Monday, December 23, 2019

Lalibela Rock Churches, Ethiopia, "Built by Angels"

The Church of Saint George, one of the many churches hewn into
 the rocky hills of Lalibela, Ethiopia. Scott Pelley, CBS 60 Minutes, talked to a pilgrim 
who travelled for three days to come here. Many travel for months.
photos by Bernard Gagnon
60 Minutes, CBS, 12/1/2019 (repeated 12/22/19)
"If faith is a mystery, there are few places in the Christian world where the mystery is deeper than in Lalibela. 800 years ago, an Ethiopian king ordered a new capital for Christians. At 8,000 feet, on the central plateau of Ethiopia stand 11 churches, each carved from a single, gigantic, block of stone. No bricks, no mortar, no concrete, no lumber, just rock sculpted into architecture. Not much is known about who built them, or why. But the faithful of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church say there's no mystery really. The churches of Lalibela were built by angels." Scott Pelley, CBS News
In a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia, not far from Addis Ababa, eleven medieval monolithic churches were carved out of rock. This 60 Minutes report  by Scott Pelley tells the story. 

 Their creation is attributed to King Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty, who set out to construct a "New Jerusalem" in the 12th century, after Muslim conquests halted Christian pilgrimages to the holy land. "A Black Jerusalem."  The unique group of churches remains in use today by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church and is an enormously popular pilgrimage site for their worshipers and Coptic Christians since the 13th century. The Churches of Lalibela became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978. "Rock sculpted into art," Pelley put it. 
60 Minutes image
According to various descriptions, there are two main groups of churches. North of the Jordan river are Biete Medhani Alem  (House of the Saviour of the World), Biete Mariam (House of Mary), Biete Maskal (House of the Cross), Biete Denagel (House of Virgins), and Biete Golgotha Mikael (House of Golgotha Mikael).  South of the river are Biete Amanuel (House of Emmanuel), Biete Qeddus Mercoreus (House of St. Mercoreos), Biete Abba Libanos (House of Abbot Libanos), Biete Gabriel Raphael (House of Gabriel Raphael), and Biete Lehem (House of Holy Bread). The eleventh church, Biete Ghiorgis (House of St. George), is isolated from the others, but connected by a system of trenches.
60 Minutes, CBS
The churches were not constructed in a traditional way but rather were hewn from the living rock of monolithic blocks. These blocks were further chiselled out, forming doors, windows, columns, various floors, and roofs. This incredible work was  completed with an extensive system of drainage ditches, trenches and ceremonial passages, some with openings to hermit caves and catacombs.
I'm reminded of the incredible extant mosaic of Christ
Pantocrater in Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, an icon of
Eastern Orthodoxy . 

The Ethiopian clerics says these wondrous churches were build by angels. But I wonder about the real workers who did the hard labor of digging, chiselling and carving, day in and day out, the backbreaking work of thousands of workers needed to turn rock into cathedrals. Might they have been slaves?

The diversity of the churches is also noteworthy, Pelley reported. Each church is unique, perhaps a tribute to workers and craftspeople who added human figures of bas-reliefs, colorful paintings of geometric designs, or depictions of biblical scenes. 
Biete Medhani Alem, with its five aisles, is believed to be the largest monolithic church in the world, while Biete Ghiorgis has a remarkable cruciform (cross-formed) plan. Most were probably used as churches from the outset, but Biete Mercoreos and Biete Gabriel Rafael may formerly have been royal residences. Several of the interiors are decorated with mural paintings.

The World Monuments Fund is working on preserving the site from the ravages of time.  They are training priests and workers about conservation as well, a wonderful project. 
Sources:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lalibela-11-churches-each-sculpted-out-of-a-single-block-of-stone-800-years-ago-60-minutes-2019-12-01/ Produced by Nicole Young. Associate producer, Katie Kerbstat. Broadcast associate, Ian Flickinger.
© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
* Wikipedia, Lalibela churches. 
  "Centuries after its construction, Lalibela remains home to a large community of Ethiopian Orthodox priests and nuns. Since the twelfth century, the city has been a continued site of religious practice and popular pilgrimage. Gatherings of pilgrims are especially large on major feast days and on Orthodox Christmas (Genna), held on January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. The focus of multiple conservation and restoration efforts since the 1960s, the Lalibela churches were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Improved transportation to the site has increased the number of tourists and pilgrims visiting each year, making continued preservation and study efforts a high priority."  Kristen Windmuller-Luna, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, September 2014

 "But as I emerged from the carved channel that led to Biete Giyorgis, I realised it didn’t matter how the churches came to be. Far below, a new wave of visitors were passing through the church's towering stone entryways, lintels that have been worn smooth by the footfall of centuries. They descended into the Earth, disappearing into the darkness cast by the monoliths and emerging again, having passed through the structures, to climb back up towards the sunlight. At the edge of the crevices, young men helped elderly worshippers navigate the sloping trails. I lingered for several minutes to watch the seemingly never-ending stream of pilgrims return above ground. They believed, and that was enough."

*http//: World Heritage Sites :Lalbela: 11 medieval monolithic cave churches of this 'New Jerusalem' are situated in a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia near a traditional village with circular-shaped dwellings. Lalibela is a high place of Ethiopian Christianity, still today a place of pilmigrage and devotion.

 https://www.gotquestions.org/Coptic-Christianity.

htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Eastern_Orthodox_Church



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Friday, December 20, 2019

Rawabi, Palestine

Rawabi, from CBS 60 Minutes, Dec. 8, 2019
"If we can build a city, a futuristic city, a secular city, a democratic city then we can build a state." Bashar al-Masri

"To me, this land is Palestine and inhabiting this area is emphasizing that we're here and we're here to stay for the long term."  Masri


Bashar Masri by Harrison Jacobs, Business Insider, Oct 20, 2018.
A fascinating story was aired on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, about a new Palestinian city. It led me to google it to learn more. 

 The city is called Rawabi, which means"the hills." It does indeed look, from the visuals, like a "City upon a Hill." It's very pretty, nestled in mountainous hillsides among lots of trees. Green and vibrant. 

 The builder and dreamer is Palestinian-American billionaire developer Bashar al-Masri. This was the first time I heard about him or Rawabi. I was intrigued. 
All photos by Harrison Jacobs, Business Insider.
Rawabi, between Birzeit and Ramallah, is the first planned city built for and by Palestinians in the West Bank. That was an amazing revelation. The West Bank. The Israeli occupied territory that's been contested for decades, that is home to 2.6 million Palestinians, and also 400,000 Jewish settlers and scores of Israeli soldiers. 

That's what makes Masri's enterprise so interesting. Among other things, the project is putting some 8,000 Palestinians to work, a good thing when a 20% unemployment rate racks Palestine and its struggling economy. It is estimated that some 3,000 to 5,000 high tech and information jobs will also be created, including information technology, pharmaceuticals and health care. (***Google article)  


Rawabi is built around the Q Center, a public square
surrounded by luxury shopping, cafes, office towers.
The construction has faced huge obstacles, from getting water from Israel (a tough fight) to obtaining building permits and getting by Israeli checkpoints. On top of this, sadly, Palestinians in the West Bank "are still being prosecuted under military orders that were designed to keep the peace in the early days of the occupation and that have stifled civil rights for more than 50 years," according to a report by Human Rights Watch.* 
It's called the Q center because it's funded in part by
Qatar's Diar Real Estate Properties . 

 Masri has persisted. He just seems to plow right through any obstacles, any setbacks. 

 Journalist Harrison Jacobs visited Rawabi recently to find out more about this new city on a hill. He wrote about it in the Business Insider. It's a wonderful story.**  It engenders hope.

 "As I sat in a French cafè al fresco, chatting with Palestinian-American billionaire developer Bashar al-Masri," he writes, "it occurred to me that I could be anywhere." 
A cafe in Rawabi, Harrison Jacobs, Business Insider
  
Jacobs was, in reality, in Rawabi, a $1.4 million planned city built to serve as a model city for the new Palestinian state.  "I'm a believer that we have a state in the making," Masri told him.  (https://www.businessinsider.com/west-bank-palestine-rawabi-city-israel-news-2018-10.)  

 "The question in my mind is not when we will have the state, but rather what shape the statehood will be in."  
Masri's master plan envisions a high tech city with 8,000 housing units that will house up to 40,000 people. Housing will be spread across 22 neighborhoods. Plans for the city include everything from night clubs and restaurants to libraries, retail shops, and a hospital.  

Construction began in January 2010. Masri calls it "a Marshall Plan to pick up the economy." There was plenty of opposition, among some Palestinians but mostly from Israeli settlers who feared it would be a home to terrorists. 


Prices are $80K to $100K, expensive for most people but still
less expensive than Ramallah. Rawabi has no problem
with buyers, according to a Rawabi spokesperon.
That didn't stop construction. Nothing daunts Masri. 

 Buyers started moving into apartments in August 2015. By May 2017, despite difficulties with Israeli checkpoints controlling a new road to the city, 3,000 Palestinians had taken up residence. As more units are completed, more Palestinians, who can afford the price, are moving in. 
"At first, sitting in the mixed-use public square that forms the heart of Rawabi, I couldn't shake the feeling that I might as well be in Maryland, where such shiny new developments abound. But as we sat, Masri pointed out the details: the pedestrian town center and the tiled walkways are based on the old cities of Nablus and Hebron, the city has five gates like the old city of Jerusalem, and the corniches and arches are drawn from Arabic architecture. Above us towered American-style office buildings."
The symbolism is moving. It looks like Masri's "City Upon a Hill' in the West Bank will become the shining star from which the state of Palestine rises up and with it, hopes for peace at last. 

A 15,000 seat Roman-style Ampitheatre for concerts, Broadway plays, cultural events.
Several concerts have been held here already.  Impressive, and beautiful!  

sources:
*  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/17/israeli-military-law-stifles-palestinian-rights-watchdog-says?CMP=share_btn_tw

**   https://www.businessinsider.com/west-bank-palestine-rawabi-city-israel-news-2018-10. Good article by Harrison Jacobs. 

*** Google article on Rawabi--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawabi

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Monday, December 16, 2019

There is No Accountability: Mitch McConnell, the Gravedigger of Democracy


  "If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments."Christopher Browning,  NY Review of Books, October 25, 2018.
Historian Christopher Browning calls Mitch McConnell "the gravedigger of American democracy."  I've since learned more about what he means.

His reprehensible shameless effort to rig the Impeachment Jury is the latest example of the evil of this man's obsession with power and money. He's blatantly proclaimed, before the trial begins, that he is "coordinating" everything with the defendant and the defendant "will never be removed from office." It's shocking, but it's nothing new.

That's because there is nothing to stop Mitch McConnell. He's been abusing his power for over a decade, nonstop. He and his Republican followers have exploited and exposed some serious flaws in our democracy. Nothing, no person, no institution, no rule or policy, has stopped  him or will stop him. He's gotten away with it at least from the time he vowed to obstruct President Obama at every turn, and did, up to the point of sitting on Obama's SCOTUS nomination of Merrick Garland. McConnell simply refused to do his Constitutional duty, making up excuses as he went. How easy it was for him to get away with it.  He laughs and jokes about it now.

But it's no joke. Mitch McConnell's corruption of our democractic governance, its extent and depth, has broken records. He is part of a massive cover up of the truth. He has trampled on the Rule of Law.

You would think Kentucky would be on to Mitch by now. The State falls way below most others in every quality of life indicator. Education, 38. The economy, 39. Health, 44.  Maybe we can take some hope from the increasing rumblings of  dissatisfaction arising from Kentucky.

McConnell's ties to his home state mean nothing compared to his ties with transnational oligarch networks. These powerful networks corrupt politics on behalf of billionaires and mega corporations through enormous secret "deals" and money, lots of money.  McConnell's ties are secured through the wealth of his wife Elaine Chao, Trump's Secretary of  Transportation (another quid pro quo), and his brother-in-law Jim Breyer, among others.

Mitch is a master of the quid pro quo. He'll do what he has to do to get the money and power he covets. His quid pro quos with Putin oligarch Oleg Derispaka demonstrate his "any means to an end" strategies and his ties to Russia. That million-dollars Aluminum plant in Kentucky, after McConnell lifted sanctions on Derispaka with the help of lobbyist David Vitter, a former Senator, should raise lots of eyebrows. So far it's just another Mitch project, as if it's completely normal. It is not normal.

He gets millions from Saudi Arabia, too, via connections to Trump's buddy Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) and his murderous regime. Three weeks after journalist Khashoggi's murder, Jim Breyer and a Russian oligarch were at an economic summit in Saudi Arabia at which MbS gave $22 million for an Elaine Chao infrastructure project. McConnell mouthed some appropriate phrases about the Khashoggi murder, but he did all he could to sit on this tragedy until it left the front pages of the news. It didn't take long.

The money and quid pro quos continue to flow, in one way or another.  Elaine Chao, for instance, is funneling U.S. transportation money to Kentucky to help her husband get re-elected in November 2020. So far he's gotten over $50 million. It's all criminal.

McConnell's ties to China via his wife's family are even closer and more intimate, making him a rich man, and beholden to perhaps the US's biggest adversary on the close horizon.

In addition to being steeped in the money and influence of foreign adversaries, McConnell receives millions of domestic dark money from the likes of the extreme right Koch brothers, the Mercers, and others, as well as from every major national and international corporation you can name.

Citizen's United, the Supreme Court decision on money in politics, unleashed the billions that have poisoned our politics and enriched Republicans like McConnell. That ruling unleashed a monster.

McConnell's allegiance to foreign and far-right funders has driven his abuse of power. There's no end to it. He continues to corrupt the Judiciary branch, pushing far-right extremists onto the courts. With lots of Koch money, he pushed Gorsuch and Kavanaugh onto SCOTUS. He's  been the bull pushing through the disgusting unfits put forward by Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, whose only criteria is that they violently oppose civil rights and abortion and defend big money, corporations, and billionaires.

McConnell's closing in on 180 confirmations, a record of which he's proud. One is Wendy Vitters, wife of David Vitters who lobbies against Russian sanctions, a typical quid pro quo. Another is far-out White Nationalist Steven Menashi, who worked with Steve Miller on Trump's immigration operations, which constitute Crimes against Humanity. Menashi worked with Betsy Devos on corrupting the purpose and policies of the US Department of Education. Driven to flip the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to alt-right Republicans, McConnell pushed Menashi anyway, in spite of the fact he's never argued an appeal or made any oral arguments, never conducted a deposition, never tried a case.  Same is true of his latest, Sarah Pitlyk, confirmed by Senate Republicans despite her extreme views on fertility treatments and her unanimous "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association.

McConnell has also corrupted the Executive branch. Besides using Trump however he sees fit, he has ensured that the Senate confirm every cabinet nomination that came from the Trump regime. It  started with the totally corrupt Transition Team's billionaire nominations. McConnell pushed them through, without vetting them, knowing they were against the agencies they were to head. Qualifications didn't matter, only partisanship above all. McConnell continues to aid and abet with his shoving through replacements as tRUmp fires one after the other, mostly for telling the truth.

Steve Bannon talks about "deconstructing" our government. McConnell makes it happen.  He gave us one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history, and we've had some bad ones. Throughout  the revolving door of the Trump tyranny, he has continued to make it worse with the likes of Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Pompeo, and the reprehensible William Barr.  Former federal prosecutors, constitutional scholars, and lawyers have protested, but the beat goes on.

McConnell doesn't care about the norms and values that have guided us since the beginning of the nation. He has ruled the Senate like a warlord for so long, the Republicans go along like sheep. He calls himself the "Grim Reaper" of Democrats' legislation and, in reality, he is. He is sitting on some 400 bills passed by the House. If this isn't a dereliction of duty, what is?

It's breathtaking. One man without any accountability has almost single-handedly corrupted the three branches of our government.  Chris Browning warns that "McConnell and our dysfunctional and disrespected Congress have now ensured that...the constitutional balance of powers among the three branches of government is in peril."  We stand by and watch. Will the 2020 national elections put an end to him?


     "If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.
        One can predict that henceforth no significant judicial appointments will be made when the presidency and the Senate are not controlled by the same party. McConnell and our dysfunctional and disrespected Congress have now ensured an increasingly dysfunctional and disrespected judiciary, and the constitutional balance of powers among the three branches of government is in peril.
       Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump. The combination of Trump’s abasement before Putin in Helsinki, the shameful separation of families at the border in complete disregard of US asylum law (to say nothing of basic humanitarian principles and the GOP’s relentless claim to be the defender of “family values”), and most recently Michael Cohen’s implication of Trump in criminal violations of campaign finance laws has not shaken the fealty of the Republican old guard, so there is little indication that even an explosive and incriminating report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller will rupture the alliance."


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Tangible Freedom (short documentary)

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Saturday, December 7, 2019

Zora Heale Hurston


“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.” Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to poet Countee Cullen

Zora! An incredibly fascinating woman whose life and works ignited the Western historical and literary canon like a force of nature.  In the process, through her works, Zora Neale Hurston widened our horizons, and found her own.  Like Janie in Their Eyes were Watching God, she came to know herself: she "pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder.  So much of life in its meshes! She called her soul to come in and see." 

Zora Neale Hurston, in Humanities magazine.

 Zora was smart and strong. No barriers stopped her. She worked all her life to be true to herself.  Nor did her determination wither in the face of adversity. She called up the age-old struggle between humans and nature in ways that uncovered the sources of human inventiveness and creativity, and it moved her.  

 In the novel Their Eyes were Watching God,  a violent hurricane, more fierce than any other, howled through Eatonville, filling the shanties with water and the townfolks with fear.  "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."   The raging hurricane unleashed nature's chaos, but it also revealed the human capacity to survive the wrath of God. 

Love this stamp and have saved a
 few for posterity.
I learned a lot about Zora Neale Hurston when I worked with the Florida Humanities Council, an NEH state affiliate.   The Florida council funded many Zora grant projects. It also had a Chautauqua-like character who traveled from town to town bringing Zora's voice to life; wrote articles about her in FORUM magazine; sponsored scholar-led workshops and seminars for public school teachers about her life and work.  

When I retired from public humanities work, I taught Zora in my Women's History classes at Eckerd College.  Their Eyes were Watching God was a favorite.  It was an opportunity as well to explore how the Western literary canon changed over time as more African American, immigrant, and women's works were discovered. 
 
After her mom died, Zora went to an elementary school in Jacksonville that "made me know that I was a little colored girl." That didn't stop her. After high school at Morgan Academy in Baltimore and a few years at Howard University, her world opened up. She started writing, focused on  scholarly interests, and in 1925 got into Barnard college in New York to study with famous anthropologist Franz Boas.  It was the takeoff of her pioneering anthropological and ethnographic field research and life-long interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore.  
Hurston brought her unique interests to her brief involvement with the 1930s Harlem Renaissance. During this time she befriended Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Wallace Thurman, and others.  She didn't stay long.  "She was not a joiner of movements or trends. Like her hometown, Hurston was iconoclastic." (Trebek)  She carved out her own niche wherever she went in her lifelong quest for her own identity.  That scared some folks, inspired others. 

Her field work and research are illustrative.  She did research in New Orleans, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean, in addition to Florida.  While working in Haiti, she studied voodoo and zombies.  She published her groundbreaking anthropological work in Mules and Men, about African American folk tales and Florida culture, and  in Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.  For some folks the subjects were unusual, even suspect; for others they helped define the growing universe of anthropology and folklore studies in which she made her mark. 

Zora collection folk music with Woodie
Guthrie, part of her WPA work. This is a
 great story in itself. Lib. of Congress.
For all her achievements, Zora struggled in poverty most of her adult life. She had to scrape like a mule to make ends meet. In 1938, she went to work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), receiving a government check for field work she did in Florida. In 1941, she worked briefly for Paramount Pictures, earning $100 a month, the highest salary she would ever earn. In 1942, Dust Tracks on a Road, her autobiography, was published. It won the Anisfield-Wolf award for best book on racial relations, but it was the $1,000 award she needed most. (Trebek)
Harold Newton, one of the 26 "highwaymen" artists, including one woman, 
Mary Ann Carroll. I like to think Zora knew some of these young 
artists in Fort Pierce. She surely knew the landscape intimately. 
Hurston lived the rest of her life in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she found a community of artists and kin folk who welcomed her.  She briefly worked as a domestic to pay her bills, and then as a substitute teacher.  She published articles sharing her views on controverial issues of the day, including her opposition to the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. She considered the ruling “insulting rather than honoring my race.”  She abhored notions of "victimhood." 
 “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
Zora was Black pride and Woman proud. She was a warrior until she died from the complications of a stroke at the St. Lucie County Welfare Home in January 1960.  

Friends raised money to pay for her casket and burial, but there was no money for a marker on her grave. Her name and her work slid into obscurity, her books no longer in print. In Dust Tracks, Zora sang a song to herself.  "I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands."  

A decade later, Alice Walker, poet and author of "The Color Purple," resurrected Zora.  She gathered stories about her life, talked to Floridians who remembered her in Eatonville, and went searching for Zora's unmarked grave in the Garden of the Heavenly Rest in Fort Pierce, a segregated and terribly neglected cemetary.  When she found the site, deep within the tall grasses, weeds and snaked-filled grounds, she determined to put a permanent marker there. In a gesture of homage and respect, Walker bought a tombstone, a memorial marker to Zora Heale Hurston, "Genius of the South."   I remember reading Alice Walker's article about her Zora search in MS magazine in 1975, the year I finally finished my dissertation at the University of Wisconsin.  Walker's determination and persistence, along with Zora's, resonated.
A Zora revival followed.  Her books were reprinted and came to light. Robert E. Hemenway's literary biography in 1980 brought Hurston further attention.  Scholars studied her works, which were included in college curricula. Still are. The lovely town of Fort Pierce created a "Dust Tracks" heritage trail to draw in tourists, a nice complement to its Highwaymen artists memorials and the Gallery of A.E. Backus, a white artists who took the Highwaymen under his wing. The gallery sells their paintings as well as Backus' own works.    
Eatonville, Zora's hometown, hosts a popular ZORA festival every year. The Florida council was among the Festival's funders, which featured scholars and authors telling about the various facets of her life. The Humanities council, as well as NEH and the State, funded seminars for public school teachers, who in turn brought Zora into their classrooms across the State.  Her legacy lives on.  
"Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance."

Some Sources:
  *  https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/75wfe2mn9780252008078.html, for Robert E. Hemenway, a literary biography of Zora Neal Hurson, with a forward by Alice Walker, U. of Illinois Press, 1980.
*  "Zora's Place," Anne Trubek, Oberlin College, Humanities magazine, November/December 2011. 
*    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_M-PfhgMsg.  Zora's work and life were included in
"Soul of a People," a television documentary on the Federal Writers’ Project, from which came an exhibit that traveled to thirty libraries around the country. NEH has funded many Zora projects.
*  https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-09-074/
*  https://www.allisonbolah.com/site_resources/readin_list/Walker_In_Search_of_Zora.pdf.  Alice Walter, "In search of Zora Neale Hurston, MS magazine, March 1975.
*  https://www.floridamemory.com/onlineclassroom/zora_hurston/photos/
*  https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-floridas-black-highwaymen-painters-made-living-jim-crow-south   The Highwaymen refer to a group of  26 black self-taught landscape artists (one of whom was a woman, Mary Ann Carroll), who created over 200,000 paintings despite facing fearsome race and cultural barriers. Mostly from the Fort Pierce area, where they had the good fortune to meet Al Backus, a white artists who took them under his wing, they painted beautiful landscapes of Florida and made a living selling them door-to-door throughout florida from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. They also peddled their work from the trunks of their cars along the eastern coastal roads A1A and US 1. Their paintings once sold for pennies, maybe up to $25 or $30, but they are now worth thousands of dollars. 

 added after post  * https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/02/24/zora-neale-hurston-literary-hero-fame-florida/4566091002/?fbclid=IwAR1iOl6o9Qp46r0kcjJDeW8aFz82gNwa5YHqp_h-CvbB19msVHMHIcxrJJM




























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Saturday, November 30, 2019

Inclusive Art: Women Artists Are Gaining the Recognition They Deserve


Annie Renouf Whelpley, American, 1852-1928, Italian Women in the Weaving Room

 Lois Mailou Jones, American, 1905-1998,
Les Fetiches
I remember an article in the early 1970s by an art historian, Linda Nochlin, asking: "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin detailed how for generations institutional attitudes and obstacles had prevented deserving female art-makers from being recognized in the Western art history canon. The same was true for African-Americans and people of color.   

For women, recognition of their experiences, their voices, their talents, has come slowly. "Anonymous was a woman," Virginia Wolff proclaimed in a now-famous description. And they were, indeed, invisible, in every endeavor, in history, in art and music, science and sports.

Marion van Nieuwpoort, Dutch, 1950-2006.

The revival of the feminist movement in the early 1970s, which had been dormant since women won the right to vote in 1920, changed this. Slowly but surely. I saw it happen as I taught American women's history in the mid-1970s at the University of Toledo.  I had so few books to use when I started the course, but then, after a few years, came an explosion of scholarship: more research, dissertations, articles and books, more public exposure and recognition. It was about time. It was a beginning.

Irene Klestova, RU, 1908-89
A few years later, in the mid-1980s, during a career-change adventure, I discovered the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. It was a relatively new museum, dedicated to showcasing the art of women from early history. The DC humanities council's office was a block from the Museum, so on my lunch hour one day I wandered in and stayed too long. It was an emotional experience that has stayed with me to this day. The building itself is beautiful, with salmon-colored marble grand staircases and lovely detail, a perfect surrounding for the art. The breadth and depth of the art was fascinating, the start of a collection that has since evolved and grown up to the present.

Gerda Wallander, Sweden, Street scene
As public awareness has grown, so too has the awareness of  museums and cultural institutions. It's a very slow process. A few have begun to add women's art to their permanent collections, not just displaying it in an occasional exhibit here and there. I've been asking the Toledo Museum of Art to do the same.

The best news, and a model for other museums, came from the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently, which announced a year of exhibitions centered on female artists. Vision 2020.  The BMA's campaign "to address diversity gaps" also led it to deaccession seven post-war works by male artists to raise money for acquiring more art by women and people of color. What a brave and pioneering action!

Antonietta Brandeis, Austria, 1848-1910
Venice, Grand Canale, now in jeopardy.
These artists renderings will be priceless
to remember it as it once was. 
"The goal for this effort is to rebalance the scales and to acknowledge the ways in which women’s contributions still do not receive the scholarly examination, dialogue and public acclaim that they deserve,” said Christopher Bedford, the museum's director.

More museums should be researching the nature, extent and diversity of women's art from around the world.  They would do well to examine the efforts of Christa Zaat, the curator of  Female Artists in History  Zaat wants "to lift the veil of silence on our collective culture by sharing and celebrating female artists of the past." She focuses on artists from around the world whose work has been out of sight, out of mind. She especially wants to resurrect deceased woman artists, to give them a public arena to showcase their works. Zaat is illuminating their artwork through visibility on the Internet. She's doing yoeman's work in organizing and cataloguing the art to make it accessible, an enormous undertaking. For a visual feast, check out https://www.facebook.com/female.artists.in.history/  and https://www.facebook.com/notes/female-artists-in-history/shortcut-to-the-indexes-of-female-artists-in-history/2286591328292410/


Serafina de Senlis Louis,  French, 
1864-1942



Step by step,  women of achievement, in every field, are emerging from the shadows of obscurity into the light of day.  And wonder of wonder, women's art is now being bought by art collectors, a measure of progress in the world of art.

Mimi Gross, American, Gertrude Stein and the
 Secretaries, 1978
Nochlin's question has been answered in a lot of meaningful ways. There is still a long way to go, but the growing public recognition of women artists overtime is one of them.
Zainada Serebriakova, Russian
Some sources:
* http://ruthmillington.com/16-books-about-famous-female-artists-and-their-work/?fbclid=IwAR3zQsUkbZ7JiKJ2wRHuTdTHI_jsXs1__GqxQdzYt7_PWKyPSfxV-fH5x-s

* https://www.facebook.com/pg/female.artists.in.history/photos/?

* Note: In the same way the art of women over the ages has been brought into the light, so too were the works of women composers. Sandy Craig, a friend and neighbor in Toledo's Old West End, has collected the music of women composers since the early 1970s, and has one of the largest collections around. When I taught Women's History at UT, I invited Sandy to share some of that music with my classes. He was delighted to do it. It was an exciting time.
* Linda Nochlin, 1971, "Why are there no Great Women Artists?"
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