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Visual Art: Food:
Oil
on Marble Together, the recent works of painters Claudia Cilloniz Marchini and Kris Ibach form contrapuntal odes to the human face and the intensity of human emotion and experience. Their work shows at the Jacobs Gallery through Sept. 2. PART II: CLAUDIA CILLONIZ MARCHINI Man has painted on stone since Paleolithic times. For Marchini, visiting the Lascaux Caves, part of the Golden Age of ice cave wall paintings in France, was the equivalent of a pilgrimage. She said the paintings, created between 15,000 and 10,000 BC, appeared wholly contemporary to her. So when Marchini started painting, the use of stone as a support came to her naturally. She used slate and limestone for their irregular surfaces, painting on them with the ancient encaustic technique. Recently, she turned to oil on polished marble slabs.
Born in Lima, Peru, Marchini spent much of her youth on her father's Southern Peru farm, with its many employees of African descent. The one percent Afro-Peruvian population, mostly concentrated on the coastal region near Lima, are descendants of enslaved Africans brought in the 1500s by the Spanish conquistadors. Slavery was abolished in 1854, following Peruvian independence. Despite persistent color discrimination, the Afro-Peruvian minority has influenced Peruvian culture with its dynamic music and way of life. "I grew up with them and played with them," Marchini said of the workers on her father's farm. "They formed me. I learned a lot from their outlook on life, their positive thinking. They had pride regardless of what they went through. They were strong." Homage to Slaves, Marchini's show, was inspired by Slave Testimony (1977), a book edited by the late John W. Blassingame, an African-American studies scholar. "The testimonies and letters written by the slaves touched me deeply," Marchini said. "These personal documents are very powerful — more powerful than history books." Marchini rightly chose to display the texts next to the individual paintings they inspired, so that we may directly respond to them as well as to her visual mediation. Voices from the texts resonate with extraordinary emotional force and truth, surging unvarnished from the depth of human souls who, more than most, experienced the breadth of human anguish and somehow found capacity for hope. For the work in this show, Marchini painted on smooth 12" x 12" marble slabs a series of imaginary portraits of the men and women whose words or stories moved her most. Their heads are usually shaved, their faces beautiful. "I like the shape of the bald heads," Marchini explained. "It's a personal preference, not symbolic of anything except perhaps of beauty itself." In the absence of further visual context, these portraits appear new yet familiar. Marchini takes advantage of the marble background by incorporating the stone's color and veining into the painted image. Sometimes, marble veins suggest cranial-bone sutures visible through the subject's skin (Farewell, Portrait of Emily's Husband). Sometimes horizontal or vertical veins add life and movement to the painting, amplify emotion and extend the range of possible interpretation (portraits of Emily, Phebe Brownrigg, Kin-na). "I paint with oil, and then I add a layer of wax to protect the surface and remove the glare," Marchini said. "For some of the paintings, I used dry pigment mixed with the oil to add more intensity to the color." Marchini's technique references the earliest function of oil-based paint. Before Jan Van Eyck (credited with the invention of oil painting in the 15th century) used the medium for panel-painting, pigments mixed with drying oils were employed for painting on stone and metal. Often Marchini's faces are merely drawn or sketched with a brush, allowing the bare marble surface to suggest skin and flesh. Only the negative space around them is covered with paint (Clap You Sang, portraits of Emily, Ka-Le, Sargry Brown). When dark, highly-textured marble is used, the effect is startling, almost unsettling, as in Portrait of Pauly Murray with its burgundy-black-and-white marble skin. The motley texture is a metaphor for the heterogeneous views the man has been subjected to and the complexity of African-American identity that has resulted. In Portrait of Albert Perkins, a small, dark, realistic portrait in the center is surrounded by larger, sketched versions that allow the white marble to show through. The images are oriented at different angles against a black background. One is irresistibly reminded here of the plight of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Marchini's work may raise such perennial issues as the interplay of words and images, history and fiction, experience and imagination, or even the old Renaissance debate over Nature's (marble) relationship to Artifice (painting). But first and foremost, this work confronts us directly with ourselves.
Reality
Bites When I wandered into the "Bite of Oregon" festival at Portland's McCall Waterfront Park in mid-August, I anticipated an agricultural dreamland. As a longtime organic farmer and devotee of the field-to-table chef Alice Waters, I was thrilled by the prospect of an event that celebrated local products, even boasting itself as "the premier showcase of the epicurean bounty and the unmatched beauty of the state of Oregon."
The profits benefited another good cause, the Special Olympics. And as the flagship event of the "Brand Oregon" campaign — a state marketing initiative aimed at promoting Oregon's agricultural products — it seemed to encourage dreamers like me, promulgating the catch-phrase "Oregon. We love dreamers." I imagined a rally of farmers who'd arrive with the Oregon soil tattooed into the cracks of their work-worn hands, of chefs who create cuisines with regional accents. For the weekend of Aug 13-15, we'd occupy a dreamland devoid of Subway sandwiches and seven-layer burritos from who-knows-where. But as I wandered among the festival tents scattered along the waterfront, the homegrown utopia I'd imagined was replaced by something decidedly more corporate. Granted, Oregon's small wineries were well represented and there was a nice array of Oregon restaurants. Mo's was serving up clam chowder from Newport; Geppetto's was sharing cheese wontons from Ashland. And this year's event, with its representation of five of Oregon's geographic regions, was an improvement over years past, when it was more Portland-focused. Still, prominent booths belonged to the big dogs like Budweiser, which justified its presence with a banner that read, "American-brewed with Willamette Valley hops." And then there was the event's title sponsor, Safeway, selling wine from California and serving sandwiches on bread that seemed less-than-artisan. Isn't Oregon known for its many microbreweries? And isn't Safeway considered one of the least-supportive grocery chains when it comes to merchandising local products? In fact, just down the row from the Safeway booth sat Judd Pindell of Ashland, selling his Pyramid juice — a product he tried unsuccessfully to get onto Ashland's Safeway store shelves. I sat down with Craig Benthin, Safeway's corporate brands manager, hoping he could make sense of these apparent contradictions. He was a nice guy, unsentimental about food but with a feisty interest in marketing nuances like product positioning and food displays. I asked him how he thought the Safeway booth fit into the "Bite of Oregon" theme. His answer: "Well, we make all of our Signature Sandwiches at our delis. These are all things you can buy at Safeway." His second explanation proved more compelling: Safeway paid for the vast majority of event's advertising, purchasing airtime on the radio and providing space on its newspaper ad inserts that reach 1.7 million people. So, in a very real way, Safeway helped to make the event a success. Of course, with its big "S" logo printed on all the "Bite of Oregon" brochures and banners, Safeway stood to benefit as well. The reality is that someone has to fund these events, and the big corporations have the money to do it. But by luring consumers with dirt-cheap prices and never-out-of-season produce, national stores like Safeway actually undermine the local economy that "Bite of Oregon" is trying to promote. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but aren't there other ways to fund the event? Over the weekend, it became clear to me that trying to define what "local" means is a challenge in a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected. Is an Oregon microbrewery that uses hops from Germany more "local" than big old Budweiser with its Oregon hops? Is it where a product is assembled or where it is grown that counts? In the end, "Bite of Oregon" was a microcosm of the modern food industry: purveyors of local products struggling under the scepter of big business. While it was easy for Safeway to provide the resources to participate, many small local businesses that could have enhanced the event were missing. Still, the idea behind the "Bite of Oregon" is a good one, and the event is still evolving. If we want to really transform the Oregon agricultural economy, we can't leave it to a "Brand Oregon" campaign or Safeway to make it happen. In a market-driven economy, it's ultimately up to individual consumers to radically rethink their purchasing habits and to realize that the simple act of eating is political. Until then, the dream of sustainable and locally-based economy for Oregon will remain just a dream.
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