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!