Arts festival expands horizons for W. Virginia parishes: Croatian children's art cries out against atrocities everywhere

National Catholic Reporter, June 28, 1996 by Michael J. Farrell

One thing just led to another. The West Virginia children made "touch boxes" for the children of Bosnia: boxes of up to 20 common-place items to convey the flavor of West Virginia to the Bosnian children. They created a mural 40 foot wide around the theme of angels of all races and religions. They sent toys and other gifts. They all signed up as candidates for pen pals.

The whole town of Martinsburg was involved in the festival, which was launched March 19 -- the feast of St. Joseph in the parish of St. Joseph, the legendary St. Joseph's tables providing good things to eat and to celebrate. The exhibits were divided between the local library and the bank and the art gallery.

In a landlocked country like this, explains Callaghan, "it's so easy to get myopic. Something large had to be done to stretch the kids' world-views." Callaghan, in her 18 months at the parish, has helped bring "a global vision to a small community," said Fr. DiBacco. Her success seems due at least in part to the unifying, nonthreatening power of art. She talks of "a sense of joy not usually there." The teenagers "seemed to stand a lot taller. They knew what they did had significance."

As time passed, Callaghan saw ever more connections between broken-up Bosnia and her own West Virginia, "which broke away from Virginia to be with the North." She saw the similarities between the mountain-dominated landscapes of the two areas. "Our town is situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains," wrote Memovic Sefket, principal of the school at which the Croatian pictures were made. In his flawed English he went on: "During this war so many beautiful and valuable was destroyed."

What resonated most deeply was the sheer tragedy of the former Yugoslavia presented so poignantly in the Croatian children's art.

The 31 pictures were supplied by San Francisco-based Paintbrush Diplomacy, a nonprofit organization founded in 1972 by Char Pribuss, an artist, and her husband Rudy, an engineer.

"Art is a wonderful language all alone," explains Char. "It's never been tapped enough. Whenever someone is painting, people always gather around. It unifies people." The couple started arranging art exchanges and soon had so much interest and impetus that they founded the International Children's Art Museum. The collection now consists of over 4,000 paintings from over 100 countries. Many are sad countries.

Sarajevo's Sefket writes that his school was shelled daily during the war. In late March, 550 of the pupils were refugees. "One hundred and thirty pupils are orphaned, without one or both parents; 15 pupils were killed and a lot of them wounded. In spite of all these difficult conditions, teaching process has been not discontinued."

The horrors they saw and the terrors they still carry about with them are depicted in the art:

* People hide from enemy militias in the woods. They wear heart patches, explains Callaghan, to heal their hurting hearts.

* A family stands by a pit, bullets zinging through their heads, while three soldiers stand with guns over a mass grave into which another family has already been shot.