Author: Nargizian David

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
March 24 2004

THE LANGUAGE OF LEARNING
Key to English success: parents

Not all parents agree with the English Language Development program,
and some take their children out of it. Officials say that’s not the
best decision for the child.

By Gary Moskowitz, News-Press

GLENDALE – Olga Sargsyan removed her son, Naenarek, from an English
Language Development program recently, saying she saw no progress in
his reading skills after several months in the program.

The Glendale Unified School District’s English Language Development
program is designed to help students whose primary language is not
English meet state proficiency standards in reading, writing and
speaking the English language.

Under state law, the district must provide the program. Parents can
remove their child from it at any time.

Sargsyan’s son was born in the United States, and speaks and writes
English, but his reading skills needed improvement, Sargsyan said.

After a few months in the English program, Sargsyan was unhappy
because she saw no improvement in Naenarek’s reading skills. She was
also unhappy with district officials, who she felt did not answer all
of her questions and did not adequately explain aspects of the
program.

Since pulling her son from the program this fall, Sargsyan spends
about three hours a day reading and writing English with him, and she
thinks his work has improved.

Her dissatisfaction with the district’s English language program
prompted Sargsyan to keep her daughter, Anni, out of the program
altogether. She recently told school site officials that her daughter
speaks only English, even though all family members at home speak
Armenian.

“I can tell you [the program] was awful for my son,” Sargsyan said.
“I know if I put my daughter in ELD, it will be a problem for me
again and again. This might be a good program for kids who don’t know
any [English] words, but for kids who were born here, they learn
fast. I pulled him out, but I work with him every day, and he is now
in very good condition. His reading skills have improved.”

Mary Mason, principal at Keppel Elementary School and a former ELD
teacher, said that specific information on students’ academic
performance is confidential, so she could not discuss Naenarek’s
progress.

Mason did say teachers are able to make general academic assessments
about students who are removed from the ELD program early.

“It wouldn’t be unusual for a child like him to see his grades drop
after being removed from the program,” Mason said. “Since you have
dropped those ELD standards, the child is now seen as an English-only
child, and will not be given the extra support and time to learn
English and learn grade-level curriculum. The ELD students go through
a different grading process that actually separates their ELD grades
from the standard grades, which helps us and the parents see their
progress more clearly.

“I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be bombarded with a
new language all day. It takes a lot of mental energy for the student
to keep up.

“We know parents care about their children, and sometimes schools can
be an imposing place, with all of our acronyms and our procedures,”
Mason continued. “But parents are free to come in and talk to us
about their child’s progress. That’s what we’re here for. This is
their child, and we want them to know what’s going on and how we can
support their children.

“They have done research into the sink-or-swim method, where you get
thrown in and you either make it or you don’t,” Mason added.
“Research shows that ELD learning helps them access the curriculum as
it’s coming at them. They have found that kids with ELD support
performed better rather than with no support.”

‘WE RELY ON PARENTS TO TELL THE TRUTH’

The district’s Intercultural Education Department operates the
English Language Development program at district headquarters.

Immigrant parents who want to enroll their children at a Glendale
school are first asked to set up an appointment at the Welcome
Center, where students’ English speaking, writing and reading skills
are assessed through state-mandated testing.

Officials ask all students and parents a series of questions about
languages, including: “Which language did your son or daughter learn
when he or she first began to talk?” “What language does your son or
daughter most frequently use at home?” “What language do you use most
frequently to speak to your son or daughter?” and “Name the language
most often spoken by adults at home.”

Based on the answers to those questions and the results of student
language tests, the results are explained to parents, and students
are placed in the appropriate English language classes, officials
said.

Students who remain in the English Language Development program must
eventually pass a state standardized test to be moved out of the
program and into standard English classes.

Parents like Sargsyan are not uncommon at district schools, but they
are the minority, said Joanna Junge, coordinator of the English
Language Development program and the district’s Welcome Center.

The Welcome Center serves English language learners through testing
and translation services, and also provides a counseling program for
refugees and families seeking asylum.

“We have to rely on parents to tell the truth when they fill out
surveys about their children,” Junge said. “If we don’t have accurate
information, we’re not focusing in on the right needs, and you’re
risking making things miserable for the child and the teacher.”

Some parents and students attach a stigma to the English Language
Development program, saying they feel like it’s a “label” they would
prefer to avoid, said Alice Petrossian, GUSD’s assistant
superintendent for educational services.

“Sometimes kids feel like they’re wearing a scarlet letter, but they
are getting information that is critical to their learning,”
Petrossian said. “They need to be fluent in English to succeed at all
other levels. And, if their primary language skills are lacking, they
will have additional problems with learning English and other
subjects like math.”

PARENTS CAN OVERSEE THE PROCESS

Local parents have the opportunity to attend regular meetings of each
school’s English Learner Advisory Committee and of the District
English Learner Advisory Committee.

District officials, administrators, educators and parents who
participate in the committees meet throughout the year to discuss
ways to improve the program and evaluate the district’s master plan
for providing education services to the immigrant student population.

The school site committees meet about four times each year, and the
district committee meets monthly at district headquarters. All
meetings are open to the public.

Valentine Oanessian, the district committee’s chairwoman,
Parent-Teacher Assn. president at Marshall Elementary School and a
member of Marshall’s school site council, was born in Iran and moved
to the United States in 1979. She speaks Armenian, English, Italian,
Persian and some Spanish. Her 8-year-old daughter, Athena, has been
enrolled in the English Language Development program at Marshall
Elementary School for two years.

“I have seen improvement with my daughter, and her English is quite
good,” Oanessian said. “I think her writing has improved the most.
She started writing poems a few weeks ago, and I was amazed. Now, she
wants to talk only in English, which is great, but I don’t want her
to lose her Armenian completely. Now she’s more fluent in English
than Armenian.”

Parent involvement with English learner students is crucial to
students’ success, Oanessian said.

“I think when it comes to parents, the best thing they can do is
first get the knowledge about the [ELD] program first, from the
roots, and then ask questions,” Oanessian said. “Mainly, I have
always said if you want your child to be successful, you have to be
there working with them. I want to know what my child is learning, so
I can help her more, and also teach other parents whose English
language is their barrier.

“We have to make sure we make it easy for them. If every parent tried
to show up, we would all learn so many things.”

Posted by Caucasus Links
41, Barnov Street,
Tbilisi

contact person Lasha Darsalia
[email protected]; tel +995 32 292399

The British non governmental organisation LINKS has called on politicians in
both Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop using “megaphone diplomacy” and to
engage more actively in a dialogue to resolve the Karabakh problem. The call
was made in a live interview on Armenian private TV Channel Kentron with
LINKS Executive Director Dennis Sammut.

The following is the full transcript of the interview

Live Interview on ‘Urvagits’ programme on Kentron Television, Armenia
with Dennis Sammut, Executive Director of LINKS
Thursday 18th March 2004, 21.30

Q. Mr Sammut, one of the objectives of your organisation is to contribute
to the settlement of the Karabakh issue. A range of international
organisations including the Minsk Group of the OSCE has not achieved any
considerable successes. What are you relying on in your mission?

DS : Well I would like to say first of all that we are not trying to replace
the work the Minsk Group is doing. The Minsk Group is the framework the
international community has chosen to try to settle the Karabakh conflict.
The Minsk Group is a framework of states within the framework of the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. What LINKS is doing,
and in this we are also working with other non governmental organisations,
is to try and support the work of the Minsk Group by opening up the debate
with wider society.
Because we don’t represent governments we have a little bit more flexibility
in what we say and we can be a little more outspoken in with what we say.
Perhaps the language we use is a little more understandable by the people in
general as well.

Q. As I understand one of the objectives of your organisation is to expand
dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

DS : Well it is, but let me explain. There is a process that has been going
on for some years now of negotiations between the two presidents, assisted
sometimes by other officials. This process has not succeeded yet. There
have been some occasions were some progress was registered but somehow we go
back to square one because society in both countries is not ready to
understand or accept what is being proposed.
We think that the process must be opened up in a way that what the
presidents are discussing and are doing has to be underpinned by a wider
debate, first of all amongst the political community in both countries, and
secondly amongst the wider public in both countries. We feel it is
important that the quality of the discussion is improved. When people don’t
know what to say they usually just go for slogans because they are on safe
ground.

Q. Mr Sammut, do you mean political forces in both Armenia and Azerbaijan
when you are speaking about slogans?

DS : Political forces in both Armenia and Azerbaijan use slogans, quite a
lot of slogans. What we have in this situation, most of the time but not
always, is what I call megaphone diplomacy. So we don’t really have
diplomacy of negotiations or diplomacy of trying to actually work out
solutions to the problem. We have people shouting slogans from across the
frontier from one country to another. This is not helpful because by the
time the message reaches the other side, it gets distorted and it gets
misunderstood. I have seen this happen so many times, on so many issues and
I have appealed to my friends here and to my friends in Baku to ‘calm down’
and don’t use this method because it is not useful for you, for your
countries or for anybody.

Q. If I am not mistaken you were recently in Baku, is that so?

DS : Yes that is right.

Q. Mr Sammut, you said that there needs to be positive progress in the
dialogue between the two parties. However the recent murder of the Armenian
officer in Hungary and afterwards the stance of officials in Baku and also
the statements on behalf of the Ombudsman of Baku, do not inspire much
confidence in a process of dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Being
in Baku, did you see the forces did you see the parties that are really
striving for positive development of the dialogue between the two parties?

DS : I was in Baku before the tragic events in Budapest, but I can quite
understand what happened there, as I can quite understand what happened
here. But let me state first of all what impressions I got, and this was
before Budapest. There is increasing debate in Azerbaijan about the
Karabakh problem. The amount of time being spent talking about this issues
is much more than it was last year or the year before. And of course there
are different trends. There is one trend that is saying ‘we must engage in
a serious discussion, we must engage in a proper dialogue with the Armenian
side to try to resolve this problem’, and there is another trend saying that
‘this is our national humiliation and we have to somehow solve it and we
will have to use all methods to solve it’.

Q. Which trend is the dominant trend in Baku?

DS : Well it is difficult to say because as with everything else and as with
every other country, sometimes it is one trend that is more dominant, and
sometimes it is the other. I spent time speaking to both of these groups of
people because I think it is very important that we talk to both. And these
two kinds of stereotypes also exist in Armenia by the way, and this is not a
unique feature of Azerbaijan. We talk with both trends, both here and
there. What happened in Budapest was a shock. It was a shock for you here.
And frankly speaking, regardless of what we hear, it was a shock for people
in Baku as well: they were not expecting this to happen. And is was
certainly a shock for people like myself and other people in the
international community that have been engaged in this process of dialogue
because obviously we understood immediately that an incident like that, a
tragedy like that, will have implications. And there is always a
spontaneous reaction when something happens that people are not prepared
for. The spontaneous reaction is the kind of reaction where people have not
thought about the consequences and so a lot of things are said that are not
sensible. Afterwards, when the people realise what they have said they
realise that they should not have been so emotional and so impulsive in what
they were saying. I think from this tragedy, from the loss of the life of
this young Armenian, frankly speaking two lives were lost because this young
Azeri is now going to spend most of his time in a jail if he is convicted of
this murder. So from this tragic situation two lives were lost, one is dead
and one will have to pay for his crime. From this tragedy we must draw
conclusions, we must draw lessons and we must be more determined. And when
I say ‘we’, and since I am now engaged in this process I feel it is our
responsibility also. So ‘we’, being the Armenians and the Azeris and the
international community, must make a bigger effort to move the process
forward.

Q. Mr Sammut, you said that there needs to be progress in the dialogue
inside Armenia. Let me remind you that some twenty days ago, the president
of Armenia said during a meeting with students that Armenia will not concede
Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Plus the representatives of culture, literature and
arts applied to the president to state that they will not concede Karabakh
to Azerbaijan and that it should be made more firmly part of Armenia. Also
in this regard there is no discrepancy of ideas between the opposition and
the authorities of Armenia. So they are supporting the idea that we should
not concede Karabakh. In light of these circumstances can you see the
development of the dialogue in Armenia?

DS : Well I would never talk in terms of ‘conceding’, this is not the
language I prefer to use. We have a situation, a situation which is not
really acceptable to anybody because people are suffering on all sides in
different ways. From this situation we must move forward to find a
solution, a solution that would be a peaceful solution, and a solution that
would be achieved not in fifty years time but in a manageable short period
of time. But also a solution that has to have wide support amongst all the
interested parties: amongst Armenians and Azerbaijanis, amongst the people
of Karabakh who are in Karabakh and who are Armenians and people of Karabakh
who had to leave Karabakh because they were Azerbaijani. There has to be
consensus because an imposed solution will not work. Now, is this easy? Of
course it is not easy. Is it impossible? Of course it is not impossible.

Q. Why?

DS : Well it is possible because it is a problem that has defined parameters
and those defined parameters can somehow be altered in a way that would
become acceptable to everybody. It will take time, and it will take
concessions on everybody’s side. Nobody will be able to say ‘I have won all
the arguments and I have won all the issues that I am interested in’. It
has to be based on concessions and it has to be based on a vision for the
future and not a vision of the past. The past we have to look at and learn
lessons from, but we must not be slaves of the past.
I want to take up your point regarding Armenian political forces and how
they look at Karabakh. I know that the National Assembly in 2001 adopted a
resolution on the Karabakh issue. Recently they revisited it. They did not
change it, they simply restated it. I would have preferred that political
forces should have engaged in a new discussion because three years have
passed, things have changed. Many changes are taking place in the world and
in the region and we need to be sure that what is being said still applies
to the situation today.

Q. But not for our political forces, because they restate their position,
that is there will be no concessions.

DS : My suggestion is that there should not be a position so fixed that it
can never be changed. This is not how politics is done. Now, it is
important and positive in my view that there is a consensus in Armenia on
these issues. It is better than if people have completely different
positions and one is never sure where they are. But I would like to suggest
that we turn this argument a bit up side down. Instead of going for the
most radical position and say ‘OK, let this be the least common denominator’
, lets go for the most moderate position and say ‘let this be the least
common denominator’. It is impossible for the political forces to tie the
hands of the government and the president on this issue in a way that
negotiations become futile. If there is no space for negotiations, why go
and discuss if there is no scope? And I want to emphasise that I am not the
kind of person who says ‘these are people with radical views we don’t
respect them, we don’t dialogue with them’. That is not the approach at
all. People with radical views have radical views because they believe in
them very strongly. We have to understand why they believe in them and we
have to persuade them that there are perhaps alternative ways of approaching
a subject.

Q. Mr Sammut you said we have to change the parameters of the Karabakh
conflict. This is a very interesting idea. What do you understand by this?
Can you open the brackets?

DS : Well I will open them a little bit. I think the Karabakh issue has
different dimensions to it. It is not a single issue. It is an issue that
has different elements to it. If the debate was only on a piece of land and
perhaps the natural resources that exist on that piece of land then one type
of solution can be envisaged. There are many examples in the world of
disputes between countries over pieces of land, territory, continental
shelves in the sea, islands and other such situations where people have
interests because of either natural resources, or strategic interests or
whatever. If Karabakh was only in this context, it would be an easily
solvable problem.

Q. In which context is it now?

DS : Well, not only now. We have a different situation because the issue of
Karabakh is a territorial issue; it is an issue that is connected with the
population that lives in Karabakh, and that used to live in Karabakh. It is
connected with the issue of how sustainable Karabakh itself is if one only
looks at it in the agreed territory or border that is recognised as being
Karabakh. Is it sustainable without other territories that are attached to
it? I mean it is a different layered subject; it is not simply one issue.
This is what makes it much more complicated.

Q. I know that during your stay in Armenia you have dealt with our
politicians, media and other representatives of society. Can you summarize
whether you think we are ready for peace? Does Armenia want peace?

DS : Does Armenia want peace? I think yes, Armenia wants peace. There is
perhaps a little bit of fear of peace and there is a confusion in the minds
of people between peace and defeatism. Peace is not defeatism. From a good
peace, everybody will win and everybody can celebrate victory, but only if
it is a good peace. I think that society is somehow tied down to a number
of positions that were perhaps useful in some period but are becoming less
and less useful these days when the world is changing so fast, and when the
South Caucasus is changing so fast. I remain optimistic.

EU envoy calls on Azerbaijan, Armenia to step up Karabakh settlement effort

ANS TV, Baku
22 Mar 04

The EU envoy to the South Caucasus, Heikki Talvitie, has called on
Azerbaijan and Armenia to step up efforts to resolve the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict. In an interview with Azerbaijani ANS TV’s “Point of
View” programme, Talvitie described as “a real achievement” the
cease-fire of the past 10 years and said that the parties to the
conflict should do more. “There has been no fighting for 10 years, why
cannot we do better,” he said. The following is an excerpt from the
report by Azerbaijani TV station ANS on 22 March; subheadings inserted
editorially:

[Presenter] Good evening. This is “Point of View”. Our guest today is
the EU envoy to the South Caucasus, Mr Heikki Talvitie.

[Passage omitted: Talvitie on meetings with Azerbaijani officials,
visits in Azerbaijan]

EU assists Karabakh mediators

Mr Talvitie, when you were appointed envoy to the South Caucasus, you
said that the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict would be
the major direction in your activities. What are the main principles
of a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict accepted by the EU?

[Heikki Talvitie, in English] I was a cochairman of the [OSCE] Minsk
Group in 1995-96. So, I know the problem. To be quite frank with you
and your people, it is between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and nobody can
impose a resolution on you. You have to settle this problem. The
international community can only help and facilitate, and that is
basically what the Minsk Group has been doing. The EU supports your
presidents and the cochairmen of the Minsk Group in their
endeavours. I have a special mandate to facilitate these processes and
to assist them and that is what I am doing.

[Passage omitted: Talvitie on Ajaria crisis]

[Presenter] Is the EU putting forward any specific proposals? In
general, what is a mechanism for building confidence? Does this imply
putting forward proposals or just talking?

[Talvitie] Well, it is the Minsk Group and not the EU which is
responsible for the negotiations. There is actually France, which is
one of the cochairmen of the Minsk Group, but also belongs to the
EU. We are aware of the importance of regional cooperation once it
starts in earnest in the South Caucasus. So, be sure that it is in the
EU’s interests to try to help this as much as possible. It very
important to the South Caucasus that the [conflicts] in South Ossetia,
Abkhazia and Ajaria are solved in a peaceful manner. The whole region
will benefit from the resolution of the Nagornyy Karabakh issue.

[Passage omitted: Talvitie may visit Karabakh]

[Presenter] Does the EU believe that Armenia has occupied Azerbaijani
lands? How do you, in general, call the area controlled by the
Armenian army?

[Talvitie] There is such definition – occupied territories – and you
know that, Nagornyy Karabakh and occupied territories.

[Passage omitted: package and step-by-step settlements for Karabakh]

Karabakh conflict not frozen

[Presenter] As a former cochairman of the Minsk Group, you are the
best expert. There is an idea that the Minsk Group was put in charge
of the settlement in order to simply freeze the process.

[Talvitie, laughs] You know, this is a very simplified answer. Because
we speak about frozen conflicts. And Nagornyy Karabakh is one of such
frozen conflicts. But it has nothing to do with the Minsk
Group. Basically, when a cease-fire was achieved, that was a real
achievement. When both parties could actually agree on a cease-fire,
why cannot they go any further? Now it seems that the cease-fire has
frozen the whole situation, and we cannot really solve the
problem. There has been no fighting for 10 years, why cannot we do
better?

But the international community has every interest in solving this
problem. There is no reason to doubt this.

[Passage omitted: on EU-US relations]

EU guarantees religious freedom

[Presenter] The EU is often said to be a Christian club. How important
is the religious factor in the EU’s policies and could the religious
factor affect the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict settlement? Incidentally,
Armenia has always been trying to stress the religious factor in its
pro-European policy.

[Talvitie] Well, the European Union is not a religious institution.
Relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are not based on religious
beliefs. They are based on mutual political, social and cultural
interests.

[Presenter] How democratic is the decision by an EU country to ban
Muslim women from covering their heads? Is this a sign of Islamophobia
in Europe?

[Talvitie] Well, after the 11 September events, there has been a
tendency towards curbing terrorism in a way that you label different
groups. But this is not what the EU is doing. I mean, we certainly do
not want to label any religious or any other group. Terrorists are
terrorists, and that is that. Religion has nothing to do with that.

[Passage omitted: Talvitie reiterates the point and presenter’s
concluding remarks]

EU envoy, Armenian MPs discuss constitutional reforms, ties

Mediamax news agency
23 Mar 04

YEREVAN

The special representative of the EU for the South Caucasus, Heikki
Talvitie, held meetings in the Armenian National Assembly today.

Talvitie said that the meetings in parliament paid special attention
to constitutional reforms and changes to several key laws, Mediamax
news agency’s parliamentary correspondent has reported.

In addition, Talvitie discussed with Armenian MPs the prospects for
engaging the South Caucasus countries in the programme “Expanded
Europe: New Neighbours”. Talvitie said that the European commission
will take its final decision in this regard in May-June 2004.

EU envoy meets Armenian foreign minister

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
23 Mar 04

The special representative of the EU for the South Caucasus, Heikki
Talvitie is holding negotiations with the Armenian leadership. The
Finnish envoy met Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan two hours
ago. According to official sources, they discussed the current
situation and prospects for the settlement of the Karabakh
problem. The EU has recently stepped up its activities aimed at
solving the conflict.

The organization is trying to help the OSCE Minsk Group mediators
speed up the settlement process.

The sides also discussed the “Wide Europe: New neighbours” programme.

Three civilians die in mine explosion in Karabakh

Arminfo, Yerevan
19 Mar 04

STEPANAKERT

The British nongovernment organization Halo Trust, which is engaged in
mine clearing in Nagornyy Karabakh, has appealed to the population to
be vigilant, pay attention to signs warning about mines and not to use
roads which are not believed to be safe.

An Arminfo correspondent reports from Stepanakert that the appeal was
made after a civilian Uaz jeep was blown up on an anti-tank mine near
the village of Nor Karmiravan in Mardakert District on 14 March. Three
people died and six received wounds of varying degree of seriousness
as a result of the explosion.

In all, there have been five incidents involving 17 people since the
beginning of 2004, of these seven died.

Passage omitted: figures for 2003

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
March 19 2004

LOANING SHOULD BE TRANSPARENT

About sixty questions were included in the agenda of the March 16
meeting of the NKR government, conducted by prime minister Anoushavan
Danielian. On February 16, 2004 the NKR president had signed a decree
about the enactment of the law `About Civil Service’. Starting from
the requirements of the enactment of the law there occurred a
necessity to work out the salary and budget mechanism and the
activity of the staff of the NKR state governmental bodies,
ministries (state committees), regional administrations and the
Stepanakert City Hall. After long discussions on the questions
referring the enactment of the law the government made corresponding
decisions. The government approved the project of foundation of the
state governmental office `NKR administration of finance and
economy’, confirming the regulations of the NKR Ministry of Finance
and Economy and the structure of the administration, and
reorganization of the local treasury departments. The government
session confirmed the regulations and staff structure of the state
governmental offices `administration of the NKR Ministry of
Agriculture’, `administration of the NKR Ministry of Social
Security’, `administration of the NKR Ministry of Health’,
`administration of the NKR Ministry of Justice’, `administration of
the NKR state committee of real estate cadastre’. The same decisions
confirmed the amount of the property passed to these structures.
According to the law in effect the administrations of the ministries
operate according to the NKR civil code, the NKR law `About State
Governmental Bodies’, other laws and legal acts (international
agreements), as well as the regulations. The head of the
administration is appointed and relieved from the post by the
government of the republic. Taking into account the fact that the
demand of producers for oak timber surpasses the possibilities of the
natural resources, the government made a decision to prohibit the
export of oak timber from the republic. The executive also confirmed
the pure average cadastre income from farming land in NKR,
privatization of the state property, the arrangement of the Military
Police of the RA Ministry of Defence to provide buildings to the
Military Police of Stepanakert. Aiming at further implementation of
programs for improvement of the tax system the State Tax Department
under the government presented a package of bills and draft
decisions. The members of the government approved the project of
introducing changes into the NKR laws `About Added Value’ and `About
Tax Service’ and the bill `About Cash Transactions’. In the social
sphere the NKR Minister of Social Security presented the project of
making amendments to the law `About the Social Security of the
Military Men and Their Families’, as well as introducing the system
of social security cards in NKR and forming committees on insurance
record. Among other urgent questions the Ministry of Health presented
the project of state-guaranteed free medical aid and service. The
government made decisions concerning the bill `About Military
Service’, the structure of the NKR Police and questions of
maintaining the maximum number of officials and deputies, the lower
and higher titles for the concrete police posts, the order of
granting permission for the use of land-surveying and geodesic
material and data of state and service secrecy, reorganization of the
`NKR theaters’ and `NKR ensembles’ into state non-commercial
organizations. Changes were made in the formerly passed decisions of
the executive. At the end of the session prime minister Anoushavan
Danielian touched upon the activities of the foundation for
development of small and medium-size business and mentioned that the
government anticipates effective undertakings by the organization.
Unfortunately, the activities of the foundation do not always meet
the modern requirements, and as a result the complaining letters
addressed to the government. There are also alarms that the loans
granted by the foundation are not used for their aim. Taking into
account these circumstances, the prime minister demanded a
corresponding account on the activities of the foundation from the
Ministry of Industrial Infrastructures and Building. `The society
must be aware of who receives aid from the foundation and for what
aims it is used. Whether the loaned programs are effective, whether
there is progress, whether investments are made in industry, and the
requirements of the deals are met. The process of loaning should be
transparent, for the mass media first of all. This possibility is
fully given to the mass media and the society will be informed who
receives the loans of the foundation and how these are used.’

aa

Le Figaro, France
19 Mars 2004

Au Musée des arts de la mode et du textile à Paris, 173 robes mettent
en scène la plus célèbre couturière des années 30

HISTOIRE
Elsa Schiaparelli inventa la couture spectacle

En accueillant Elsa Schiaparelli, le Musée de la mode et du textile
ne lui a pas offert un de ces catafalques devant lesquels on
s’incline en parlant bas. L’exposition est une course aux trésors à
travers 250 vêtements, accessoires, dessins, photos dont 173 robes
créées de 1927 à 1954 qui témoignent, dans une mise en scène de
Jacques Grange, d’une créativité aussi fastueuse qu’insolente.
Janie Samet
[18 mars 2004]

Elsa Schiaparelli. Un nom qui, dans les années 30, retentira comme un
coup de cymbales à vous réveiller la mode. Amortie par Poiret,
assagie par Chanel, vouée au beige et noir avant qu’elle, l’Italienne
tumultueuse, ne débarque à Paris avec son rose shocking et ses
mariages d’orange et jaune. Schiaparelli. Un nom trop long dont elle
fera son prénom en l’abrégeant de moitié pour qu’il claque comme un
coup de fouet. «Appelez-moi Schiap», disait-elle. A ses amis –
Cocteau, Bérard, Dali, Dufy, Leonor Fini -, qui trouvèrent normal de
faire de leur art sa valeur ajoutée aux robes. Aux artisans, dont
elle pliera la créativité à la sienne : le brodeur Lesage, le bottier
Perugia, le joaillier Jean Schlumberger, qui oubliait les diamants
pour lui ciseler des bijoux de pacotille et des boutons pour rire, le
parurier Jean Clément, qui, en 1936, mettra au point avec elle son
fameux rose shocking, le soyeux Paul Colcombet avec qui elle
inventera l’imprimé «coupures de presse». A ses clientes aussi, et
quelles clientes ! Wallis Simpson, Helena Rubinstein, Joan Crawford,
Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Arletty, qui eussent été mortifiées à
l’idée de rater leur entrée dans un salon en n’aimantant pas tous les
regards sur leurs robes.

La femme Schiap ? Insolente, tape-à-l’oeil, libérée, dont la
personnalité est assez forte pour s’autoriser toutes les
extravagances. Comme la duchesse de Windsor, qui commandera pour son
trousseau de mariage dix-sept modèles, dont une robe au homard géant
dessiné par Salvador Dali. «Terriblement errro tique», commentera le
maître en roulant les «r».

Elsa naquit en 1890 à Rome, au palais Corsini, dans une famille
d’aristocrates intellos. Son père était un spécialiste des langues
orientales, son oncle astronome. Sa curiosité pour l’art fut intense.
Alors pourquoi la mode ?

Elle avait tout contre elle, Elsa Schiaparelli pour entrer en couture
à Paris. Elle ne savait ni coudre, ni manier des ciseaux, encore
moins draper une robe sur un corps comme le faisait Madeleine
Vionnet. Ses armes : de l’humour, des idées, le mépris des
conventions et cette autorité qui mettait tout le monde au
garde-à-vous devant elle. Dont son état-major : Dali, Cocteau,
Bérard, Giacometti. Leur folie était sa folie. Leur surréalisme
devint son réalisme.

En 1937, Cocteau créera pour son défilé un tailleur bleu brodé d’une
chevelure pailletée d’or qui s’enroulait autour de la manche. L’art
et la mode à fleur de peau déclenchaient la passion des
collectionneuses et nourrissaient tous les snobismes. En 1947, Hubert
de Givenchy débuta chez Schiap où il avait en charge sa boutique. Il
avait 20 ans. On ne devient pas grand à l’ombre d’un grand chêne mais
on apprend. Sévère apprentissage, Elsa n’était pas une tendre. Mais
ses inventions enchantaient le jeune homme comme «ses trouvailles
avaient fait les délices d’un cénacle de clientes triées sur le
volet. Tailleurs rose shocking à boutons cadenas, collier cachets
d’aspirine imaginés par Aragon, chapeau côtelette d’agneau et sac
téléphone inspirés par Dali». En osant mettre un certain mauvais goût
au goût du jour – les gants aux ongles de cuir rouge, la robe aux
déchirures sanglantes, le voile de mariée noir brodé d’une chevelure
de Gorgone -, Elsa architecte ornementaliste se révélera un
formidable moteur pour la création. Elle fut le Galliano des années
30, par qui le scandale arrive à la même vitesse que le succès.

Coco Chanel détestait cette protégée de Paul Poiret dont Cocteau dira
: «Elle immortalise l’éphémère.» Elsa considérait la mode comme un
art, Coco comme un métier.

Cocteau qui nourrissait pour l’une et l’autre une amitié égale, était
un aigle entre deux têtes. Il croquait rue Cambon, dessinait place
Vendôme et s’arrangeait pour que ces deux sacrés monstres ne se
croisent jamais.

L’histoire d’amour entre Paris et Schiap commence avec un divorce. Le
sien. En 1919, son mari l’abandonne à New York avec sa fille Gogo,
qui deviendra la mère de Marisa Berenson. En 1922, Gabrielle et
Francis Picabia, le père du dadaïsme, l’encouragent à regagner Paris
avec eux. Elle apprend le dessin et entre comme styliste dans une
maison de confection. Jusqu’au jour où elle rencontre l’acheteur d’un
grand magasin américain qui s’enthousiasme pour son pull. Noir à
cravate blanche en trompe l’oeil, tricoté sur ses instructions par sa
concierge arménienne. «J’en veux 40», dit l’Américain. «Vous les
aurez», promet Elsa qui file aux Galeries Lafayette acheter la laine,
les aiguilles et embauche dare-dare une trentaine de copines de sa
concierge. Les Arméniennes possédaient une technique particulière
pour le tricotage. Elsa est lancée. Elle s’installe rue de la Paix,
grignote un à un les étages et, pendant quatre ans, se consacre au
sportswear. Pulls, maillots de bain, pantalons de plage. Première
robe en 1931. En 1935, elle investit le rez-de-chaussée du 21, place
Vendôme, un hôtel particulier dont elle finira par occuper les six
étages et les cent pièces qu’elle fera décorer par Jean-Michel Franck
et Alberto Giacometti. Parallèlement, elle ouvre sa maison à Londres
où accourent la cour et la gentry. A Paris, Schiap a 800 ouvrières en
1939 et sera la première Française de la couture à signer des
contrats de licence en Amérique : quarante contrats pour des bas de
soie joliment emballés.

Schiaparelli en haute couture innove avec des collections à thèmes
éblouissants d’imprévu. «Cosmique», «Musique», «Cirque»,
«Botticelli», «Commedia dell’ar te», elle y associe ses chers
artistes qui constituent sa famille spirituelle. Avec eux, Elsa,
retrouve l’ambiance familiale de ses jeunes années nourries au lait
de la culture. Elle rayonne. On la voit à tous les bals dans ses
robes qui font sensation. Rien ne l’arrête. Si, la guerre!

En 1940, elle refuse de mettre la clé sous la porte, réduit sa
voilure, fait passer ses ateliers de 800 à 150 ouvrières et laisse sa
maison à sa directrice des salons. A chacun sa Résistance. Fermer la
place Vendôme eût été pour elle une capitulation, s’en aller lui
apparaît comme un devoir. Elle s’exile en Amérique où l’avaient
précédée les grandes signatures du surréalisme. Elle y restera
jusqu’en 1945 sans toucher une étoffe. Faire de la mode aux
Etats-Unis serait, disait-elle, une trahison vis-à-vis de la couture
française, mais elle entreprend une tournée de conférences à travers
le territoire américain où, devant 3 000 à 4 000 personnes, cette
grandissime Italienne, parle de la haute couture française.

La guerre finie, Schiap regagne la France. Tout a changé mais elle ne
s’en doute pas. Même si le magazine Elle lui offre la couverture de
son premier numéro (un ensemble rouge sur un mannequin tenant dans
les bras un bébé tigre), le déclin est en marche. En 1947, l’arrivée
de Christian Dior et du new-look change la donne. La femme-objet
corsetée, juponnée, au décolleté roucoulant sonne l’hallali des
femmes décoratives à l’ornementation anecdotique. Schiap essaie de
rectifier le tir. En 1952 et 1953, elle présentera quatre garde-robes
pour quatre budgets différents afin d’aider la femme moderne à
s’habiller selon sa fortune. L’erreur est monumentale : les années 50
étaient l’ge d’or de la couture, les femmes avaient l’argent facile.
Elle a beau inventer de nouveaux volumes, ses robes ne plaisent plus
qu’à ses clientes vieillissantes. Les autres partent ailleurs.
Résignée, Elsa garde sa boutique mais ferme sa maison. C’était en
1954, quelques jours avant le retour, après 15 ans d’absence, de Coco
Chanel rue Cambon. Elle s’éteindra en 1973. Le comte Guido Sassoli di
Bianchi rachète alors le nom de Schiaparelli mais, hormis quelques
contrats de licence en Australie, n’en fera rien. Il est mort en
janvier dernier. Un des plus beaux noms de la couture française est
peut-être à vendre…

Houston Press, TX
March 18 2004

Village Person
Arshile Gorky changed his name, but he couldn’t change his painful
past

BY JOHN DEVINE
[email protected]

Many artists have had difficult childhoods, but by any measure,
Arshile Gorky’s was particularly traumatic. He was born Vosdanik
Adoian in the village of Khorkom in Turkish Armenia in 1904. Two
years later, his father emigrated to America. Whether he left to find
work or to avoid arrest for being an Armenian nationalist has never
been clear, but it would be nearly 15 years before father and son met
again. By then, Gorky would have experienced the loss of his village,
witnessed the genocide of his people by the Turkish government,
endured the refugee poverty and famine that killed his mother when he
was 15, and, finally, with his younger sister Vartoosh, sailed to
America, leaving behind forever his mother’s grave, his homeland and
his beloved village. But not his past.
That past resonates through “Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of
Drawings,” on view at the Menil Collection. Curated by Janie C. Lee,
adjunct curator of drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
the exhibition offers an intimate introduction to one of America’s
most influential artists.

After a few years in Providence and Boston, the young Armenian artist
moved to New York City in 1924. He had already rechristened himself
Arshile Gorky; the first name was a variant of an Armenian royal
name, and the surname means “bitter one” in Russian. (By all
accounts, Gorky was an inveterate raconteur and rarely let the facts
interfere with a good story. If you wanted to believe he was related
to the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky, he wouldn’t disillusion you
— despite the fact that the writer’s name was also an assumed one.
The writer of his New York Times obituary was one such mistaken
soul.) In New York, Gorky’s talent was recognized almost immediately,
and he managed to eke out a living teaching drawing, both
academically and privately; by the early 1930s, his work began
appearing in group shows.

An incessant drawer from early childhood, Gorky was essentially
self-taught — one of his sisters remembers him finding a dead fish
and drawing it over and over in the sand. (Later, he would be fired
from a Boston rubber factory for drawing on the molds.) His major
influences were the great 19th-century French classicist
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, as well as contemporaries Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse. As installed in the Menil, the first three
galleries of the exhibit (which has been judiciously edited down from
the ungainly sprawl and visual overload of the Whitney’s version)
show how in his early work, Gorky worked to incorporate their
disparate approaches into a pictorial language of his own.

Of particular note are the drawings of his mother, especially the
portrait on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. Gorky faithfully
rendered his mother’s face from a formal 1912 photograph of the two
of them, taken to send to his father. It’s a beautiful, loving
portrait, intimate and yet reserved. The profound depths of her eyes
are matched only by the eyes of her young son in some other drawings
on display. One of the pleasures of seeing this retrospective at the
Menil are the echoes that occur not only within Gorky’s body of work
but between it and the rest of the museum’s collection. The portrait
of his mother resonates with some Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits in
the Menil’s classical galleries (Gorky kept a reproduction of one
from the Metropolitan Museum’s extensive Egyptian collection in his
studio).

The other series of note in these first rooms is the Nighttime,
Enigma, and Nostalgia series. Composed in 1931 and 1932, the group of
works demonstrates Gorky’s habit of repeating forms and motifs
through different mediums — here, principally graphite or ink — and
methods, such as crosshatching and shading, to create numerous
variations on a theme. The series demonstrates the countless formal
possibilities of drawing (this one alone runs to more than 50 works).
Inhabited by entangled biomorphic shapes of no particular provenance,
the melancholy meditations of Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia compel
our lingering attention. When asked what personal or symbolic
significance the series’ imagery held, Gorky’s response was “wounded
birds, poverty, and one whole week of rain.” A related drawing, Image
at Khorkom (1934-36), references the village of his birth.

Gorky’s mature work began in the early 1940s, when he encountered the
surrealists, who were here in America to escape the Nazis. He would
incorporate their ideas into his own work and become the link between
the surrealists and artists like Willem de Kooning and Jackson
Pollock. Of prime importance to Gorky’s development was Roberto
Matta, who encouraged him in the surrealist technique of automatic
drawing — the hand moving unguided by the mind. Around this time,
Gorky left New York for Connecticut and began drawing from nature.
The combination seems to have unleashed a torrent of creative
invention in Gorky as he filtered the world he saw before him through
his imagination and memory. In Drawing (1946), two figures in the
lower half are clearly cows, but a foreleg of one cow ends in not a
hoof but a scythelike shape. And in the lovely large drawing The Plow
and the Song (1946), the sinuous vertical figure in the center
suggests an Armenian plow from Gorky’s childhood.

But this is not to say that to appreciate Gorky’s art one must play a
game of identification; form was more important to him than the
object that suggests the form. It’s the whole composition as an
abstraction, the interplay of forms, and the assuredness and economy
of draftsmanship that seduces. In Study for Charred Beloved (1946),
there isn’t a wasted line or gesture, as if, in executing this
delicate composition, Gorky barely removed pencil from paper.

The last drawings in the exhibit are dated 1946-47. In January 1946,
a studio fire destroyed about 25 of Gorky’s paintings. That March, he
underwent a colostomy operation necessitated by rectal cancer. A
fastidious man, Gorky was deeply embarrassed by the procedure. He
also had marital problems. Still, Gorky continued to work through
1947. In 1948, his marriage collapsed, and in June, his collarbone
and two neck vertebrae were broken in an auto accident. Confined by
an immobilization collar and constrained from working, on July 21
Gorky wrote “Goodbye my loveds” on a wooden crate in his Connecticut
studio, and then he hung himself.

Through May 9 at the Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, 713-525-9400.
Through April 25 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet,
713-639-7300.

One Hell of a Gift

Caroline Wiess Law has been very, very good to the MFAH. An art
collector and philanthropist, Law died last Christmas Eve on her 85th
birthday. She left the museum a $25 million endowment and a cache of
55 artworks, with an estimated value of between $60 million and $85
million.

Law was Houston to the core. She was the daughter of Harry Wiess,
co-founder of Humble Oil & Refining Co., which became Exxon. Her
first husband was a partner at the law firm Vinson, Elkins, Weems &
Francis; after he died, she married Theodore Newton Law, founder of
Falcon Seaboard Drilling Co. Wiess’s parents were founding members of
the MFAH, and Law herself was an MFAH supporter for four decades. In
1998, the Watkins-Mies building was named after her.

“A Spirited Vision: Highlights of the Bequest of Caroline Wiess Law
to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston” presents works from some of the
major names in 20th-century art. Philip Guston’s Passage (1957) is an
early ab-ex-inspired work that feels incredibly fresh. Its smears and
brushy smudges of color have a visceral feeling. They remind you of
the hues used for those plastic models of the human body from biology
class — the rosy pink of flesh; the pale, greenish-blue of veins;
the deep red of the heart; the brownish red of the liver.

Joan Miró’s Painting (The Circus Horse) (1927) is especially nice,
with the lush, chalky blue of the background playing host to the
artist’s tentatively elegant linear elements. One of the more
appealing works by Hans Hoffman in the show features brushy
rectangles of near-primary colors on a pale ground. It hangs
especially well between two vivid works by Lucio Fontana, one an
intense red and the other a powerful, almost artificial green. True
to form, Fontana has interrupted their saturated monochromatic
surfaces by elegantly slicing through the canvases.

There are some early, colorful works by Franz Kline that are okay,
but they make you glad he switched to the black and white of his 1961
Corinthian II. Picasso’s Two Women in Front of a Window (1927) was
donated in 1964 but remained in Law’s home until her death. It’s a
notable work and a definite feather in the cap for the MFAH, but
there’s so much Picasso in the museum world (the MFAH alone has 80),
it’s hard to be visually excited about it. Andy Warhol’s Caroline,
four 1976 portraits of Law, is also included. Warhol cranked out
scads of portraits of collectors and celebrities in the ’70s and
’80s. This is a particularly unflattering series that gives Law the
look of a not-overly-convincing transvestite. She must have really
loved Warhol to keep those around.

Neither Law’s upbringing nor her education predisposed her toward the
modern art she came to love. When she was furnishing her home in the
’50s, dealers kept showing up with impressionist paintings. According
to Law, “I just couldn’t get interested in those things. They didn’t
talk to me.” Law went on to find artworks that did talk to her — and
now they’re holding forth at the MFAH. – Kelly Klaasmeyr

Through April 25 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet,
713-639-7300.

ARMENIAN WOMEN PROTEST AGAINST PRESIDENT’S “DICTATORIAL REGIME”

Arminfo
March 8, 2004

YEREVAN

Women supporting the opposition are holding a rally in Yerevan
today. It has been organized by the Justice bloc under the slogan
Women Against Lawlessness. According to Ruzanna Khachatryan,
spokeswoman for the People’s Party which is part of the Justice bloc,
the rally is open not only to women “sympathizing with the
opposition”, but also “to those who are not indifferent to what is
going on in the country”.

She said the authorities were doing nothing to alleviate tension in
society in the aftermath of the 2003 presidential elections which were
marred with massive fraud. The present social and economic plight is
also a heavy burden for women, therefore they are saying their word on
8 March, Khachatryan said.

Despite the cold weather and piercing wind, more than 1,000 women have
joined the rally. The welcoming address was made by Greta Sarkisyan,
the mother of the former Armenian prime minister, Vazgen Sarkisyan,
who was killed in the shooting in the Armenian parliament (27 October
1999). She called on Armenian women to carry on fighting against
President Robert Kocharyan’s dictatorial regime and for the
restoration of democracy in the country.

After the rally, those taking part in it intend to march to the
Armenian president’s residency.

It is worthy of note that there is a large number of policemen around
the square outside the institute of ancient manuscripts where the
rally is taking place.