
{"id":4020,"date":"2008-11-20T11:22:19","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T19:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=4020"},"modified":"2008-11-20T11:22:19","modified_gmt":"2008-11-20T19:22:19","slug":"an-artist%e2%80%99s-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/11\/20\/an-artist%e2%80%99s-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"An artist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>by Rich Fowler<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p> Chapel Hill  \u00e2\u20ac\u201dJinxiu Zhao usually goes by Alice because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier for people to pronounce. A typical day for her is busy, filled with the art she loves. She teaches classes for seniors and children and is always cheerful and upbeat about it. She truly loves her work, and it comes through when you talk with her. Whenever she talks about her art or her students, she smiles.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao paints traditional Chinese brush paintings, as well as Chinese calligraphy, and she teaches young and old all over the state. The themes of her brush paintings emphasize nature and natural settings: flowers, trees, plants and the scenery around her. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My favorite painting subject was people when I was in China,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Zhao says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But now I am more interested in painting flowers and birds after I moved to the states, because North Carolina is so beautiful and has many nice plants and birds. They give me the inspiration to paint.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nShe also says that plants and birds make better subjects for her students to study. <\/p>\n<p>Chinese calligraphy is difficult for those who aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t familiar with the written language, let alone those not used to writing with a large brush. In a small room at the Chapel Hill Zen Center on a Sunday afternoon, three people sit around a couple of folding tables, drawing Chinese characters on newsprint with brushes. The faint smoky smell of calligraphy ink mixes with the smell of the old Chinese-language newspapers that keep the ink from bleeding through the paper and ruining the tables.<\/p>\n<p>The students, at various levels of learning, keep working on getting their strokes right while Zhao walks around, checking her students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 work, cheerfully encouraging them with an enthusiastic, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, that looks nice!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The mood is amiable, as everyone chats pleasantly while working on their calligraphy.<\/p>\n<p>Halfway through the class, the students take a break to stretch and enjoy the Zen Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s koi pond.<br \/>\nThis weekend, Zhao will be one of 11 artists participating in Art for a Cause, an art show that is part of the 19th annual Alternative Christmas Market at United Church of Chapel Hill. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was little, I always had this dream,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Zhao says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I said I would go somewhere very far when I was very young. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strange. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where to go, I just had this dream.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Zhao grew up in Huangshi City, an industrial city along the Yangzi River, about 800 miles south of Beijing. She started drawing around the age of two, and her passion for art has grown ever since.<br \/>\nWhen she decided to emigrate in 1995, her dream led her to Chapel Hill. <\/p>\n<p>The first thing she noticed when she came to the U.S. was the blue sky and the clean air.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153America is so beautiful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153everywhere you see is a painting, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s given me inspiration. So when I paint here, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I think so much about China.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Zhao started teaching soon after she came to Chapel Hill: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I showed my artwork to an American artist shortly after I arrived in North Carolina and she said I should teach. With the help of my American friends, I had my first brush-painting class in July 1995,\u00c2\u00a0with 18\u00c2\u00a0people signed up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The class was a success.<\/p>\n<p>Her classes range in size from one-on-one private lessons to large workshops. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The first time I taught at a teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s workshop, there were 80 of them. I was so nervous,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153After I came here, I tried different jobs. Interpreter, translator, secretary \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but still my passion is painting.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I had a full-time job, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much time to paint. I like to teach and paint, so I decided to do this full-time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>With the help of Duke University\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Asian\/Pacific Studies Institute, Zhao started teaching workshops in K-12 schools all over the state to teach both students and teachers Chinese brush painting and calligraphy. Since 2004, she has taught over 60 workshops.<\/p>\n<p>The students at the schools she visits send thank-you cards and notes and decorate them with the Chinese calligraphy and brush painting she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taught them.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao appreciates the opportunity to teach people about Chinese cultural arts: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can use what I know and what I can do to introduce Chinese art to them, plus they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested in learning about a different culture. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great.<\/p>\n<p> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So even [though] now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here by myself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all of my family is in China \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a stranger here because, like my Chinese friends say, I have new friends here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Zhao teaches brush-painting classes at the Robert and Pearl Seymour Center in Chapel Hill, the Chapel Hill Zen Center, the North Carolina Botanical Garden and the Duke Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Rich Fowler Staff Writer Chapel Hill \u00e2\u20ac\u201dJinxiu Zhao usually goes by Alice because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier for people to pronounce. A typical day for her is busy, filled with the art she loves. She teaches classes for seniors and children and is always cheerful and upbeat about it. She truly loves her work, and it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4021,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions\/4021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}