Father Barry Martinson says there is an element of suffering to making art. He liked painting and writing when he was a child, but ever since he arrived in Chingchuan Village (清泉), an Aboriginal community nestled in the picturesque mountains of eastern Hsinchu, it has become more of a “mission” to beautify his surroundings, whether it be murals depicting Aboriginal life in his church or mosaics on the walls of a basketball court.
And now, he is on a mission to renovate the community’s main street.
“Some people just love to paint and paint. I don’t. I’ve got to have a motivation,” he says.
Photo courtesy of Barry Martinson
Martinson says in the 40 years he’s lived in Chingchuan, it has gone from attractive brick houses to drab concrete blocks and tin shacks. Neither he nor the villagers have the money to beautify the street, so Martinson is putting on an exhibition of his stained-glass paintings at Taipei 101 starting tomorrow.
Martinson says he has wanted to clean up the streets for a long time, especially since the village has become a tourist destination due to its hot springs and the former residences of writer San Mao (三毛) and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) marshal Chang Hsueh-liang (張學良), who served part of his house arrest here for kidnapping KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in 1936.
“This is all people see of our village,” Martinson says. “As far as they’re concerned, Chingchuan is just a bunch of shacks. I think: ‘what a shame.’”
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
Neither the villagers, mostly laborers and farmers, nor Martinson had the funds to do anything, so he started making and selling stained-glass paintings. The remaining pieces — mostly consisting of movie scenes — will be displayed at Taipei 101 starting tomorrow, along with a choral performance by village children.
Martinson has three helpers for his work, which is done in the traditional way with multiple shadings and firings. The vivid, figurative pieces with detailed shading and thick black outlines can be lit up with a built-in LED light.
The original theme for this collection was “Faces of Love,” which not only includes Biblical images but also movie scenes and famous figures, including Audrey Hepburn and the Buddha.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
“The idea was so the beautiful face of the village would come from the beautiful faces of the stained glass,” Martinson says.
YOU ARE YOUR HOUSE
Martinson is happy now when he leaves his church to visit with villagers, mostly Atayal Aborigines.
Three years ago, his paintings funded the youth community center, sprucing up an abandoned building in the process. For the past month, scaffolding has aligned the street as workers have installed geometric Atayal patterns to the facades of the concrete houses.
A large tribal mosaic is planned for the tallest, four-story building whose bleak gray side faces incoming traffic. An empty landing has been turned into a garden, with plants set to climb up an otherwise drab retaining wall.
“People were pleased that there was a tribal flavor without being too conspicuous,” Martinson says. “I wanted it to look like it’s been there all the time.”
Martinson says most of the project has been completed with local labor.
“The idea is to help people realize that this is a renovation not only of your exterior but your interior,” he says. “That their street is beautiful should help them feel pride about themselves. I always say, you are your house.”
Martinson’s plans for the village don’t end here. His next goal is to create a loop through the village for tourists to stroll around instead of going straight to the attractions. Then villagers can make some extra income by setting up stands outside their homes.
Jesuit priests can request to be transferred, and Martinson has thought of leaving many times, but each time, he’s decided against it.
“It’s my faith,” he says. “I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but we believe that when our superior sends us somewhere, it’s where God wants us to be. Then it’s the people ... and third, the nature.”
EXHIBITION NOTES
What: Love in the Movies Stained Glass Paintings
When: Tomorrow to Dec. 11
Where: Gallery 101 (in Taipei 101), 7, Sec 5, Xinyi Rd, Taipei City (台北市信義路5段7號)
Details: Auction on Dec. 11
On the Net: www.facebook.com/丁松青神父愛的容顏-1449027295406227/
Taiwanese chip-making giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) plans to invest a whopping US$100 billion in the US, after US President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on overseas-made chips. TSMC is the world’s biggest maker of the critical technology that has become the lifeblood of the global economy. This week’s announcement takes the total amount TSMC has pledged to invest in the US to US$165 billion, which the company says is the “largest single foreign direct investment in US history.” It follows Trump’s accusations that Taiwan stole the US chip industry and his threats to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent
From censoring “poisonous books” to banning “poisonous languages,” the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) tried hard to stamp out anything that might conflict with its agenda during its almost 40 years of martial law. To mark 228 Peace Memorial Day, which commemorates the anti-government uprising in 1947, which was violently suppressed, I visited two exhibitions detailing censorship in Taiwan: “Silenced Pages” (禁書時代) at the National 228 Memorial Museum and “Mandarin Monopoly?!” (請說國語) at the National Human Rights Museum. In both cases, the authorities framed their targets as “evils that would threaten social mores, national stability and their anti-communist cause, justifying their actions
In the run-up to World War II, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of Abwehr, Nazi Germany’s military intelligence service, began to fear that Hitler would launch a war Germany could not win. Deeply disappointed by the sell-out of the Munich Agreement in 1938, Canaris conducted several clandestine operations that were aimed at getting the UK to wake up, invest in defense and actively support the nations Hitler planned to invade. For example, the “Dutch war scare” of January 1939 saw fake intelligence leaked to the British that suggested that Germany was planning to invade the Netherlands in February and acquire airfields
The launch of DeepSeek-R1 AI by Hangzhou-based High-Flyer and subsequent impact reveals a lot about the state of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today, both good and bad. It touches on the state of Chinese technology, innovation, intellectual property theft, sanctions busting smuggling, propaganda, geopolitics and as with everything in China, the power politics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). PLEASING XI JINPING DeepSeek’s creation is almost certainly no accident. In 2015 CCP Secretary General Xi Jinping (習近平) launched his Made in China 2025 program intended to move China away from low-end manufacturing into an innovative technological powerhouse, with Artificial Intelligence
RSS