Good Morning.
I bought my first large-scale piece of art at a gallery located in an area of converted warehouses that housed several other retail businesses. The creator of my 3'x5' oil and acrylic was a young man who had been born into a family of artists, writers, and photographers in Ethiopia and graduated from the Ethiopian Fine Arts Institute in Addis Abbaba in 1997. He had come to the United States to further his studies at Augustana College in Sioux Falls where faculty members immediately recognized his classical drawing skills and great use of color. He was able to paint in virtually any style, from cubism to abstract. I bought his painting, entitled Motherhood, for $300. It was worth a great deal more than that, but until an artist has a name, he or she is lucky to get almost anything for a piece. I once bought a much smaller painting for $5 on a beach at Puerto Vallarta from a boy whose paints were made from native plants. I still have it.
I have no idea what happened to the boy in Mexico, but I have followed the career of Eyob Mergia with interest throughout the years and subsequently purchased another of his paintings,
Moonmaidens, that I hung in the stairwell of my previous home. It is two nudes in the cubistic style and attracted a fair amount of attention, including from anyone who came to the house to repair a plumbing problem or deliver a piece of furniture. Eyob gradually established himself as an artist of great merit and was able to make a living through commissions rather than through odd jobs to support himself. His first piece or public art was a mural, Blue Musicians, on the side of a coffee house. Someone actually complained about it, saying that it was an advertisement, but the city said phooey to that one and the mural remained until the coffee house was torn down and replaced with a strip mall and a gas station. Not cool. Eyob created pieces for the cancer center at one of the hospitals and for a hospice facility. He was also commissioned to do a huge mural, entitled Seven Days of Creation, for a Lutheran church. It is made of 800,000 small tiles of Italian glass. He has done several paintings of a religious nature, a collection that traveled to various city churches for viewing. Today the artist lives in Las Vegas and is studying film while he continues to get commissions for his work.
Public art, meanwhile, has exploded in Sioux Falls, along with the entire arts scene. The downtown area features what has come to be known as Sculpture Walk, with pieces of sculpture from various local and national artists located every few feet on every block. It was the dream of one man who made it happen with his persistence. Not far away is the Washington Pavilion that houses a concert venue with extraordinary acoustics, a recital hall, an art museum, a science museum, and a Cinedome theatre. I overheard two women discussing the possibilities for that complex one day at a restaurant, and they turned out to be the driving forces for getting the thing done in an old downtown high school. None of it happened without people complaining, not only about the costs involved, but about the very idea of providing the city with a vibrant arts scene. Art in whatever creative form it takes is considered frivolous and unnecessary by people whose other prejudices also cause plenty of trouble. These are the folks who spend their money freely on who knows what but who wouldn't buy a piece of original art, attend a symphony concert, or probably even read a book to save their souls. Which brings me to this: perhaps if we celebrated the talent among us, we wouldn't be inclined to sort people off like cattle based on who they are and what they look like. Just a thought.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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