A multi-media Chinese art exhibit opens today at the Portage District Library. The show will include intricate string art, calligraphy, and paper cuttings.
Jamie Lesman is the founder of the Chinese Ladies Art Club and she teaches at the Modern Chinese School of Kalamazoo. Club members and students at the school created work for the Portage Library exhibit, including some small paper cuttings that look like a very detailed version of a paper snowflake. Lesman says she encourages her students to let themselves get really creative with skills such as paper cutting.
[Jamie Lesman] “There are four different skills that make the paper cutting look very Chinese: Zig-zag, straight line, curve and spiral. So, those are the four techniques I ask kids to try.”
[Jamie Lesman] “Art in general is good for kids to practice their concentration, to practice their creativity. So gain, no limitations. I told the kids do whatever you want. You don’t have to think before you cut. Just do it. Freeflow. So, when we’re cutting we do a very simple four fold and the kids kept wanting to open and close their cuttings to see it as it went along. I said, no, that’s the best part, that’s the surprise.”
Lesman says the art is on display for a very specific purpose.
[Jamie Lesman] “It’s not about the beauty of it. It’s about the experience. So, we are not presenting masterpieces here. We are encouraging people and the culture is an easy approach. You know, everybody can do. If your child can do it, so then the example here is just the experience.”
A focus for this art show is the dragon, as the Chinese are celebrating 2012 as the “Year of the Dragon.”
[Jamie Lesman] “It is a good symbol because dragon simplified is like royalty. A emperor or the royal family. So, In China a long time ago, nobody but royalty could wear anything with dragons on it. But now in modern times, anybody could be an emperor or empress, anybody could be royalty.”
Ying Zeng is the principal at the Chinese school. She says about 50 percent of the students at the Chinese School live in American households. Some were adopted from China and many have one Chinese parent and one American parent. Staying in touch with the Chinese culture is one of the school’s goals.
[Ying Zeng] “As everybody understands, now society is getting more and more diverse and Jamie and the rest of the teachers at the Chinese School, we all feel like we need more occasions and more places to promote our work…to show everyone what real Chinese culture and language is.”
The art exhibit with pieces done by students at the Modern Chinese School of Kalamazoo and members of the Chinese Ladies Art Club celebrating the “Year of the Dragon” opens today and will remain on display at the Portage District Library through the end of August. A public reception will take place on August 18 from 2-4 p.m.