Exhibit

On Thursday, April 13, 2023, the UC Merced Library held an opening reception for the current exhibit, Building a New Future: Art and Activism in the Central Valley—Photographs by George Ballis. Ballis was an activist and photographer who documented the living and working conditions of farm workers beginning in the 1950s, and the development of organized agricultural labor. 

Maia Ballis spoke at the reception and introduced her late husband’s work. “He made it a point to use his time to document what was going on in the fields,” she said, and described how he captured perspectives that may not have been seen otherwise, including images of Maria Moreno, the first woman organizer for the AFL-CIO. Ballis was impressed by Moreno’s strength, and with his photographs aimed to reflect the dignity he saw in each person.

Following the reception, Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells spoke of a similar intent in their music and performed a selection of songs, including “Quihubo Raza,” “When I Die,” and “If You’re Homeless,” which wove in themes of resistance to exploitation and the continued fight for workers' rights. Lira is a singer, songwriter, and director who cofounded El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez during the Delano Grape Strike and created songs that inspired and supported the farmworkers' efforts. Wells was active with the United Farm Workers in the 1970s and partnered with Lira to establish El Teatro de la Tierra as well as the musical group Alma. Lira discussed the experience of marching to Sacramento during the Delano Grape Strike and how his song, “La Peregrinación” (The Pilgrimage), expressed the sacrifice as well as the motivation of fellow organizers.

Desde Delano voy hasta Sacramento

Hasta Sacramento

mis derechos a
 pelear.

In a conversation with the audience moderated by Professor Manuel Martín Rodríguez, Lira and Wells asserted the urgency of the ongoing need to challenge dominant narratives in the media and to continue the traditions of protest music.

Songs of Struggle & Hope by Agustín Lira is available to UC Merced through Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries, VPN connection required.

Building a New Future: Art and Activism in the Central Valley—Photographs by George Ballis, will be exhibited through July 28th at the Kolligian Library, second floor.

Valley Life: The Summer Mural Completes the Four Seasons of Yosemite

Inspired by nature, Artist Bill Poulson first conceived of The Four Seasons of Yosemite in 1986. After closing his stained-glass studio in Maui, he arrived in Yosemite National Park (YNP) that September and embarked on drawing numerous scenes over the course of a few weeks. These drawings informed his finalized sketches for each of the four murals.

That same year, he started the fall mural known as Tissiack, the Ahwahneechee American Indian Tribe's name for Half Dome. He completed this stunning mural in 1988 with Half Dome gleaming in brilliant oranges. Tissiack premiered at YNP's Ahwahnee Hotel in 1989 and was a featured exhibit at the Visitor Center in 1990.

Twenty-years later (2008), Poulson completed the second mural representing Winter -- titled The Chief. The mural of monochromatic colors includes a full moon over snowy terrain with Cathedral Spires on one side of the valley, El Capitan on the other, and a bobcat looking down on showshoe hares. For a time, both the Fall and Winter murals were displayed in Ahwahnee's Great Room, back-to-back, in a large custom lightbox built by Poulson who is also a journeyman carpenter.

To start the Spring mural, Poulson needed to create working space in his Arnold studio as each mural stands 14 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Poulson coordinated with the concessionaire at YNP to rotate the Fall and Winter murals in the Cliff Room at the Yosemite Lodge. Eventually, these required an alternate location, due to change in concessionaires, and UC Merced was identified as a potential host. In spring 2016, the Winter mural moved to the UC Merced Library from the Cliff Room and later that year, the Fall mural followed.

With space to work, Poulson finished the Spring mural in 2019. It features large, vivid dogwood flowers and a creek in riveting white, blues, and greens. This view is visible a half mile beyond the park's first tunnel.

Poulson completed the final mural of this series in 2022. Valley Life represents Summer with a view of Yosemite Valley looking west toward El Capitan (right) and Sentinel Rock (left). Poulson wished to call attention to American Indians and their daily activities before settlers arrived. It features a brilliant blue sky and the sweeping height of granite faces so deeply associated with the park. The Summer mural completes the four seasons, and all are on display at UC Merced's Library on the 3rd floor. The UC Merced Library is pleased to host these beautifully crafted murals.

For each mural, Poulson transformed a 12x18 inch pencil sketch into a water color, sometimes painting multiple water colors before confirming the final image. He magnified each water color, using a projector, to trace the top and bottom of each panel (each mural consists of seven 2x8 foot panels) onto manila paper. To create the stained-glass, he employed both leaded and copper foiling techniques. The leaded process involves cutting strips of lead into desired lengths and moving from one corner to another, placing glass as you go. Copper foiling allows for a thinner lead line and greater flexibility as glass is wrapped with copper tape.

Poulson was first introduced to stained glass by an artist and good friend while working as a carpenter at a cabinet shop in Sutter, CA. He read a book about working with stained glass and initially started cutting clear glass as part of the learning process. His love of drawing formed the basis of his own designs. His first stained-glass window projects, displayed at a local gift shop, sold quickly which inspired him to start his stained-glass business in Hawaii (1978). It was here that he created a stained glass dome, 12 feet in diameter, to place on top of his first glass studio; he took a welding class in order to build the framework himself.

The W. Poulson studio is located in Arnold, CA where he crafts commissioned projects of stained glass and custom furniture.

http://poulsonglassstudio.com

►Watch the ABC30 News story featuring the UC Merced Library and the Four Seasons of Yosemite murals (Facebook)

Valley Life, Summer mural completing the Four Seasons of Yosemite Murals

Four Seasons of Yosemite Murals (Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring), UC Merced Library's 3rd Floor

"They Were Really Us": The UCSF Community’s Early Response to AIDS at the UC Merced Library chronicles 40 years of the AIDS crisis in photos, essays, and research materials. The exhibit title is based on a statement made by Dr. Paul Volberding in the documentary, Life Before the Lifeboat: San Francisco’s Courageous Response to the AIDS Outbreak:

The patients were exactly our age… all those other ways that we tend to separate ourselves meant very little when you realize that the patients had gone to the same schools, they listened to the same music, they went to the same restaurants. So they were really us… which added to the commitment that I think all of us had.

Drawing from the AIDS History Project collections preserved in UCSF’s Archives and Special Collections, “They Were Really Us" sheds light on how UCSF clinicians and staff addressed HIV/AIDS from its outbreak in the 1980s to the foundation of the AIDS Research Institute in 1996. 

The exhibit could hardly be more timely now--parallels between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic are striking, from the medical professionals who were at the forefront of defining what was at first a mysterious disease, to the community organizations combating associated stigma and misinformation, to public campaigns preventing transmission by promoting practices like condom-wearing. "They Were Really Us" is an inspiring display documenting the medical successes and advances in activism that continue to impact the world today. 

A recently aired podcast from Berkeley Remix, "First Response: AIDS and Community in San Francisco," is an audio complement to “They are Really Us.” This six series-podcast, produced by The Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, is about the politics of the first encounters with the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. It draws from thirty-five interviews conducted in the 1990s with Sally Smith Hughes, historian of science at the Bancroft Library and author of The Virus: A History of the Concept. The featured interviews focus on the early years of epidemic, when the first reports emerged of an unknown disease that was killing gay men in San Francisco, to 1984 and the development of a new way of caring for people in a hospital setting.

With funding from @NEHgov, we partnered with UCSF Library, The GLBT Historical Society & San Francisco Public Library to make 160,197 pages of AIDS history documenting the early days of the epidemic available online. In concluding the project, "They Were Really Us" was originally installed at UC Merced Library for an opening in Spring 2020, but ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the library's closure. A digital version of "They Were Really Us" was published on Calisphere in July 2020. We are continuing to digitize AIDS collections from UCSF with support from Network of the National Library of Medicine - Pacific Southwest Region. 

See "They Were Really Us" at UC Merced Kolligian Library through December 2021.

Immerse Yourself in California Water History and join Rina Faletti, UC Merced Center for the Humanities Postdoctoral for a talk and tour of her exhibit, Hydraulic Landscapes: Water History and Industrial Photography in California. From 19th-century construction of local Merced canals and Lake Yosemite near campus, to massive concrete works of the Central Valley Project's Delta-Mendota Canal, see how mid-20th-centuy water engineering created a world-famous hydraulic landscape in striking historic photographs from Central Valley archives.

Friday, April 7th

1:00pm to 2:00pm

KL362