Davis Enterprise - Your Local News 7/8/09 4:01 PM

Art take us to a far-flung land

By Diane Chin Lui | Enterprise art critic | July 08, 2009 07:21 Burma or ?

Which is the official name of the Southeast Asian country?

While talking with Davis resident Max Harrington, co-founder of the Myanmar Children's Foundation, he used the two names interchangeably. But when asked which was correct, he explained that 'Burma' was used until 1989, when the government changed the country's name to 'Myanmar.'

Despite this, Harrington admitted that both 'Aung Pan Market (Maria),' by Maung Maung names still are used. Myanmar refers to the Thint 'Sane' (Max Harrington/Courtesy photo) country as a whole. 'Burma' or 'Burmese' describes a majority ethnic group within Myanmar.

Three years ago, having just graduated from UC San Diego, Harrington started teaching English in Myanmar. While working at the Prahida Orphanage Education Monastery, he learned about a building project to replace leaky huts that served as classrooms for the orphans.

Unfortunately, the monastery needed additional funds to complete the project. After the school semester ended, Harrington returned to Davis and raised enough money to help finish the construction.

Harrington subsequently co-founded the nonprofit Myanmar Children's Foundation with his mother, Susan Steinberg, and Rita Montes-Martin. In two short years, the foundation, based in Davis has grown to 350 members nationally and internationally. The foundation's mission provides charitable and educational assistance to Myanmar's under-served, orphaned and low-income children.

To help raise funds for ongoing and future projects, the foundation has mounted an exhibit at Davis' International House. The exhibit, curated by Steinberg, opens Friday and continues through Aug. 11. Visitors will find watercolor paintings by Burmese artists, photographs by Harrington and small tapestries by Vietnamese artists.

The artworks are available for purchase, at prices ranging from $50 to $400. Purchased pieces may be collected when the exhibit concludes.

Steinberg began organizing and preparing the exhibition last November. The artwork fills her

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house.

The paintings offer a glimpse of daily life of these people and their country. In a realistic style, the watercolors present vivid and colorful views of Burmese life at marketplaces, monasteries, farms and waterways. Other paintings are expansive landscapes that show a country filled with temples and vast, green fields and hills.

Harrington's color photographs provide more views of life in Myanmar. In one photo essay, we see children dressed in beautiful, ornate costumes and wearing gold crowns, as they participate in an initiation ceremony as novice monks. In another photograph, after completing the rites, the children have the shaven heads and plain red robes of monkhood.

Other photographs show the country's holy Buddhist sites. We see images of the famous , the Mingon Temple, the more than 1,000 temple ruins of , and the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda.

Never heard of the Kyaiktiyo? It's a rock that appears to be precariously balanced over a precipice, and it's also an important Buddhist site in Myanmar. Legend claims that a hair of the Buddha holds the rock in place, and prevents it from rolling away.

Although these varied works suggest a serene and beautiful country, Harrington acknowledges that strife and political tensions exist in Myanmar. Anti-government protests and the house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi have gained world-wide attention and concern.

Harrington nonetheless continues his work with the foundation, and he has established an office in Myanmar. The organization has enough support and leadership that he feels comfortable returning to the United States, to apply for graduate studies.

The funds raised at this exhibition will help construct a school in rural Myanmar: the fourth one built by the foundation, which focuses on the repair and building of schools. The foundation also has helped more than 250 children attend school, and has subsidized 10 teachers' salaries.

For additional information, visit http://www.myanmarchildrensfoundation.org/.

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Myanmar Children's Foundation Exhibition

July 10-Aug. 11

International House

10 College Park, Davis; (530) 753-5007

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