Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 16, 1993 TAG: 9311170255
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So when he was given the opportunity to re-experience Eastern culture last February, the artist jumped. Through the Virginia Western sister college exchange program with Sang Ji Junior College, Curtis became a visiting art professor in Roanoke's sister city of Wonju, South Korea, for 90 days.
When he returned last May, though, he brought home more than a few new art pieces and some 800 slides. In the emerging Wonju spring, Curtis found renewed energy and excitement for his art - all in two trees he viewed from a third-story window.
As the third Virginia Western professor to visit Wonju in the exchange program, Curtis had some idea of what to expect. Still, his collision with the language barrier proved to be his biggest obstacle.
Six professors at Sang Ji spoke English, though not well enough to hold free-flowing conversations with Curtis.
``The thing I missed the very most was my native tongue,'' he says. ``When I finally met an English-speaking American, it was like, `Whoa! I can have an English-speaking conversation!' To be able to have a conversation where you're understood with all your inflection, all of your nuance - boy, did I realize how absolutely vital language is to our existence.''
He only saw this American a few times, so his conversations still were limited. Curtis spent most of his evenings reading and writing letters. In fact, his letter-writing became his personal journal to his friends. The letters let him keep in touch with his feelings while away, since he had no one with whom to share them.
Curtis also was given a VCR for his room - on the fifth floor of the university hospital in Wonju, where resident doctors lived. If he wasn't reading, writing letters or going on tourist excursions with the Koreans, Curtis probably was watching English movies and at least following the conversations he longed to have.
This tremendous reading, letter-writing and movie-watching time was a retreat, and it put Curtis in touch with his art again.
He didn't begin to paint until about three weeks into his visit, but he started taking pictures immediately. From his third-floor office on the college campus, he began painting pictures of children.
He was enchanted by the Korean children, whose free spirits were easy to capture on film. His first painting of children there, ``Jocund Jaunt,'' took 70 hours to complete. This was way too long, he thought. ``I was going to have to give up so much realism and paint landscapes instead.''
Curtis began peering through his office/studio window at the rice fields below. But every time he tried to photograph them, two bare trees that grew in front of his window got in the way. In his fifth week, it hit him: ``Hey, look at those trees. I got real excited by it because I really sensed that spring was in the air, and it was going to manifest itself in the trees.''
In much the same way, Curtis' own feelings were manifested in those trees. ``Winter was waning a little bit, but the days were getting kind of warm, and you could smell it. And I was waiting for it. In a way, it was an expressive documentation of what I experienced.''
Curtis produced 16 paintings in 10 weeks. Compare that to a usual five a year.
``I got into the spirit of the spring coming out. Me being in touch with my environment and my response to that environment, and my feelings about it. I was charged, and it came out in my painting. There's this energy that just takes over.''
That energy is still with him, especially when he shares some of his slides. In his edited version of his photographic journey, Curtis recalls many of his experiences with the Korean culture.
At his exhibit opening in Wonju, Curtis wore a suit and white gloves. Then he, along with the assistant mayor of Wonju, the college president and a major businessman, cut the ribbon to his exhibit. There was even a TV crew there to film the events open only to special guests. No students and very few women were allowed to attend.
``For all fallacies that are here [in the United States], we are equal citizens,'' he says. ``I became real aware of that after five weeks.''
The whole experience - the language barrier, the culture, the trees - renewed him, Curtis says. ``I came out, what was me and what was Western in me meshed - the Koreans call it, `Man in harmony with nature.'
``I wasn't trying to force it, but it happened, and I enjoyed it.''
David Curtis' exhibit, ``A Korean Sojourn,'' is on display through Nov. 27 at the Victor Huggins Gallery, 125 Campbell Ave. S.E., Roanoke.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB