UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

November 30, 2002 Peace Marker United States of America ~ Point of Peace  #1

April 5, 2006 WPMP Ambassador Kat Epple is installed in ceremonies at Cape Coral City Hall

WPMP Ambassador Kat Epple, Image by Ed Chapell

  Flautist Kat Epple has won 8 Emmy Awards and was nominated for a Grammy in 1986. Formerly with the groups Emerald Web and White Crow, she has released 13 music albums internationally on various record labels. Kat composes original New Age/Jazz/World/orchestral music and has produced film and television soundtracks for National Geographic, Nova, CNN, Carl Sagan, Another World, The Travel Channel, Turner Broadcasting System, Carl Sagan, History Channel, HGN, The Guiding Light, PBS, and NASA among others, and was Music Director for the feature-length film, Captiva Island.

Kat's live performances include: solo performances at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, and Bilbao, Spain, with Symphony Orchestras, at the National Gallery, Washington DC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, concerts at the Hollywood Palace, L.A., Palazzo dei Diamanti in Italy, a concert tour of Russia, Naples Winter Wine Festival, in Costa Rica, with Dance Troupes, and for many art openings for the artist, Robert Rauschenberg. She has traveled to the far reaches of the globe including China, Africa, Russia, The Amazon, Europe, Peru, Mexico, Japan, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean, to learn of the people, natural environment, and the music of other cultures. She uses music in her work toward environmental and humanitarian awareness, and has amassed a large collection of flutes from cultures around the world, which she features in her original compositions.

Her latest CD, "Azure Pieces of Life" is "Spellbinding and flowing, with exquisite intricacies. This music can stand up to many listening sessions, as the melodies, chords, and textures are unique and complex, and are performed by two incredibly accomplished, innovative instrumentalists." Available at www.amazon.com
  The installment ceremonies were held at Cape Coral's City hall complex with our logistics director Brent Scheneman as master of ceremonies whom after welcoming guests introduced City of Cape Coral Mayor Eric Feichthaler seeing here addressing the installment of WPMP ambassador Kat Epple. In the foreground, on a pedestal an early prototype of the sculptural Peace Marker can be seen.

Mayor Feichthaler was eloquent and direct in acknowledging the stature of Ms. Epple and the importance of WPMP to the future of Cape Coral. The mayor conveyed a pledge from the City of Cape Coral Council Members to cooperate with ambassador Epple and WPMP to resolve the future location needs of Peace Marker U.S.A. in order to accommodate a site suitable for large numbers of visitors.

WPMP Director Tiité Baquero Addresses the audience.

 

Honorable Mayors, Eric Feichthaler and Arnold Kempe, Ambassador Kat Epple, Germany Ambassador Eliza Monet, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

The subject of peace for the most part, has been considered to be no more than an illusion that has managed to survive in the shadows of war for at least 5,500 years since the recorded beginning of human civilization.

It is no wonder, that when Worldwide Peace Marker Project or WPMP was launched in 2002 the idea was treated with a quiet sense of impossibility, of the kind that we reserve for those who venture into the unknown against great odds with seemingly little chance for success.

There are thousands of peace initiatives all over the world but none has the features that distinguish WPMP. We the collaborative of 199 artists are creating a tangible model of the idea of world peace with the aesthetic of peace as a separate and independent entity from war that can be made to exist.

Peace must first be created at a fundamental level in the real world before we can begin to nurture it and raise it to be a cultural part of civilization capable of participating in the social, political, economic and religious fronts to the benefit of the world.

I’m happy to report that the project is doing great and that a number of milestones have been reached even at this early stage of the journey to world peace.

  • Keeping in mind that the project is an installation work of art, the first milestone is that the project has gathered enough evidence to demonstrate that art and life can operate seamlessly as one. That reconnection eluded the aspirations of modernism throughout the 20th century.
  • WPMP as art of the 21st century has already pushed the boundaries of art and is redefining the role of art in civilization. One example is taking place here today as we gather to install an artist as an ambassador representing this great nation in a collective effort to establish the first solid foundations for world peace. 
  • WPMP is already in three continents and has established six points of peace on the surface of the planet, and continues with  new ambassadors representing the nations of Angola,  Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Nepal, Cambodia.
  • Most importantly the Ambassadors are committed to continue Peace Marker Day with a yearly celebrations leading up to the unveiling of the last marker when the world will celebrate Peace Marker Day, the first global holiday which is to say 198 nations celebrating the arrival of world peace.

 I will like to welcome Ambassador Kat Epple to the WPMP family. It is quite a privilege to have a great artist like you to represent the United States of America and I’m confident that you will be a great ambassador. You are joining Ambassadors Emir Bukovica of Bosnia i Herzegovina, Lloyd Pretty of Canada, Eliza Monet of Germany, Shigemi Ohkubo of Japan and Nurcan Turkoglu of Turkey. Welcome.

I will also like to acknowledge other members of the WPMP family whose participation and patronage has been the life line of the project and whose example brings to the forefront the fact that if you really believe in something like I believe in this project the magical people that will help you accomplish it will appear to help you do so.

The list is long so I will only acknowledge those who are present: Ms. Nancy Drury, Mr. Scott Dennis, Mr. John Biffar, Mr. Jeff Elliot, Mr. Paul and Diane Bush, Mr.and Mrs. Loren and Barbara Hosak, Mr.and Mrs. Perry and Joanne Thompson,  Mayor Feichthaler, Mayor Kempe, Ms. Gloria Tate, Ms. Kay Arrowood, who has been my liaison at the mayor’s office for a number of administrations. These are some of the magical people that are making the dream of peace a reality. Thank you

 
  Former Mayor Arnold Kempe placed the installment WPMP medallion upon Ms. Epple completing thereby the official ceremony. Mayor Kempe had established for WPMP the official greetings between Cape Coral and the Mayors of Newfoundland in Canada and Kassel in Germany at their unveiling ceremonies.

WPMP Ambassador Kat Epple addresses the audience.

 

Thank you Honorable Mayors Feichthaler and Mr. Kempe. It is a great honor to accept the Worldwide Peace Marker Project Ambassadorship to the United States. As residents of Southwest Florida, we are fortunate that the US Worldwide Peace Marker is located right here in Cape Coral, and is the first of 198 markers to be located all over the world. I accept stewardship over this important international landmark. I will work to represent the ideals of the Worldwide Peace Marker Project and the American Spirit of cooperation and tolerance, to embrace the WPMP network of artist ambassadors, and to encourage peace through the arts.

Thank you to the project's logistics director, Brent Scheneman for all of his work on the project. And a special thank you to the very talented, Tiité Baquero, the project's creator and director, for inviting me to participate as the US Ambassador. The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is a brilliant work of art that embraces a vision of global peace and creates a network of prominent international artists who are all committed to working towards peace. As this matrix of artists, countries, and peace markers continues to grow, I believe that it will help to move the world closer to peace, health and benevolence.

It is an honor to be a part of this visionary project.

In my travels around the world, I have found music to be a universal language. I would like to play a piece of music for you, that I composed for this beautiful project.

 

Kat Playing a hauntingly beautiful composition that I perceived as a kind of prelude to world peace.

Ambassador Epple with current Cape Coral Mayor Eric Feichthaler (right) and former Cape Coral Mayor Arnold Kempe (left)

Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Diane Bush joined the Mayor's and Ambassador Epple.
  WPMP Ambassador Kat Epple was installed and congratulated as she goes on to represent the United States of America in the world's first work of global art. From the left John Biffar, Arnold Kempe, Ms. Melette Moffat, Mr.Charles Moffat, Mrs. Thompson, Germany Ambassador Eliza Monet, Joanne Thompson, Paul Bush, Brent Scheneman, Diane Bush, Zoah Scheneman, WPMP Ambassador Kat Epple, Perry Thompson, Mayor Eric Feichthaler, Barbara and Loren Hosak.

Photography by courtesy of Orion Scheneman, Archival videography  by the incomparable John Biffar, Ambassador's Epple medallion was embroidered by Mr. Dave King.

In the ancient pre-art-age of humanity, when the communal urge to celebrate and the subject of the celebration with its purpose and expectations filtered through the ceremonies as pageantry by performers and spectators; the events  where so tightly wrapped up in the life-line of these early human cultures that they were in fact a principal and defining source of tradition, identity and well being.

Similarly, WPMP exhibits all of those traits particularly in instances such as the installment of our U.S.A. Ambassador Kat Epple. Consider the pictorial and narrative material of this page and ask yourself whether you are seeing and account of art or of life?

Therein, are the blossoming qualities of WPMP as art of the 21st century. Therein lies art's reconnection with life, meaning and substance as it was in the distant past, and its foretelling today of the new potential of art in the future of civilization.

Thank you all for the privilege

 

The local press contributed with the public registry of the event to the historical record, as follows.

 

 

 

 

I extend my gratitude to the journalists and their newspapers for their contribution, the circulation of their stories added thousands of readers here and around the world to the perception that we as a community are real players in the WPMP journey to world peace.

Tiité

Cape Coral 2006

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