Visual Realia Artist in Annual Report
The 2022 Annual Report of the County Alliance of York County includes an article on Visual Realia’s Andrew Smith.
The Cultural Alliance of York County has a significant and powerful reach into the regional arts community, benefiting both organizations and individuals. You can read about some of the impacts from this past year in their 2022 Annual Report.
I've seen and experienced their work from two vantage points, both as the recipient of a grant toward startup costs for Culture On The Line, as well as working as an arts "Navigator," helping to connect grant applicants to successful funding for their creative goals.
The report includes several specific examples of their programming, including one looking at my experiences. You can find it on pages 14 and 15 in the report found here.
York & Hanover's "Invisible Wall"
I had the good fortunate to talk (and exchange emails) with Jim McClure about the “invisible wall” between York and Hanover, both in the art world and in general. Mr. McClure does a great job sharing some of the historical separations. Communities (and artists) in that straight line between York-Hanover-Gettysburg would benefit from greater efforts to work together.
Read the article at this link.
Hope in the Balance: Ukraine
"Hope in the Balance"
Clay Monoprint on Pellon
18" x 32"
Andrew Smith/Visual Realia
“Hope in the Balance” - Clay Monoprint by Andrew T. Smith of Visual Realia
"Hope in the Balance"
Clay Monoprint on Pellon
18" x 32"
by Andrew Smith/Visual Realia
The blue and yellow flag is associated with Ukraine and its long struggles with independence, having been flown by soldiers in Kyiv in 1917. The flag was banned under Soviet rule but began appearing again in 1990. It was raised above the Ukrainian Parliament in September of 1991.
In this monoprint, fissures appear in the wheatfields and lands, and the national flower, the sunflower, serves as the sun, both potentially rising and setting. Hope is in the balance.
The colored interruptions in the sky are efforts of the art to speak - echoes of past prints appearing, perhaps in a visually appropriate way: clouds of war. This monoprint is a larger work, using the full clay slab (matrix) used to design the image.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
History, Discarded
History was discarded. Or was it?
“People tend to forget that the word ‘history’ contains the word ‘story.'”
- Ken Burns
The main living area of our house had its carpet removed this week, and with good reason.
For more than two decades, my family walked, ate, slept, talked, laughed and played over this carpet. Friends gathered on it, as did family. We met new people and renewed friendships with those we’ve known a long time.
When a previous owner of the house installed the carpet, they no doubt celebrated what it brought to them; it made them feel good. It was a source of pride.
But while it once provided comfort, it no longer supplied the same positive result. Time had altered it. While still essentially the same object, it was now worn, dirty and frayed. It no longer provided pride.
It was pried loose, rolled up and hauled away.
——
The carpet that supported many memories is no longer here, but…
The memories are. I’ll still remember my kids and friends just the same. The meaning of history isn’t in something we can hold or touch, but in the connections, emotions, hopes and fears. History’s importance is in the stories we tell.
Our experiences individually and collectively aren’t erased because the status of an object changes.
But change can impact the usefulness of those same things. While facts may hold permanence, meaning is fluid. What we revere can not only change over time, but it should; as we mature and gain understanding as a community, our ideals must also mature.
History won’t be forgotten. Let’s not let it be our destiny.