Pete Smith has asked me to forward this message to the list:
>Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:56:35 -0800
>From: Pete Smith <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>Organization: Interior Mental Health Support Team
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Chiapas Show
>
>Cris: am sending this in from work - can't send to list from here & ask
>if you would forward it there. Interesting project: wanted to mention a
>young painter in Victoria, British Columbia, a friend of my daughter.
>His name is John Climenhage, a self-taught painter, who is working on a
>"Portraits of the Disappeared Project" which arose from his involvement
>in "Building Bridges in Chiapas" (Liberation Theology apparently still
>is at work 'in the trenches' in America) since its inception in 1996.
>John has visited the Chiapas region at least twice, once on an extended
>visit of two months. He has met family members & friends of people who
>were massacred or have disappeared, been shown photos, told stories of
>their lives. Back in Canada he has painted portraits of those people &
>is to/has return/ed to the region to give the paintings to the families.
>Proposal was: "creating a permanent and dignified record of the
>'disappeared' by painting portraits of those who might otherwise remain
>as anonymous statistics." Also to say: "We are watching."
>A six-panel piece he was just finishing sketching on canvasses hung
>round the walls of his laundry room early last fall was to remember a
>massacre of, I believe, 23 people in one village. In order to work
>through this subject he presented himself with aesthetic challenges: the
>intellect can carry the emotions through outrage for which either alone
>is inadequate. This piece promises to be very fine.
>He is not, to my knowledge, on Internet but I will get him word of this
>Mail Art Show.
>If anyone wishes to send him words of encouragement they may do so
>through me: home & list e-mail is [log in to unmask]
>
>Many thanks, Pete.
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