage. The APCC represents 47 countries and cultures, offering programs and services honoring their eachly distinct artistry, business protocols, history and social practices. Volunteers are always welcome!
For more information about the traveling artists from the Asia Pacific Cultural Center go to: http://www.asiapacificculturalcenter.org/
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