Artist: Carlos Solis
The Unknown
by Evelyn Asher
The Unknown knocks softly at my door
Unaccompanied
Inviting me to reflect before I answer.
What’s behind the door?
A meadow of soft images, playful
If I but accept an extended hand
Become my own Julie Andrews.
Rejoicing in the vastness of love,
Views of forever, united at times,
Forever gathering under an umbrella of joy.
Connection, curiosity, celebration.
The Unknown waits patiently for me,
Admonishing not if I miss the mark,
Inviting me to be still under the layers of lived experiences
Alone and among those who enrich my life,
Give me pause, question,
Help me abandon my
cloak of doubt.
Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees – Robert Irwin
Ode to Melvin Toledo
Tribute to “Stars of America”
Solo Exhibit Portraits of Immigrants
Marietta (GA) Museum of Art
by Evelyn Asher
Obscured. Misunderstood.
Dominoes of fake news
Robs generations of immigrants of opportunities
Glass ceilings muddied.
Myths busted by the artist’s brush
The artist’s passion spotlights his subject’s strengths
Hurdles to overcome –new homeland, novel language
Foreign tongue that follows the innocent home from toil.
Willing to learn, willing to labor
While slurs, gunfire, tear at men’s souls,
Yet the artist sees beyond
The rubble to the promise of spirit.
Linger before these “Stars of America” portraits
Realize more deeply, suspend your disbeliefs.
Let us support humanity as one, dignify existence
Without borders.
Suffering from pogroms my Ukrainian ancestors witnessed,
And escaped from, was silenced in the children’s presence.
Shielded from news, conversations about the “old country”
Violence was not tolerated. Curiosity. Attention. Encouraged.
Who am I? Every day, I gaze at my maternal great-grandparents’ photo,
In a tiny silver frame, they are dressed for an occasion, light in their eyes.
Safety among relatives, fifty years and counting, my trials melt in comparison to theirs
Street knowledge, genuine interest in humans, versus abhorrent interest rates.
Melvin Toledo seeks the beauty in all things.
Examine his canvases, gaze at the eyes, the hands,
Sense pride, dignity, value. These portraits depict humanity at its finest,
Jewel-bright eyes mirror windows to their souls.
Poem dedicated to Catalina Gomez-Beuth and Melvin Toledo
“Let a line be half the darkness” – author unkown
by Evelyn Asher
https://www.catalinagomezbeuthart.com/
https://www.melvintoledo.com/biography.html
The diaspora memories these artists carry from Columbia and Nicaragua have threads
that mirror my ancestors from Russia and Hungarian pogroms suffered at the turn of the
20th century. The artists, passionate about replacing negative images of their
governments, encourage young Latin American artists.
What treasures my family might have if these artists could have captured
my maternal grandfather sewing splendid brocade for the Czar.
What/Whom did my grandparents leave behind in their shtetl?
What sprung from their toil in their gardens? Current Level 4 – no travel to Kyiv.
Three years of deepening friendships born at the Quinlan,
continue to fuel my quest of knowledge of heritage of these artists,
to learn their craft that is being discovered by fine art supporters in North Georgia,
and across the country who sense their devotion to their subjects
now symbols of a unified, peaceful world.
Each portrait’s intensity of emotion summons
the heart of a stranger on common ground,
unveils ancestors who dwell with a tapestry of truths,
courage that forms deep crows feet baked from the sun,
laughter, stress, grief, and sadness.
These elegant paintings invite us to linger, to translate humble resettlement -
celebrate humanity, passages of time, dreams birthed with toil, dignity.
Immigrants blending into the diaspora, like each artist, dedicated to carve
a place to all home with their family marked with freedom in a new country,
a new language, new terrain, new friendships.
Each brushstroke of these magnificent portraits is an invitation to examine
universal faces, diversity, seek simplicity in the complexity in a cultural experience
that helps the viewer experience commonality, marry passion,
replace harshness with hope, straddling two worlds.
There is no other.