STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Memorial Banners stretching across the ceiling of The Community Library’s lecture hall look like monumental works of calligraphy.

Yidan Guo, the Pocatello artist who made them, will discuss the influence of Chinese calligraphy on her drawing and painting, as well as her project to create intimate portraits of “Women Who are Immigrants,” at 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 24, at The Community Library.

Guo learned the art of calligraphy as a young girl in China. Though she studied at the China Central Academy of Fine Art, the most prestigious fine art institution in China, she has never set aside her love for the art of calligraphy.

After moving to Idaho in 2019, she enrolled in the MFA program at Idaho State University where she embarked on her project “Women Who are Immigrants.” She also completed the Memorial Banners, which record the history of Chinese contributions to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, which linked the United States from east to west in 1869.

Some 20,000 Chinese workers, or about 90 percent of the Central Pacific Railroad workforce, worked in harsh winters in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the broiling Utah desert as they blasted rock and opened tunnels.

Guo will also give a free workshop on calligraphy from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday at the Sun Valley Museum of Art’s Ketchum studio.

Both programs dovetail with the 2025 Winter Read, which revolves around Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s novel “Four Treasure of the Sky,” which features a young Chinese girl who learns calligraphy before being kidnapped and smuggled to America.

To see Monday’s talk in person, go to https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/14069169. The program also will be livestreamed and available to view later at https://vimeo.com/event/4897563.

To learn more about Yidan Guo’s “Mastering the Brush” workshop at SVMoA, go to https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/14088724.