by Sylvia Benavidez
The Albion Art Center is rapidly becoming a place where Albion’s cultural influences and history are preserved, celebrated, taught, and displayed.
Mary Slater, president of the Albion Arts Commission, shared in an interview how community teamwork is at the heart of the center’s current Multicultural Exhibition, on display Thursdays through Sundays from 5-7 p.m. through March 13. In the past the arts council celebrated Black artists for Black History Month, but this year the arts commission chose to add to the theme. “This year we wanted to do something that was celebrating all different cultures and all diverse representations of practices and arts and so on,” said Slater.
The front of the center currently has a gallery showing the work of local and guest artists such as Roy Cordova who displays his Native American beadwork and ceremonial fans. Other artists featured include Dennis Reid II, Maria Ramirez, Sara Neville, Yujung Shen, and Arvo. Slater explained that Ramirez, the exhibit coordinator, and Casey Merrild, the building owner, worked together to display the richness of Albion’s heritage.
The second room features a collection of art and memorabilia. “This room was my inspiration to gather memorabilia that represents some of the cultures and people who live here in Albion,” said Slater. Photos, dolls, wood and glass works all came from countries such as Mexico, France, and Sweden.
Slater’s daughter, Karen Erlandson, contributed to the spirit of the room. “Her grandparents were born in Sweden and so a lot of this is her heritage. The Dala Horse is from one of the provinces in Sweden. It’s come to represent a traditional sense of Sweden,” explained Slater. Blue and white checkered Talavera pottery from Mexico contributed by commission board member Juanita Solis-Kidder was also a part of the theme.
The exhibit’s opening night had at least 45 people enjoying the art and memorabilia. “It was so heartwarming to see people come and walk up to the art and sort of study it…and then interacting with each other about the art,” said Slater.
Sara Neville
Two of the artists featured in the exhibit are also teaching people how to express themselves through art. Yujung Shen taught an art workshop last weekend in Chinese ink and Sara Neville will teach one on acrylic paint pouring Feb. 28, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Neville’s parents and grandparents lived in Albion, and she is deeply moved and proud to share her family’s Polish heritage during the Multi-Cultural Exhibit. “It makes me want to cry. I was starting to think of my grandmother. She died a couple of years before I was born. I never got to meet her, but I heard so much about her.” Both her mother and grandmother were artists, and telling stories through their art.
Neville’s paintings featured in the exhibit include traditional Polish folk art mixed in with modern renditions of cows and roosters. Neville shared, “I change things. They are inspiration. A lot of them I do on my own like the cows. They are photos I took of cows… The cows and chickens, the different animals and stuff. They are symbolic of different things. Like the heart, it represents masculinity. The rooster is basically strength… They have different symbols for different things.”
Her art brings back fond memories of her father, too. “Every Saturday morning there was a Jackson radio station, and he would turn it on. We had one of those floor model radios and he would play polka music and my sister and I would dance around the living room and it was joyful. I loved it.”
“I am hoping people will come and enjoy and be inspired. It makes me happy when I sell art to somebody and see them happy,” said Neville.
Shen moved to the community in the last few years and his art now adds to the city’s cultural heritage. His talents cover many media including cloth as a costume designer and maker, 3-D laser structure designs, ink and paint.
Shen has artwork on display that includes beautiful delicate orchids that seem to pop out of the frame, paintings of his costume work, as well as western themed busts.
Originally from Taiwan, Shen described how his art has developed over the years and why he chose to display in a certain way at the exhibit. “The subject for me is very neutral. It is nature here and also, I love the western subject also and eastern subject,” he said. “That also becomes a way for Taiwan to describe ourself. We have a lot of influence by our history. We have native Taiwanese. We have Japanese colonization. We have Chinese colonization. All the influence from different cultures. Even in the 15th 16th Century we have Spanish and Dutch and Portuguese came to influence our native Taiwanese.”
Slater shared that the commission recognizes how art has so many functions in society even preserving history. She and her husband, Dick Lewin, recently bought and donated three old growth pine tables from the Albion Malleable to use as display tables at the center. “My excitement comes from the history of these tables. They are a work of art in themselves,” said Slater.
“The estimated 100 year-old pine boards were the floor of what once was the Albion Theater at this site. They were put in somewhere in the 1950s,” said Ben Wade, one of the owners of Albion Malleable. He explained that the building where the Malleable is now was once the location of a catalog store, a hardware business, even the site of the old Chamber of Commerce. They found the old growth wood when they demolished some of the space to make the brewery. They commissioned local artist Ken Shenstone to make the tables and eventually the mugs used in the brewery. Wade’s parents, Rex and Dian,e put the finish on the wood.
“To us, it was special because it came from a historic site and was made by a local artist and given a finish by family,” said Wade.
The tables, the building, all the various forms of art tell Albion’s story and that Slater says makes the human experience personal and uniting. She said that the art shows “commonalities and differences” between cultures but emphasized that the art center shows how much unites people. “There is no other. We are all the human race,” she said. “We have different practices. We have different customs. We need to appreciate that from each other and respect and value and to see things like this and say, ‘oh that’s really pretty. I haven’t seen something like that before.’ I just think that broadens and enriches are humanity and how else are we going to survive?”
