Many say festival helps erase images of cross burnings Section


Excerpts: Under a canopy in a makeshift market outside Brightleaf Square, two artists and Durham natives talked about the necessity of celebrating other cultures' food and art. The exchange was a typical one at Saturday's Taste of Durham festival, which brought crowds to downtown for entertainment and shopping, along with a sampling of fare from several area eateries.

"We live in a multicultural society, we need to know about everybody," said Marjorie Freeman, who moved to Durham in 1992 and sold her handmade note cards, pins and handbags under the St. Joseph Historical Foundation tent.

Candace Thomas of Candace Thomas Designs in Durham said her art is "a reflection of her environment," but that, just as she could see herself in other people's art, she hoped they could see themselves in hers. "All cultures have stopped by, purchased things, talked," she said. "It's so important to exchange ideas."

In a festival setting that spanned Brightleaf Square, Peabody Place and surrounding restaurants, children flitted from booth to booth where they could make flags, musical instruments and costumes Š.play music in a community rhythm circle; learn about Mexican culture and help to make a piñata with anthropologist Hannah Gill; or learn about making art with vegetables at the booth of the new Nasher Museum of Art at Duke.

Adults and children alike enjoyed the real centerpiece of the day: food. "My favorite thing was the potato thing," announced 7-year-old Jena Hays, whose mother, father and two brothers drove down from Virginia to stay with family and attend Taste of Durham. Her brother, Steven Hays, 10, enjoyed fried oranges the most, and Peter Hays, 14, enjoyed the different kind of ambiance of Durham. "It's not too big, not too small. Lots of diversity, lots of mixed cultures. ... I like that." he said.

Savery and her friends, Charlotte Valentine, Clare Walker and Alisha Wolf, all 2005 graduates of the Durham School of the Arts, acted as the living centerpiece of the wine-tasting tent, stomping grapes in giant, vine-surrounded metal tubs. "I think it's good that everybody's getting out," said Wolf, glancing down at the green and purple mess under her bare feet, "There's just so much art out here."

Eric Wilson, an artist and collector of African and African-American art, drove up from Charlotte to attend the festival. ŠWilson said he heard about the week's cross burnings on talk radio. "Idiots do stuff like that, but people's hearts are on display here," Wilson said. "They can burn a cross and burn that image into our minds, but this is erasing all that and burning a whole new picture."

Copyright, 2005, The Durham Herald Company URL for this full story at www.heraldsun.com/archives