(This is only a partial listing of recent, current and future shows. We encourage all of our active membership to keep in touch with news about your events and exhibits. For more member exhibition information, see Chapter Chat and NAWA Awards in this issue.)

Emi Sisk

The artwork title: Blue Dream, Digital Photography 12×15 inches

Welborn Gallery at Yadkin Cultural Arts Center / Yadkin Arts Council, North Carolina

Exhibition Dates: July 14 to September 1, 2023

Pam Krimsky

Pam Krimsky will have a Solo Show at the Hyde Park Free Library from April 29 to May 27, 2023. Weather permitting, Pam says she will get outdoors to paint a lot, and the theme of this show, one of her favorites, will be “Spring”.

T’Alyne

The Peach Orchard
Fiberglass varnish and pigment
3m x 2m

The Art Wall at Trinidad Carnegie Public Library

Musings – In Utopia

September 2023

The Peach Blossom Spring is a fable written by Tao Yuanming in the year 421 about a chance discovery of an ethereal utopia where the people lead an ideal existence in harmony with nature, for centuries unaware of the outside world. The story describes how a fisherman haphazardly sails into a stream in a forest of nothing but blossoming peach trees. He follows the stream to its source, a small cave in a mountain side. He leaves his boat and attempts to enter the opening. It is narrow at first, but he is barely able to squeeze through. On the other side he discovers the hidden utopian village. The villagers explain to the fisherman how their ancestors escaped to this place to avoid the chaos of war. The are amazed by the fisherman’s accounts of the exciting but dangerous outside world, but tell him that when he returns there, he should not tell others about their village. The fisherman leaves through the opening and returns to his town, marking peach trees on the way so he can retrace his path. He reports his find to the town Prefect who is eager to see the hidden utopia for himself. The two of them attempt to return to the village, but become confused and lose their way, never to find the utopia again.

Would that we could find a place of pure peace and contentment in this world of conflict, suffering and strife. We cannot avoid the existence of the mundane life. Perhaps we can find a path of complete acceptance that leads to true contentment and peace, without having to escape to utopia.

Peaches are highly regarded in Chinese mythology and are thought of as the fruit of immortals. The Chinese consider wellsprings and sources of streams and rivers to be places where water and life enter the world, pure, uncontaminated and transparent.