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Database of the Month: eHRAF World Cultures

06/01/2020
profile-icon Rhonda Kitchens

eHRAF World Cultures

Performers in a sing-sing gather in Wabag, Enga Province of Papua New Guinea. These gatherings typically constitute multiple different tribes and are always bursting with various art forms, from decorative body adornments, to the dance, song, and musical drum lines.

Performers in a sing-sing gather in Wabag, Enga Province of Papua New Guinea. These gatherings typically constitute multiple different tribes and are always bursting with various art forms, from decorative body adornments, to the dance, song, and musical drum lines. From eHRAF.

"eHRAF World Cultures contains ethnographic collections covering all aspects of cultural and social life. eHRAF is unique in having subject indexing at the paragraph level. This allows detailed and precise searching for concepts not easily found with keywords." - From Publisher.

The "e" stands for electronic. The HRAF is for Human Relations Area Files.

Selected features from publisher Yale University:

  • Ethnographic collections organized by regions, subregions, and cultures
  • Cross-cultural database includes
    • Indigenous peoples and ethnic groups
    • Immigrant cultures in the U.S. and Canada
    • Historical to contemporary time periods
    • Probability Sample Files designed for hypothesis testing
    • Currently over 300 cultures and over 600,000 pages
  • Comprehensive summaries in Browse Cultures include topics such as
    • Economy
    • History and Cultural Relations
    • Family and Kinship
    • Sociopolitical organization
    • Religion

This teaching and research tool covers: 

  • Anthropology
  • Other social sciences–economics, sociology, psychology, political science
  • History
  • Religion
  • Law and Justice
  • Arts and Architecture
  • Interdisciplinary programs–Area studies, child development, environment, multicultural studies, peace and conflict, gender studies, gerontology
  • Agriculture
  • Biology and Botany
  • Health and nutrition
  • Medicine and nursing
  • Astronomy

EXPLORE...

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William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole | Issue 14 | Rie Palkovic, Art Instructor | Wavering
04/07/2021
profile-icon Rhonda Kitchens
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Rie Palkovic Issue 14 William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole

 

 

Explain the range and type of art you create and show. Do you have an artist's statement?

 

I am a painter. I paint in oils and mixed media drawings. I do paint on different surfaces such as canvas, paper, frosted Mylar, copper, and wood. I paint in realism mostly from nature. I do have an artist’s statement that I submit for competitions or grants that I apply for. Here’s an excerpt:

Palkovic's TsuruThe Japanese aesthetic ideals of suggestion, irregularity, simplicity, and perishability are the underlying principles that guide my painting and drawing.  These four basic principles guide my efforts to explore the link between art and nature that ebbs and flows much like nature itself wanes, dies, then rejuvenates to live anew.

The integration of Japanese aesthetics into my art making is an expression of dealing with the dualities of my identities. My father was an Irish-American from West Virginia and my mother was from Okinawa.  The tension of being neither Japanese nor American and yet being both is symbolized in my artwork by the ambiguities in space of the image.  The images are tentatively floating in space creating an anti-gravitational buoyancy for the viewer.  The compression of space evokes a sense of not knowing whether the image is receding or advancing.  This feeling is a good analogy of wavering I have felt and continue to feel.  It is an unsettling feeling of never feeling a part of your environment.  

Because of that unsettledness, I focus on the flora and fauna of the area where I currently live. I am also a huge fan of gardening, so plants take up a good deal of my imagination. I do tend toward the sharp, prickly sorts of plants that look ambiguous and can be mistaken for bugs or animal life. It reminds of a common question I have heard, “What is your ethnicity or where are you from?”

 

What research informs your work? Have you ever done a great deal of background work on a piece or a show?

I am a voracious reader and feel that it all informs my artwork. I love to read the memoirs or journals of artists and writers for a view into process. For the last several years I have been heavily researching the Northern Renaissance artists like Jan van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hans Memling. The Northern Renaissance painters focused on a hyper realism that is so beautiful and wonderful and showed the wondrous textures of fabric and fur, metal and glass, and so on. I can get caught up in that level of realism in my own work but like the addition of abstract elements, too. 

 

As a working artist are there magazines, books, creators, or events that fuel your work and/or engagement in the art community?

 

Palkovic's SunflowerI have felt very isolated as an artist living here. We came from a close-knit artists’ community in New Mexico before we moved here. Everyone we knew was basically an artist of some kind. Getting feedback is an important part of making art for me and we had a wonderful group. We worked together and played together.  We are still close with many of those people and use social media for feedback and support. When we got to travel we met up every year or so to have some fun. One of my favorite memories involved some friends coming to visit. They are both painters and we set up four sheets of paper in the studio with materials, cranked the music loud, and played musical easels. We moved to each piece of paper and did our thing and moved on to the next after 15 minutes with no preset plans. The pieces are wild and colorful with energy. Such a great time! Later we sat around the fire pit and listened to our friend, Raul, read new poems he had written. All these kinds of events are not difficult but do involve action. It is too easy to get bogged down in theories without doing anything meaningful. But the meaningful does not have to be complicated. Art is not separate from life. It is such an integral part if we choose to acknowledge it. I read Homo Aestheticus Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dissanayake some time ago. She posits the reflection that Art has been part of human life from the very beginning. Ancient humans painted on cave walls as well as found shelters and grouped in families. For some reason, Art was and is important and inherent in humans. 

 

Is there an artist(s) or person(s) that have served as an inspiration to you?

That depends on the day! I dearly love the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer. We saw a solo exhibition of his in San Francisco a few years ago. I walked around the museum crying it was so beautiful. He took salvaged material from bombed out Dresden from World War II and made giant books with wings and shelves that look like they are from God’s waiting room. He referenced the constellations and ancient myths. His work is so opposite from what I do and yet I love it and am so inspired by it!

I also love the work of Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa. She made hanging wire sculptures that were woven in organic forms. When hung with spotlights they cast wonderful shapes on the walls that change as you walk around them. 

These artists work in entirely different ways from the way I work but serve to inspire and fire my imagination in huge ways. It is so good to look at a variety of things. You don’t want to eat the same food all the time but need to change it up.

Rie's quote about her father.

 


​What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

 

I started going to college when my children were small (ages 4, 6, 10) and I was 28 years old. The more I learned the more I wanted to learn. And the more I learn the more I know that there is so much out there. I read everything I could. I found the poem by Mary Oliver called The Journey. She has been my guide for so many years with other poets. Poetry is an ancient art, too, and very much a deep part of human nature. Other than the new friends I made at school I had no support at home. I had to dig down deep to who I was to continue my education. My determination to finish my education grew stronger each time I took a class. I remembered my father’s advice to get as much education as possible. And I am still in school.

 

Follow Rie on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/riepalkovic/

 

POEM:  The Journey by Mary Oliver
 

Poem The Journey Mary Oliver


 

 

SELECTED SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITION

August 2016 Between Shadow and Space, solo exhibit
Unsettled Gallery
Las Cruces, New Mexico

November 2015 Casting Indra’s Net, Six artists group show
Moses Lake Museum and Art Center(MAC)
Moses Lake, WA

May 2014, 2015, Featured Artist for Cellarbration!

BBCC Foundation fundraiser
2016

June 2013 Betwixt and Between, MAC
Solo exhibition
Moses Lake Museum 
Moses Lake, Washington

April 2011 Medicine Show invitational, SLAM
Soap Lake, Washington

January 2011 MAC juried show, Moses Lake Museum
1st Runner up People’s Choice
Moses Lake, Washington

December 2010 Winter Show, Soap Lake Art Guild
Best Painting Award
Soap Lake, Washington

December 2009 Holiday Show, Imbibe
Moses Lake, Washington

August 2009 solo exhibition
Soap Lake Art Museum
Soap Lake, Washington

July 2009 Yin/Yang
Garage Gallery
San Francisco, California

June 2009 Solo Exhibition, Imbibe Gallery
Moses Lake, Washington

April 2008 Shouts and Murmurs Solo Exhibition, Tilde 
Portland, Oregon

Oct 2007 Waterline, a group show about fish
Crossing Tracks Gallery
San Diego, California

Oct 2006 Solo Exhibition
Seven Muses Gallery
Tacoma, Washington

April 2006 New Work, solo exhibition
Soap Lake Art Museum
Soap Lake, Washington

April 2006- River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia

Sep 2008 Curators: William Layman and Terri White
Traveling exhibition to Wenatchee, Tacoma, Spokane, WA; Nelson, Victoria, BC; Pendleton, OR

Jan 2006 MAC Annual juried exhibition, 3rd Place Award 
Juror: Scott Bailey, Art Dept. Chair at Wenatchee Valley College
Moses Lake Museum & Art Center
Moses Lake, Washington

Jan 2006 Ink and Clay 32, Kellogg University Art Gallery
Jurors: Marilyn Zeitlan and Peter Held
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California

Feb 2005 Gallery 76, 21st National Juried Exhibition; 2nd Place Award
Jurors: Carol Hassen of Larsen Gallery and Robert Fisher of Yakima Valley Community College
Wenatchee Valley College, Wenatchee, Washington

Jan 2005 Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Juried Exhibition
Moses Lake, Washington

Sep 2004 Seven Muses Gallery, Dual Exhibition with Francis Palkovic
Tacoma, Washington

Apr 2004 Gallery 76 National Invitational, Gallery 76
Wenatchee Valley College, Wenatchee, Washington

Feb 2004 Art, Technology, & Culture, Gallery 76, Dual exhibition with Paul Stout, sculptor
Wenatchee Valley College, Wenatchee, Washington

Jan 2004 Columbia Basin Invitational,  Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Moses Lake, Washington. Award: Honorable Mention

Jan 2004 Greater Midwest International Exhibition XIX, Central Missouri State University Art Gallery, Warrensburg, Missouri, Juror: Douglass Freed, Director, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art

Jan 2004 Ink & Clay 30, Kellogg Art Gallery, California Polytechnic University

Pomona, California, Juror: Hollis Goodall, Curator of Japanese Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

March 2003 Okinawan American Princess Diaries, Moses Lake Museum & Art Center, Moses Lake, Washington

Apr 2002 18th National Juried Exhibit, Gallery ‘76, Juror’s Award
Wenatchee, Washington

Jun-Jul 2001 Forms 4, Chase Gallery
City Hall, Spokane, Washington

Mar-Apr 2001 17th National Juried Exhibit, Gallery ‘76
Best of Show Award, People’s Choice Award
Wenatchee, Washington

May-Jun 2000 Conversations from the Garden, Moses Lake Museum & Art Center
Solo Exhibition
Moses Lake, Washington

Jan-Feb 2000 Two Central Washington Ladies, High Spirits Gallery
Wenatchee, Washington

Jan-Feb 2000 Baked, Mashed, & Fried, Moses Lake Museum & Art Center
3rd Place Award, Potato Commission Purchase Award
Moses Lake, Washington

June 1999 Columbia Basin Invitational, Adam East Museum & Art Center
Moses Lake, Washington

Mar-Apr 1999 Group Exhibition, High Spirits Gallery
Wenatchee, Washington

Dec 1998 Solo Exhibition
Wallenstien Theatre, Columbia Basin Allied Arts
Big Bend Community College, Moses Lake, Washington
 

Nov 1998 43rd Annual Central Washington Artists Exhibition
Larson Gallery 
Yakima Valley Community College, Yakima, Washington

Mar 1998 The Many Lives of Women, Kent Hall Museum
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

Feb 1998 Hanging Around, Faculty Exhibition
El Paso Community College

The People’s Gallery, El Paso City Hall, TX
Sep 1997- Arte Sin Limites: Exposicion Fronteriza

July 1998 (Invitational; one of twelve artists representing Las Cruces)
Traveling Exhibition to Four Cities:
Museo de Arte, Juarez, Mexico, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Chihuahua ,Chihuahua City, Mexico, the Las Cruces Museum of Art and Culture, Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the Chamizal Gallery, El Paso, Texas

Sep 1997 Contemporary Asian Artists in America
Smithtown Township Arts Council
Mill’s Pond House Gallery, St. James, NY

Mar 1997 At Random, Faculty Exhibition
El Paso Community College
The People’s Gallery, El Paso City Hall, TX

Dec 1996 December Group Show Invitational
Galeri Azul, Mesilla, NM

July 1996 Border Artists and Friends Invitational
Adobe Patio Gallery, Mesilla, NM

Nov 1995 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition
Kent Hall Museum, New Mexico State University, NM

June 1995 Image and Icon Exhibition (Invitational)
University Art Gallery, New Mexico State University, NM

April 1995 Solo Exhibition, 
Galeri Azul, Mesilla, NM

Feb 1995 Annual Juried Student Exhibition
Juror’s Choice Award
College of Arts and Sciences Award
University Art Gallery, New Mexico State University, NM

Oct 1994 2 x 4 Faculty/Alumni Invitational
Todd Madigan Gallery, Cal State University, Bakersfield, CA

June 1994 Close to the Border, Bi-annual juried exhibition
University Art Gallery Award
University Art Gallery, New Mexico State University, NM

 

Art / Art History, Library and Research Skills
William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole| Dr. Allison Palumbo & Love and the Fighting Female: A Critical Study of Onscreen Depictions | Issue 2
04/30/2020
profile-icon Rhonda Kitchens
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Image of Issue with Dr. Allison Palumbo and book cover image.

Interview with:  Dr. Allison Palumbo, English Instructor, Big Bend Community College

 

Tell us about your new book that is coming out.  When did you first become fascinated heroines in mass media?

Book Cover Image

Love and the Fighting Female:  
A Critical Study of Onscreen Depictions

ISBN: 9781476677392

 

 

It’s my first book, and I am very excited and a little nervous to be putting my ideas out into the world.

 

When I first began to understand the idea of a hero, I was a child of the 70s and early
80s, and I didn’t really differentiate between male and female heroes.
I just loved heroism and all the heroes on film and television at the time (particularly
Wonder Woman and Superman and Luke Skywalker). It wasn’t until I started to get
older and notice a distinct difference in how male-bodied and female-bodied
heroes were portrayed and that there was a pattern. The male was always
stronger, always the one to do the final rescue, and let’s face it, there were
at least 20 or more male heroes to every 1 female, especially back then.
The female-bodied hero almost always had to be saved, still, and she
had to wear ridiculous clothes that were not appropriate for a fighter
(still a problem), which made me dissatisfied.		 Image of Dr. Allison Palumbo and her brother both wearing Superman costumes.
Dr. Allison Palumbo, 4, with brother Eric, 8. Palumbo's personal collection. 

When I first began to understand the idea of a hero, I was a child of the 70s and early 80s, and I didn’t really differentiate between male and female heroes. I just loved heroism and all the heroes on film and television at the time (particularly Wonder Woman and Superman and Luke Skywalker). It wasn’t until I started to get older and notice a distinct difference in how male-bodied and female-bodied heroes were portrayed and that there was a pattern. The male was always stronger, always the one to do the final rescue, and let’s face it, there were at least 20 or more male heroes to every 1 female, especially back then. The female-bodied hero almost always had to be saved, still, and she had to wear ridiculous clothes that were not appropriate for a fighter (still a problem), which made me dissatisfied.

So, I started trying to find exceptions to what seemed like an unspoken rule that heroic women onscreen couldn’t be as badass as heroic men. It was something of an obsession, and that stayed with me over the years. And I found them. And I noticed that more of them emerged in popular culture starting in the 1990s, and they have only increased since. And I began to notice that even though these fighting female characters (as I call them in the book) were doing things no one had seen women do onscreen, there were still many ways that their strength and independence were attenuated—always reduced in some way in the narrative. Particularly if there was a romance involved.

Why romance? Because at the same time I was seeing patterns of female heroes being restrained or limited in some way that male heroes weren’t, I was seeing story after story of women giving everything up for love, of changing themselves in some drastic way and, frankly, losing themselves. I wanted to explore the negative implications of both issues at the same time. So, an idea was born. And that idea led me to a paper I wrote when I was completing my Ph.D. coursework at the University of Kentucky, and that paper became the basis of my dissertation and then book.

What kind of research does it take to pull together a book?  What was the hardest resource to find? How did you manage your citations?

I was very fortunate that I was studying at a university with one of the best-endowed libraries in the country, so I never had trouble finding resources. Libraries matter! And how well-funded a library is has everything to do with how much it can provide students. Anyway, I had to read books and academic journal articles on so many topics: violent women, male and female heroes, gender and race ideologies, feminist theories on popular culture, film, and television, autonomy, romance. I basically had to become familiar with every credible source (and some not-so-credible) I could find that had anything to do with my topic, so I could be sure that my work 1) contributed new perspectives and information to what was already available and 2) speak to or relate my work to relevant work others were doing. The only resources I had to struggle a bit to find were recordings of some earlier TV shows from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s like Honey West and Get Christie Love and McMillan and Wife (and that show was TERRIBLE—so hard to watch, as was the 1990s TV version of La Femme Nikita…ugh, so many hours).

As for my citations, I used standard MLA documentation for my work, which is typical for my field, though I also used Endnotes, which aren’t as standard except in longer works. I made sure that I took really good notes as I read from the works I used, identifying when I would write quotes and paraphrases (what page it was from and the author). I had to be particularly careful because evidence of plagiarism in my book—even accidental plagiarism—would basically keep anyone from even reading my scholarship after that because I would have lost all credibility. But I am not worried because I took such careful notes.

What is your mental space when it comes to research?  Do you have a plan? Are you random?  Is it a research rabbit hole or a carefully planned expedition?

Great question! When I was an undergraduate, I always started with a plan, but the longest paper I wrote then was only 40 pages for my senior thesis. It’s a lot easier to envision an idea that size—I could wrap my head around the whole construct and build from there. I was very organized then—note cards and number systems and outlines.

As my studies continued and the ideas I engaged with and created became more complex, my carefully crafted plans for approaches were replaced by random rabbit holes. I would just pick a topic related to my general ideas and then start reading until I started to get a sense of that topic’s complexities and nuances, so then I could start to see if it related to my idea or if it helped me construct my idea more. Some reading just led me to more reading. I read a lot of work that I didn’t technically use in the book but that made me understand the field and disciplines I was engaging with enough that I could be conversant in them and fit with expectations. After I did that long enough and on enough topics, then I could start to think about what was missing, or what was wrong, or what had been overlooked in what others said, so I could figure out what I had to say, what my contribution could be.

As I often tell my ENG 101 students, crying is a big part of my research process now when I sit down to start the writing, mainly because my work at this point in my writing abilities has to be so well-developed and aware of what’s out there. I will often get overwhelmed at the beginning, worry about how on earth I can accomplish this project, fear that I will not have anything interesting or useful or intelligent to say, and then the tears. This is after hundreds and hundreds of pages of formal writing experience. This is after even reminding myself I’ve done it before and can do it again.

But as I also tell my students, once the crying ended, I had so many notes from my reading and watching that I didn’t have to stare at a blank page—I had already been writing for months! All I had to do was pick a note I had written and use that to answer the question “what does this have to do with anything?” In writing through that, to explain it to myself, it helped me start to see the shape of my idea form. If that note didn’t go anywhere, then I would pick another one and do it again, until I could focus on a thesis—my main point. Then, the shape would become more clear and the work a little more narrow.

Writing should always be a little hard for people because it means that they are challenging themselves with what they are saying. Just because I freak out, in the beginning, doesn’t mean I won’t finish it. I have accepted it will happen and that, when I’m ready, I will move on and be fine. Every new chapter, the process would start again, but I didn’t and I don’t fear the fear anymore, so to speak. It means I am going to do more and better because I care about succeeding.

So I now embrace the fear and also failure—my book is something like 350 pages, but I also have about as many pages of notes that I didn’t use, thoughts that I didn’t pursue, and I even at one point had half of a chapter written before I realized that it wasn’t where I wanted to go, so I stopped that train. But I kept it all in files with my drafts because one never knows where the next project will lead.

Much of your research involved film and video. How did you approach and manage this?

At one point, in my deepest research phase, I would read some books and articles for a few hours and then watch 6-8 hours of TV and films a day. I was the master binger. It might sound easy, but it was not. Trying to maintain close attention to anything that long is difficult, much less to be analyzing it at the same time. My process was similar to a process I show my ENG 102 students when we practice visual analysis using a Key and Peele sketch, “Substitute Teacher”—with lots of pauses and time for gathering ideas about moments, scenes, dialogue, settings, sounds, etc. So, in my research, I would watch a bit, pause, take notes, rewind, catch quotes, pause, rewind again. I had to be very careful because I can reread passages and a whole book more easily and quickly than I can watch 5 seasons of a broadcast show with 23 episodes. There was no time to watch them all again, so I had to get it right the first time and then go back for selective episodes or moments. (My spouse stopped watching the shows with me very early on because it was so annoying for him to have the story interrupted all the time.) I needed to make sure I had heard correctly and quoted correctly, again, so my work would be credible for the kind of skeptical audiences who read scholarship. It was mentally exhausting and also very sedentary, so I had to make sure to get off my butt every day for at least a walk to stay sane.

 

English, Art / Art History, Library and Research Skills