25. The Artist Talks About the Arts

For this post I selected a few of Victor's drawings about various Arts and Artists. It kind of continues one of my older posts that was all about Music. All these works are pretty old, I remember them from the 1990's. I am pretty sure he has many new ones, so I just need to nag him about sending me some. But let's start here.

"An Artist"

"Художник" 



"From Tragic to Comical"

 "От Трагичного до Смешного Один Шаг"

This is my title, Victor may not even like it. But when I come up with an idea for my next post, I don't have patience to wait until I can ask him, and it won't happen soon since he is celebrating his New Year Eve in the Crimea Mountains...

"Jokes"

 "Шутки"

"My Mask Also Needs a Mirror"

"Моей Маске Тоже Нужно Зеркало" 

"A Writer"

"Писатель"

24. Challenge -5: A Weird Dream.

A few days ago I had the weirdest dream: I am a young girl (around 15), and some older woman (of my real age, I guess) kidnapped me and is going to pump out all my blood to rejuvenate herself. I ask her to leave some, but she says that she really needs all of it... I woke up (just in time) being very confused: who was real me in this dream? I know that I was the girl, or at least observed all of this from her position. It would be nice to believe that I can rejuvenate someone! But then I am also nervous that I somehow was that woman who needed rejuvenation...

I told Victor about it, and he sent some of his old drawings: one about dreams in general:

"Hecuba's Dream"

"Сон Гекубы"

...and another one. It was difficult to believe that he didn't draw it just now, based on my dream. It illustrates it amazingly well - not only the dream itself, but my confusion as well. It is kind of scary: sometimes I feel that he had thought and felt and illustrated all  possible shades of all possible emotions!

"Age"

"Возвраст"

23. Ceramics - the End of the First Semester!

I brought my "Pottery Love" home a couple days before Thanksgiving, and there was some dough remaining after we baked the cake. So here is one more implementation of it, although it is definitely not as lasting as clay. The title for it, naturally, is "Dough Love," but in its Russian version, if you insert several letters in the middle of the word, it becomes "Torturous Love," although it doesn't look like one.

"Dough Love"

"МУЧ(итель)НАЯ ЛЮБОВЬ"

Sadly, the mug that was invented by Victor and that I was impatiently waiting to get out of the kiln, didn't come out well, and this semester is over... It's too small and crooked, it is not spiral enough, and the glazing is messed up. And I had to make the bottom to hold it all together, but Victor said it defeats the whole idea... (Definitely not the whole idea, since you still can't pour tea in it.) But I am taking another semester of Ceramics in the Spring (it was a great idea to take two student teachers last year!), and I will try again.

I will conclude my three-part report on the theme with one more of the Victor's drawings that he made recently, I hope, in response to my Ceramics endeavor. Its title literally says "A Goddess firing pots." No, I don't think he means I am the goddess... He refers to the Russian proverb that can be translated like "It does not take gods to make pots." 

"Богиня, обжигающая горшки"

22. Friendships with Animals.

As I receive more and more of Victor's drawings, it’s getting easier to group them in small series by topic. For example, one day he made three drawings named “Friendship with…” But before and after this he also sent a few other “double portraits” that can be easily included in this series.

"Friednship with a Leopard"

"Дружба с Леопардом"

"Friendhip with a Bird"

"Дружба с Птицей"

"Friendship with Snakes"

"Дружба со Змеями"

"Love"

"Любовь"

"Tenderness"

"Слонежность" 

By the way, Victor sent this to me recently when continuing our game I gave him a theme: "Making an elephant out of a fly," which is the  Russian version of the idiom "Making a mountain out of a molehill." He said he didn't find one with a fly, but a mouse is close enough. Just now I thought that the saying has nothing to do with a frienship! Oh well...



"Pythagoras"

"Пифагор"

In the last drawing Victor refers to a legend: when Pythagoras saw how someone beats a dog, he stopped them by saying that the dog has a soul of his friend, because he heard this friend's voice in the dog's barking. I think this qualifies as a frindship too.

21. One Day in the Life of an Angel.

I don't know why, but from time to time Victor draws and sends me various moments from lives of angels (even though "life of an angel" seems to be an oxymoron). I never asked him, remembering how unwilling he usually is about explaining anything about his art. After reading this, hopefully, he will enlighten me...

Even though they were not drawn or sent in this particular order, I can pretty much imagine that all of these drawings are about the same angel and follow - him or her? sometimes it's a he and sometimes it's a she - for a day.

"Angel with a cup of coffee"

"Ангел за чашечкой кофе"

"Angel in subway"

"Ангел в метро"

"Angel running late"

"Опаздывающий ангел"

"Two angels, one with a flute"

"Два ангела, один с флейтой"

"Dreams about flight"

"Мечты о полете"

"Untitled"

"Без слов"

Well, in the end I am not really sure if this is the right order, and if this is the same angel... All I know it is the same artist!

20. Ceramics is addictive!

My first semester of Ceramics class approaches to the end. Almost a half of my projects is inspired by Victor in some way, and at least three are simply implementations of his drawings in clay. Finally, my (or his?) animal tiles have been glazed and fired. I am showing the prototype as well:

It was not easy to make "Pottery Love." I had to start over a few times, before I figured out the best way to do it. The day before glazing I asked Victor what color glaze I should choose. He responded: "Love should not be glazed. It should be raw and ooze blood." Well, I don't completely agree with it. Love can (and should) have a happy color! But also, without glaze it was light pink, and it definitely was not what he had in mind. So I picked a matte glaze, the most resembling raw clay (or raw meat, if he insists).

  

 

I also started making a mug based on one of his drawing. But since I  only go there once a week, it will take three more weeks for it to be bisque-fired, glazed and fired again. I can't wait to post this, but I will add the picture later.  

19. All about lobsters.

A few days ago Victor sent his drawing with a strange name: "Lobster reminiscent of the islands:"

I liked it, although I said I probably would never be able to eat a lobster again. This time I didn't even ask, why such a strange idea, but Victor told me that in the November issue of his favorite magazine "Around the World" he read an article about a French chef Olivier Roellinger who works in a London restaurant. One of his special dishes is called exactly so: "Lobster reminiscent of the islands." Of course, Victor immediately saw this image behind the name.

I recalled one more Victor's lobster, or rather a crawfish, from the 1990's. It's also sad, but in a different way. There is a Russian idiom that literally says "You will know where crawfish spend winter." It has the same meaning as "You will get it in the neck." So this drawing is called "Where crawfish spend winter."

"Где раки зимуют"

18. Challenge -4.

In one of the earlier posts, I told about the challenge that initiated our "game:" almost every day I give Victor a theme - usually just a word inspired by certain events or impressions of that day, and he finds and sends me a drawing that he already has on this topic. Some themes are more and some are less concrete. Sometimes his responses match more perfectly and sometimes less. (I guess, they do match perfectly in his vision, it's just that we - non-artists - cannot always see it...) These are just a few sent for the last two weeks:

I had a cold, and couldn't think about anything except my stuffed nose; I couldn't even talk. When I e-mailed Victor that this is the only theme I could think of, he said it's not interesting, too "down to earth" for him. Still, next day he sent this to me. I felt better right away!

"Common Cold"

"Простуда"

Then there was my son's 22nd birthday, and in our conversation I listed his achievements for the past year, and sent his picture. This is Victor's response:

"Pride"

"Гордость своим сыном"

Once thinking of the next theme, I realized I've never "ordered" Victor anything about teachers (Geometry - yes, he sent a few drawings about it, but not about teachers in general). So when I told him about it, that's what he found. I gave prints of this to our English teachers.

 "Dragons need reading aloud"

"Драконам нужно читать вслух"

17. Foliage.

The Fall is almost over, and I just realized that I haven't showed any of Victor's "seasonal" drawings. These are just a few. The first one was drawn a couple of weeks ago, the other one is from the past.

"Coloring the Fall"

"Раскраска Осени"

"An old park plays again its timeless music to a couple of eternal lovers"

"Старый парк в дымке туманной снова играет музыку листопада вечной паре вллюбленных"

Another sudden realization: Why haven't I posted any of Victor's photography yet? It is also very artistic/poetic. It just hasn't fit into the themes of my past blog pages, buy definitely fits this one! These two are my favorite of his Fall pictures (or rather of those few that I have, which is a tiny portion of all he has).

"All gold in the world..."

"Золотой мир."

16. Virtual crafts.

Since I started taking Ceramics class in September, we have been talking and e-mailing about it, as well as about other crafts. I am telling Victor about my modest progress, and he generously shares his unfulfilled ideas. Even though he has never done ceramics, he has several drawings that were, in fact, design for pottery. They just ask to be made! I hope I'll have time in my course to make them.



Even more surprisingly, it turned out that he also has some drawings that just look like wrought iron design. In fact, they are! Victor made them for one of his friends a long time ago.

                                "Rain"                                                                           "D'Artagnan"                                                                                               

                               "Дождик"                                                                    "Д'Артаньан"                                                                            

I wonder if there is a course in NY where they teach to make wrought iron!

15. Halloween thoughts...

A few days ago I asked Victor if he had anything for Halloween.  Of course, he did, and he sent me two drawings. I guess, I expected some traditional pointed-hat-black-cloak-flying-on-a-broom witches. When I received one of them, I was surprised first. After the second, I realized that our perception of witches is quite different!

"Witch"

"Ведьма"

"Witch's Blinding"

 "Ведьмино Ослепление"

Of course, Halloween is not a traditional holiday in Ukraine or Russia, even if it is gaining its popularity lately. But Halloween or not, all these creepy creatures, and especially witches, have their own rich history in pre-Russian orthodox folklore. For Americans, witches and other Halloween characters are so commercialized and stereotyped, that most of us would have the same image as I did. On the other side, witches that we “grew up with,” are more like spirits of nature. Also, they can be understood as a person’s inner self. The Russian word for "witch" is "ved'ma" that came from "vedat'"  that means "to know."

Actually, I believe, if we could escape the influence of the commerce that is trying to sell the traditional Halloween costumes and toys, we could relate to this other perceptions of the “witchism” as well.

Among old Victor's drawings I also found this non-typical image of Devil that also doesn't really fit our Halloween "standards." But this is why it's worth looking at!

"Pact"

"Договор"

14. Ceramics

Last year I hosted student teachers in my classes, and for this, Columbia University offered me a free course. I chose Ceramics. I can appreciate art, but can't really create anything. Ceramics, I guess, is as close as I can get to art. I am not saying it is not one, but the material itself offers you so many possibilities that your artistic skills matter less than in drawing or painting or sculpture, or so I'd thought. Besides, as a mathematician, I have sense of space, at least. This is my first composition. The assignment was "Environment," and we had to use extruded shapes. It will still be fired and glased:

"Evolution"

"Эволюция"

Anyway, when I told Victor about this course, he was kind of jealous: being a medieval apprentice in a pottery shop was his dream, not mine! (Here is that drawing again):

 

"Apprentice"

"Подмастерье"

It turned out that ceramics was much more that just using clay. Most people in my group are Arts majors, and trying to catch up with them in terms of creativity and artistism is not easy. I am not even talking about the quality of their pieces, but even about ideas they come up with. I had to ask Victor about some ideas and especially about design for a tile quadriptic that was one of our assignments. Well, "we, artists," are not very generous when it comes to sharing ideas. So instead he just made this drawing - I guess, pretending he is making it from clay. I hope I'll be able to make somehing to implement this idea.

"Pottery Love"

"Глиняная Любовь"

Nevertheless, after some more begging Victor said that he actually has something that will work for my four tiles, even for 49:

"My Animals"

"Мои Звери"

I selected four of them, adjusted the size, and the next time in class transferred the images to my tiles. I will  glaze them next week - so, to be continued... When my professor saw what I was doing, his eyebrows went up: clearly he didn't expect this from me. I explained that the drawings are not mine, and mentioned that it would be cool to make all 49 tiles. He said "Why not? Take a Ceramics class again next semester." May be I will.

13. "Let's denounce the old world!" - "Отречемся от старого мира!"

 It's really time to show some other aspect of Victor's work, I can call it "social." Here is a very old series of drawings;  I remember that I saw it even before my emigration in 1993, so it was created during the Perestroika. He named it by the first line from the Marseillaise. Another name for this series is "Seven Elephants." According to Feng Shui, a set of seven elephants brings fertility, or protects from danger, or attracts prosperity, depending on the position of their trunks.