Spring 2010
Arts Life
Shooting Gallery
Trapped for two years in a dangerous refugee camp in Saudi Arabia, Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal made canvases from pieces of a tent, coloring from coffee and brushes from his own hair. Now 43, and a professor at New York University, Bilal's exhibit in Stowe of photographs and interactive installations reflects more sophisticated resources but similar themes: intolerance and violence.
One of seven children born to a communist father and devout Shiite mother, both self-styled mystics, Bilal recalls that "as kids we learned it's OK to be different." But the family was decidedly dysfunctional — and harassed by Saddam Hussein, whose government forced the "young bohemian" to major in geography rather than art at the University of Baghdad. His clandestine art, paintings with topical themes, was confiscated. After the 1990–91 Gulf War, "I was on the run, just a few steps ahead of the regime."
Bilal emigrated from the Saudi camp to the United States in 1992, then earned college degrees in New Mexico and Chicago. He spoke out against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2004, a brother was killed there by shrapnel from an American missile; their heartbroken father died within two months.
A creativity provocateur and author of the 2008 memoir "Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun," Bilal channels his anguish. "I don't have the privilege to meditate on aesthetics. I need to meditate on the pain to make sense of it. When injustice and aggression end, I'll paint flowers."
- WHAT: "Wafaa Bilal: Agent Intellect"
- WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday–Sunday, through April 4
- WHERE: Helen Day Art Center, Stowe
- COST: $5, $3 seniors and students, children free
- INFORMATION: (802) 253-8358
or www.helenday.com
Campfires and Shamrocks
As a singing cowboy, Skip Gorman usually sports the requisite Stetson hat and bullhide chaps. Spurs are optional. The Rhode Island native, 60, now lives in New Hampshire, but even before hitting adolescence, this contemporary New Englander had embraced the sounds of other American regions and eras. His connection to old cowboy songs began when an aunt bought him a record by Jimmie Rodgers. "It really spoke to me," says Gorman. "In the early 1960s, I used to go to the Newport Folk Festival to hear people like Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. That's what turned me on to old-time music."
Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain" and a former Vermont resident, has described Gorman's vocals as having a "lonesome ache" — the bedrock trait of pure country music vocals — and two of his original tunes were chosen for the soundtracks of "Baseball" and "Lewis & Clark," documentaries by filmmaker Ken Burns.
Adept on the fiddle, Gorman also brings Celtic influences to his music and performances. Together with Connie Dover — his frequent onstage collaborator, and a former member of the Celtic roots music group Scartaglen — the After Dark series promises an evening of "down-deep, heartfelt interpretations of the traditional music of the American West, Ireland and Scotland."
- WHAT: Skip Gorman and Connie Dover in concert
- WHEN: 7 p.m., March 20
- WHERE: After Dark Music Series, United Methodist Church, Middlebury
- COST: $18 in advance, $20 at the door
- INFORMATION: (802) 388-0216
or www.afterdarkmusicseries.com
— Susan Green
