To properly exhibit Gao's 60 drawings of the Naxi genesis requires raising funds and sponsors, a fine exhibition gallery, calculations and carpentry, ladders,lighting, publicity, -- work by a lot of people.
he the Japanese artist Mizuko, asked me to create a piece of art that could travel as part of for the Olive Project's Exhibit of International Artists for Peace in Palestine/Israel. When asked about the piece -- which has been seen now in Palestine, Canada, 2 cities in Japan, and 6 cities in the U.S., -- I often referred to Gao Feng's art, Cai Hua's anthropology, and the Naxi Dongbas. In the U.S., people were interested in juxtaposing Dongba pictographs with petroglyphs, picture writing on rocks, the dating of which range from 2000 years ago, 1 bce (before christian era), to the 20th century. And they were interested in juxtaposing speculations about relations between the the Na and the Naxi with speculations about relations between the Anasazi (ancient) and the Hopi, the Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples many of whom are traditionally matri-local. I was particularly eager to exhibit Gao Feng's Worship Heaven in New MexicoThe dating on these range from several centurnies before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century I had presented in 1979 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, then as series of tentative scientific hypotheses about the evolution of writing laws to enforce patrilineal claims on what were evolving as ruling matrilineal clans; claims we might see as efforts to resolve inequities between matri kin groups exchanging via marriage contracts different forms of labor time, the productivity of which develops unevenly, hence creating surplus labor time owed by one to the other: proto-classes.
It should be obvious now why in 2003, I had insisted that Gao's work be shown in the U.S. -- after he had pointed to one of his pictures and said, "How Naxi people learned to make babies." Most American social scientists and lay feminists still do not believe that the technology of human reproduction was discovered [not invented, but discovered], so curiosity about how it was discovered, and its effect on population growth and the emergence of historic society, is obviously limited.
My researches had been limited to western mythologies: Egyptian, Sumerian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman. Dongba mythology and Gao's audacity to incorporate their pictographic symbols into his art was inspiring and liberating.
And so it was for other artists, artists with a scientific bent, who heard my references to Gao Feng, the Han calligraphy artist and school principal, who used Dongba symbols to represent his interpretations of Naxi wisdom and poetic hypotheses. I used the earliest known pictographic writing, commodity labels from the Abydos tombs, in Egypt, c. 3200 bce. (http://www.peggydobbins.net/dwellingintents.html}
As I traveled my own art from Atlanta to Birmingham, New Orleans, and Colorado, people wanted to see Gao's work. Mine is a tent I can easily travel and erect by myself. lighting. The artists of New Mexico found a way. As Gao is a Han artist inspired by the Naxi, Dale Harris is an Anglo American artist inspired by the rock art of native Americans.
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It should be obvious now why in 2003, I had insisted that Gao's work be shown in the U.S. -- after he had pointed to one of his pictures and said, "How Naxi people learned to make babies." Most American social scientists and lay feminists still do not believe that the technology of human reproduction was discovered [not invented, but discovered], so curiosity about how it was discovered, and its effect on population growth and the emergence of historic society, is obviously limited.
My researches had been limited to western mythologies: Egyptian, Sumerian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman. Dongba mythology and Gao's audacity to incorporate their pictographic symbols into his art was inspiring and liberating.
And so it was for other artists, artists with a scientific bent, who heard my references to Gao Feng, the Han calligraphy artist and school principal, who used Dongba symbols to represent his interpretations of Naxi wisdom and poetic hypotheses. I used the earliest known pictographic writing, commodity labels from the Abydos tombs, in Egypt, c. 3200 bce. (http://www.peggydobbins.net/dwellingintents.html}
As I traveled my own art from Atlanta to Birmingham, New Orleans, and Colorado, people wanted to see Gao's work. Mine is a tent I can easily travel and erect by myself. Exhibiting Gao's work requires raising funds and sponsors, a fine exhibition gallery, calculations and carpentry, ladders and lighting. The artists of New Mexico found a way. As Gao is a Han artist inspired by the Naxi, Dale Harris is an Anglo American artist inspired by the rock art of native Americans.
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