Melbourne Latvian Folk Art Fund planning exhibition in March

Inara Taylor | 

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Exhibition at Wool Corporation House during Kultūras dienas in Melbourne in the 1970s.

The Latvian Folk Art Fund was founded by the Latvian Arts & Crafts Association in Melbourne, Australia in 1975 as a special projects fund. Initially its aim was to help the arts and crafts association with expenses for a travelling exhibition across America. This venture proved to be a resounding success.

Later in 1996 LTMF decided to publish a major work of 300+ pages on Latvian folk art, titled Latvian Ornaments Alive (Latvju raksti runā) The authors of this work presented what amounts to a summary of their life’s work in Latvian as well as English. Scientists, archaeologists, artists, writers, poets and craft artisans contributed their knowledge gratis, making this work an essential reference book for anyone interested in Latvian folk arts.

From the early 1960s through to the 1990s this group of dedicated, enthusiastic and energetic Latvian folk artists, led by Lidija & Sergejs Beklešovi, Jānis Laduzāns and Arvīds Sodums placed Latvian arts & crafts in the forefront of many Australian Latvian Culture Days (Kultūras dienas) as well as other multicultural exhibitions.These were halcyon days for showcasing the heritage of Latvian arts & crafts in Australia. Arts & crafts magazines as well as other notable publications were published during this period.

Then, with failing health and no-one to continue this work, Lidija and Sergejs Beklešovi donated 13 crates of their life’s work to museums in Latvia. Beklešovs travelled to Rīga in 2006 to organise their last exhibition in June of that year.

Now, some 16 years on, the Latvian Folk Art Fund is preparing to showcase a retrospective overview of Latvian folk arts – an exhibition “Everything Old is New” on 9th, 10th and 11th March 2013 at the Melbourne Latvian House, 3 Dickens Street Elwood. The mission of the exhibition is to inspire and rekindle an interest in Latvian folk arts. Many exhibits are from private collections and will be for sale at very reasonable prices. All proceeds from this exhibition will be donated to the Latvian Summer School Dzintari to enable future generations to learn the folk art skills, which are such an inherently integral part of any Latvian’s cultural identity. There will also be copies of Latvian Ornaments Alive and Senais Mantojums available for purchase.   

The organiser of the March exhibition, Inara Taylor (née Beklešovs), hopes to rekindle a nostalgic interest, open a new window or spark a desire to not let the Latvian arts slip and fade into obscurity. Instead the hope is it will be built upon and evolve while at the same time retaining our distinct forms, signs and symbols.   
     

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Four original board members of Latviešu Tautas Mākslas Fonds – Lidija Beklešova, Aivars Saulītis, Igors Dimits and Eva Brennere.

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Rasma Celms and Lidija Beklešovs at the 25th anniversary of Latviešu Tautas Mākslas Fonds.

Attiecību putra new title by Swedish-Latvian group Alis P

Egils Kaljo | 

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After the comeback album Uz priekšu, released in 2009, Swedish Latvian group Alis P has released their third album, Attiecību putra. Alis P, led throughout its more than two decades of existence by Gundars Rullis, provide another meaty platter of heavy rock and bluesy grooves.

Uz priekšu was a welcome antidote to the often over-produced and occasionally soulless music that appears at times in music in Latvia (and elsewhere), and Attiecību putra is a worthy successor in that effort.

Joining Rullis, who sings and plays guitar, are Edgars Rubenis (bass) and Edgars Āboliņš (drums). Though there are only three musicians, this power trio has a big sound that can be heard throughout all the songs on the album.

Rullis, whose distinctive, slightly nasally voice might remind some of composer Juris Kulakovs of Pērkons, sings about various types of travelers on the album’s opening track ‘Ceļotāji’, which also features the thundering bass of Rubenis.

The melodic rocker ‘ZiemeļLauma’ offers a more mellow and romantic side of Alis P, with Rullis singing ‘naktīs dalīsim sapņus’ (we’ll share our dreams at night), and is one of the more tender songs on the album.

The dirty blues return in the rough-edged title track ‘Attiecību putra’, which again features the heavy bass of Rubenis, which gives the song a funk-like mood, appropriate for a song about the ‘porridge’ of relationships, with Rullis singing ‘tu esi kā inde’ (you are like poison).

Āboliņš’ drumming is the highlight of the song ‘Jaunas PaAudzes’, another funky number that reminds one slightly of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and over dueling distorted guitar and bass, Rullis ominously intones ‘es tevi redzu, es tevi dzirdu, tevī skatos, klausos’ (I see you, I hear you, I watch you and listen).

The album closes with the dreamy ‘Pacietīšos…’, with Rullis cryptically reciting the digits ‘0850360’ at the beginning of the song. The song, the longest on the album at almost six minutes and thirty seconds, has an almost Dire Straits-like feel to it, what with its lengthy, meandering outro. This mellow song brings the album to a satisfying close.

The only minor criticism about the album is that Rullis’ vocals are sometimes a bit lost in the mix – and, at times, there is a seemingly unnecessary over-reliance on vocal effects. Otherwise the performance of all the musicians involved is exemplary, particularly Rullis’ guitar work, which gives the entire album a solid foundation in rock and blues.

Currently the album is only available as a digital download via the http://www.bandcamp.com website, though a vinyl pressing of the album may appear in the near future.

A new Alis P album is always a reason to celebrate, since few other Latvian rock ensembles (and, it is also worth noting, the number of Latvian rock ensembles seems to decrease with each passing year) offer such enjoyably raw and rough melodies. Attiecību putra has a punchiness that was not as evident on Uz priekšu (though Uz priekšu did present slightly more variety – like the slow blues of ‘No Tapešu ielas’). A refreshing rollicking romp throughout its nine songs (which certainly leaves one wanting more), Attiecību putra is yet another worthy entry in the Latvian rock canon from Alis P.

Alis P website – http://www.alispudelis.lv
Alis P on Bandcamp – http://alisp.bandcamp.com

 

Details

Attiecību putra

Alis P

2012

Track listing:

1. Ceļotāji

2. Sapņu Tēls

3. Jauns Gads

4. ZiemeļLauma

5. Ej Tu Nost

6. Attiecību Putra

7. kas Bija, kas Būs…

8. Jaunas PaAudzes

9.Pacietīšos…

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Egils Kaljo is an American-born Latvian from the New York area . Kaljo began listening to Latvian music as soon as he was able to put a record on a record player, and still has old Bellacord 78 rpm records lying around somewhere.

Latvian vocabulary-building made incredibly fun

Arnis Gross | 

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Over the past few years I’ve come across many flashcard and vocabulary-building software, but only recently have discovered an App, which has the potential to transform the way Latvian is taught to newcomers of the language.

Developed by Grasshopper Apps, Bitsboard is the culmination of over 3 years of creating educational Apps for tablet computers. What sets their latest creation, Bitsboard apart from all other flashcard Apps is its ease of use, the professional-looking user interface, beautiful imagery and sounds, and the ability to customize for just about any language, including Latvian. Within minutes of downloading the App you can be creating your own words, adding matching photos and recording your audio for each item.

Bitsboard currently includes three activities: Flashcards, Photo Touch and Word Builder. Word Builder will scramble letters or words at the top of the screen and ask you to rearrange them to match the picture. A new activity Match Up where you match words to pictures is expected in the coming weeks. With its flexible visual and audio features Bitsboard could easily be extended beyond vocabulary exercises – what about number counting, learning to tell the time, recognising Latvian castles, testing your knowledge on Latvian traditional foods or even identifying the face of a famous Latvian musician, historian or politician?

The Latvian School in Melbourne, Australia has been using the “Little Speller” and “Sentence Maker” Apps, both of which have now been integrated into Bitsboard. Up until now the biggest limitation was not being able to share your created flashcards with others easily. Bitsboard now takes it to a completely new level by being able to publish your flashcards to the cloud-based Catalog and share it with everyone else – a growing collection of over 100,000 picture and audio-based flashcards.

Now imagine the possibilities for those teaching or learning the Latvian language. A mother could be creating a fun Latvian game for her toddler son spoken in her own voice and be able to share this with another family with lesser Latvian language skills; a student could create his own challenge list to consistently practice the more difficult Latvian words; a teacher could be at home creating a spelling board for students to upload to their iPads at their next Latvian grammar lesson; a school could establish a curriculum based on vocabulary lists taught at each school year level using fun and engaging technology; educational providers could be creating formal and customized content instantly accessible to Latvian schools and individuals around the globe.

The best thing about Bitsboard is that it is available free from the App Store. All you need is either an iPad or iPad mini running iOS 5.0 or newer version. An iPhone version is also in the works, but there is no word yet about an Android version.

For those that have already downloaded Bitsboard and are keen to get started – a quick tip. The online Catalog currently seems to be searchable by title only, so when you create a new board include “Latvian – “ or “Latviešu – “ at the beginning of your board title. Similarly if you would like to discover what is already out there just type in either of these two words into the Bitsboard Catalog search box.

Have fun and start to learn Latvian the new collaborative way.

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