Artist Mario Uribe plans ‘Circle for Peace' performance

Mario Uribe and friends will create a painting during an unrehearsed half-hour performance at the sixth annual Matsuri Japanese Arts Festival on May 2 in Juilliard Park.|
DAN TAYLOR
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Santa Rosa artist Mario Uribe plans a half-hour performance titled “Circle for Peace” May 2 at Juilliard Park, as part of his sixth annual Matsuri Japanese Arts Festival.

Starting at 11:30 a.m., Uribe and friends will present an unrehearsed performance on a wooden platform that will feature an 11-foot-by-12-foot canvas. The program will begin with a purification ritual and end with Uribe painting a large Zen circle.

Uribe will collaborate on the program with the Imaginists Theatre Collective, the Peace & Justice Center, Veterans for Peace, Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, with musical accompaniment by Sonoma County Taiko, Riley Lee and others, plus shakuhachi (Japanese flute) music by Elliot Kallen.

In a prepared statement, Uribe said his objective with “Circle for Peace” is “to create an interactive communal act of healing as a counterpoint for the hatred, violence, prejudice and cruelty with which we are accosted in our everyday world.”

Uribe is best known for designing the war veterans memorial at City Hall and a 13-foot-tall statue of a rainbow trout at the Santa Rosa Avenue gateway to the Prince Memorial Greenway.

He also works in other media, including paper and fabric, often using calligraphy and brushwork to create artwork with a circle theme.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. Read his Arts blog at arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.

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