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.

 

12. Love through Humor

Finally, a different way to look at/think/talk about love, even though all concepts involved - passion, betrayal, desire - are not a loughing matter...




Lightning

Мол-ни-я

Secret Rendezvous

Секретные Свидания

Lust

Вожделение

11. Love - Dramatic Lens

I feel that this blog becomes more and more like a gallery... Oh well, I guess this is still a way to show Victor's art, only through my perception.

I realize that "classifying" his drawings as "dramatic" or "lyrical" or "comical" is not very meaningful. There is humor (dark, may be, but still funny) even in the most tragic work, and lyricism in the most comical. But I simply couldn't place them all in one post - too many, so this is just one way to sort them out.

"Because we were deaf and blind"

"Потому что мы были слепоглухосвязанные"

 "Nagara"

"Ниагара"

 "Sign: Danger! Love crossing."

"Осторожно: Переход сердца"

"Unknown Parameter Value"

 "Suicide, or a new beginning""

"Самоубийство - или новое начало"

10. Love - Lyrical Lens

Although "Love" is, probably, the most common theme for Arts of all genres, I never offered it to Victor- namely because it would be too obvious and too simple for him. Nevertheless, I want to show some of his drawings - my favorites - on this inexhaustible topic. I feel I can divide them is several groups, for example, "lyrical," "dramatic," "comical." Let's start with the lyrical aspect...

 "Fоliage"

"Листопад"

 "She is from the Fall, He is from the Sea"

"Она из Осени, Он из Моря"

"The Red Flower"

"Красный Цветок"

9. Trying to Get Inside the Artist's Mind

Sometimes, looking at Victor's work, I asked him two types of questions. Both of them are traditional questions that many viewers and critics of art are asking: "What did he mean when he created this?" and "Why on Earth did he think of making this? What inspired/triggered this drawing?" I am quoting his answer (well, translating, really): "It is not me who made up these drawings, it's someone else who sits inside me, so I am not responsible for their content or form or anything else." So I stopped asking...

A huge majority of his drawings that I've seen and that I am showing here he just sent to me for a certain occasion, but they had been created a long time ago, so it's impossible to track how they appeared. But in very few cases I witnessed this "sacred" moment.

Victor was reading (or, rather, rereading for the n-th time) "The Doomed City" by the Strugatsky Brothers, and on a page describing the main character he caught these two words: "a star astronomer." This didn't even matter much for the rest of the book. Suddenly, he put the book aside and started drawing this:

"The Star Astronomer"

"Звездочет"

Here is another example. As I mentioned on the first page, my favorite drawing "Constellation of Cow" was created in Crimea, Ukraine - somehow the beautiful August sky "met" in his imagination with impressions of Somali cave paintings that he had seen in a magazine a long time ago. Here it is again - why not?

"Constellation of Cow."

"Созвездие Коровы"

Once Victor sent the following three drawings. I didn't physically "witness" how the these three came to life, since we were 5,000 miles apart, but at least I know that he produced them one after another the day before. There was no book or conversation to provoke them. Why fish? I am afraid, I'll never know...

"A Fish Wedding"

"Рыбья свадьба"

"Saving a Fish" ("Salvation" would be a more accurate translation)

"Спасение Рыбы"

 "Begging"

"Умоляние"

8. A Unicorn



There was, probably, just one more Victor's drawing that I was able to "commission." I used to have a big oil painting of an artist Elena Flyorova from Moscow. Here it is:

I don't have it anymore, but I took its picture and sent it to Victor asking to make his version of it so I could cover the nail on the wall. Here it is:

"A Woman and a Unicorn"

"Женщина и Единорог"

7. Challenge - 3: Inspired by One Word

In this post I want to show several of Victor's drawings that served as illustrations for a single word. Sometimes they are more obvious, sometimes less.

Also, I am inviting anyone who reads this blog to join the game: you give a word - well, ideally it should mean something to you, otherwise, why wasting time? - and he picks one out of his 3000+ drawings. (By the way, he doesn't know about this idea yet...).

 "Bride."

"Невеста"

Simply, we were talking about a wedding I was going to.

"Chicken"

 "Курица"

I have no idea why Victor drew it in the first place, but he sent it to me when I told him about the chicken that I was cooking the day before. Not only I overdried it, but I also forgot the leftovers in the oven overnight. As a famous Soviet actor, Faina Ranevskaya, once said, "This chicken wasted her life."

Once, as usual, I offered the theme for a daily drawing, Victor accepted. Next day, it turned out that both of us forgot that theme. So, he found this instead:

"Amnesia"

"Склероз"

Here is another confirmation that I suffer memory losses: I remember the word "Puzzle" came up in our conversation and Victor said "Oh, I have a picture of that," but in connection with what? Well, at least it makes me happy that I started this blog now and didn't wait any longer... 

"Pazzle Pieces"

"Пазлы"

The next drawing is the closest  response that Victor could find for the word "Error," "Mistake." I wish I remembered what mistake we were talking about. But it doesn't really matter: the drawing is here.

"Error: System's Fault"

"Ошибка. Сбой Программы"

6. How do you Draw Emotions?

The most difficult, in my opinion, is to draw abstract concepts, in particular, feelings and states of mind or, rather, states of soul. I don't mean showing one of those smiley or frowning faces where you can just guess what feeling is displayed. I am talking about using few simple lines to convey a particular emotion, sometimes even without any face expression.  

"Doubt"

"Сомнение"

"Despair"

"Отчаяние"

"Patience"

"Терпение"

 

"Let's be Wise"

"Давайте Будем Мудрыми"

5. Math Illustrated?

Several times a theme for our "game" came from my teaching work. When he heard that I taught Geometry, Victor sent this to me:

"Sprouting Geometry"

"Проросшая Геометрия"

"Geometer"
"Геометр"

At other times, I was more specific. For example, I said I teach a unit on Symmetry. That's what he found:

"Symmetry"
"Симметрия"

Another time I said I needed an inspirational image for my upcoming class project "CircleMania." Here it is. I actually showed it to my students and said: "See, how many different things you can make out of a simple circle!"



"Circle"

"Круг"