59. More Monsters.

 

The following selections don't necessary fit a common description "monsters," I don't even know what they fit at all. But that's the point: they are good examples of Victor's artistic imagination. Animals and humans, pody parts, roles - everything is mixed up! No more comments...

 

 

 

 

 

"Appetizer"

"Мировой Закусон"



 

"Игра в Четыре Копыта"

 

 

 

58. Monsters!

Looking through Victor's drawings and thinking about the  topic for my next post, I noticed a disproportional amount of monsters. Actually, disproportional to what? To the real world? This doesn't really make sense. But at the same time most of his monsters are much nicer than many of us, humans. When I shared my observations with Victor, he said that he also has plenty of evil monsters, he just didn't send them to me.

So I will start this cycle with a few of his benign monsters, and by the time I get through all of them, maybe he will send me some scary ones.

The first one is my favorite. Probably because these guys are so monstrous, their affection seems especially touching.

"Tenderness"

"Нежность"

 

 

 

"A Date"

"Свидание"

 

 

 

"Gravitation"

"Притяжение"

 

 

To be continued!

57. Shards of Legends

This post somehow continues the previous one. Who knows, what that chronicler was writing in his ancient book... Actually, I recalled one more "chronicler" who wouldn't find a more meaningful placement than on this page:

"Epistolary"



"Эпистолярный Жанр"

 

 

Anyway, back to what they might have been writing. In one of his relatively old drawings, Victor created a new old alphabet. Well, it may not be the whole alphabet, in fact, it may not be an alphabet at all. These symbols are probably too rich to be just letters, although they may be some hieroglyphs. The reason I am thinking in this direction is that Victor entitled it "The Message." But I doubt we should start deciphering it. Any code-breakers out there?

 

 

 

 

"Message"

"Послание"

 

 



Finally, my favorite in this series. The following two drawings Victor sent to me a long time ago, and then forgot about it and sent them again last week. And I am very glad he did. First time, they didn't impress me that much, but this time they, especially the first one, caught my attention. Was something in the air this time? I have no idea.

As an artist (Victor, for sure) cannot explain why he draws this or that, an art observer (I, at least) cannot explain why he/she likes it. Probably, people who are used to analyzing works of art would find words for this, but I just feel something very special, deep, mysterious when looking at it, especially in combination with the title, "Shards of Legends."

 

 

 

"Shards of Legends"

"Обломки Легенд"

 



56. Memoirs.

As it has happened before, one drawing that Victor recently sent to me reminded me about others on the same topic and inspired me to make a new post. As in most instances, there is no explanation why he suddenly decided to draw this old woman writing - what? memoirs? It would be more logical if he did it three years ago, when he helped me publish the memoirs of both of my grandmothers. I made my mom type them in Russian, then spent the whole summer translating them into English, so my future grandchildren would be able to read them. Victor runs a publishing business in Ukraine, so he designed a bilingual edition and printed a couple of dozens of copies, just for my family. This is why, maybe, this drawing is so dear to me.

Again, I am not happy with the translation of the title. Victor named it "Воспоминания." In Russian, this word has two meanings: "Recollections" or "Reminiscence," on the one side, and "Memoirs," on the other. Their meanings overlap, but they are not exactly the same. Still, I believe that he meant both of them, emphasizing not just the process of writing, but the whole life flushing inside the woman's head. This is why giving just one word for the title is not that accurate.

 

 

"Memoirs"

"Воспоминания"

 

 

 

 

Of course, after looking at one of Victor's old memoirists, I recalled another.  I did write about him in one of the older posts, but it fits this one too well, I can't skip it! I will even repeat an interesting detail. Victor was on the phone with me (Skype, to be precise), when he was drawing it. He mentioned that he was drawing an ancient man writing chronicles. We continued our conversation, and after some time he exclaimed: "For some reason, he wears glasses, and there is a dead bird near him..." He sounded genuinely surprised!!

 

 



 

 

"Chronicler"

"Летописец"

 

 

 

55. The Art of Dance.

This drawing called "A Dancing God" Victor made awhile ago, and I always liked it and wanted to post in this blog, but somehow it didn't fit any topic. Finally, just a couple of days ago he sent me two more dance drawings, and now this makes a little series. By the way, if I am not mistaken, he made this one learning how to use and experimenting with his new Chinese calligraphy set.

 

"A Dancing God"

"Танцующий Бог"

 

 

"Dance"

"Танец"

 

 

"Tango"

"Танго"

 

If someone wonders why this man has a strange mask, it's a rear case where I can provide an explanation. Not why he wears it, but where it came from. Victor drew him after visiting the Museum of African Art in Washington DC. He had always dreamed about it, and we had talked how African art influenced many artists, such as Picasso and Modigliani. So I guess, he decided to demonstrate this influence right away. (I am kidding here. He never decides anything about his drawings. They decide on their own.)

 

 

 

This last drawing is not really a dance (or is it?), at least this was not the original idea of it (but once again, I never know Victor's original ideas...). And I don't remember enough about chemistry to insist that there must be a connection. But the word "chemistry" has that second meaning, at least, in English, that kind of justifies that this lady belongs here as well. Even though it's a solo dance. 

 

 

 "Valency"

"Валентность"

 

 

 

54. It's Winter!

This week, Victor has been sending me his winter photos, from different years. Looking carefully, I made some interesting (for me, at least) observation. In his drawings, I've always admired how his simple details carried both aesthetic and semantic load, strengthening both the idea and the emotional message (if they can be separated...). In these recent photographs, I noticed the same thing. The reason I found it surprising is that we (most of normal people, I mean) usually take pictures of our surroundings just because we find something beautiful or interesting. We don't stage landscapes or nature views. Of course, Victor doesn't stage them either. But he is able to see some details that we (normal people) wouldn't, and to take his pictures in the same way as he would be drawing them. At least, I am glad that being a totally normal person (I mean, not an artist), I am able to notice and appreciate them.

 

                     

           Interlacements of Ice and Metal:

 

 

 



                      Ice or glass?

 

53. Portraits - 2: Pushkin

I almost forgot that awhile ago I posted the first portion of "Portraits" and had a definite intention to

continue... So this is about time. On random days Victor sent me a few of his drawings of  Aleksandr Pushkin. He said he had many more, and I patiently waited, but finally gave up and decided to publish just these three.

 

 

"A.S.P."

 

 

 

"Dream"

 

 

 

"Sasha and Natasha"

 

 

 



52. He and She.

The drawings that I selected for this post are all made within the last month and sent to me within the last week. This is pretty much the only thing that unifies them. The other - their original titles do not sound right when translated from Russian, so I won't. Well, of course, all of them are about love, but this is too wide to be considered a common theme.

 

 

"Жду Тебя"

 

 

 

"Без названия"

 

 

 



 

"Проволочное Сердце"

 

 

"Линии Одиночества"

 

 

 



51. His Brain, Her Brain.

My daughter just showed me the blog she started with her boyfriend (Http://hisbrainherbrain.blogspot.com). They decided to "document" their different reactions to certain things. As I was reading it, I recalled that this summer Victor did his little artistic investigation of the same topic. I don't remember the exact conversation that caused it. In July I was working in Princeton and lived and traveled for a month in the beautiful surroundings near Delaware River. I had plenty of new experiences and tried to describe all of them to poor Victor who was stuck in dusty and sweaty Kharkov. I was surprised (if not offended) that he wasn't always willing to listen to all my stories in all details.  Here are some of his thoughts.

 

 

"Information"

 

 

"The Two"

 

After these, I guess, Victor decided to investigate the relationships between "Him" and "Her" a little further.

"Arithmetic"

 

 

 



 

"Study of Love"

 

 

50. Portraits - 1

I am afraid, I was too personal in my previous post. To compensate, this is the most neutral topic. There is nothing about me, there is no accompanying story; simply I selected some of the portraits that Victor has sent to me throughout the last few years, without any particular reason. Well, I am sure there was a reason why he drew these particular people within one week, since his choice doesn't seem logical, but he usually doesn't explain...

I hope they are recognizable, but I'll give the names, just in case.

 

George Washington

 

 

Confucius

 

 

 



 

Pythagoras

 

 

 

Lev Tolstoy

 

 

 

Charlie Chaplin

 

 

 

To be continued...

49. Pluses and Minuses of Living Alone.

The size of my household has been changing constantly in the last several years: 4-3-4-3-2-1-2, as my children and step-children were moving in and out. The size of my apartment has been trying to catch up. After my son moved to live in Idaho, I rented out one room for half a year, but a month ago I made another move, and now, for the first time in my life (really!), I live by myself.

It was, and still is, very strange. I am excited that  I don't need to close any doors, that I can wear whatever I want (or nothing at all), that I can eat sour cream or jam from a jar, and so on. Of course, I discussed it with Victor. Actually, as continuation of our "game," I offered him the next theme: "Living single." Well, I have to play with words again. The Russian word  "oдиночество"  ("odinochestvo") can have different connotations, which in English correspond to various words: from simply "being single," to more melancholic "solitude," to more dramatic "loneliness,"and more. Since I don't mean anything sad or dramatic, I'll just use plain "Living alone."

First, of course, we talked about  advantages of living alone. One of them was extra time that you may spend any way you like. For example, doing ceramics. So this was Victor's immediate response (I also used this drawing in the previous post about Women and Vases. It happened to be an intersection of totally different themes!)

 

 

But then, inspired by the richness of the topic, I recalled some of Victor's other works. They kind of continue the investigation of all the shades of "being alone" that I mentioned above. Although the following drawings were made awhile ago and were not meant to illustrate any of these synonyms, but that is how I see them.

 

 

"Solitude."

 

 

 

 

"Loneliness"

 

 

Well, actually the last drawing can hardly be seen as an advantage... Which brings us to the next portion of this post: Disadvantages of living alone. This was the next theme I offered to Victor, and first he e-mailed me that he couldn't see any. But still drew this one on the same day:

 

 

 

 

 

48. Women and Vases

For the title of this post, I've had difficult time translating a very simple word from Russian: "кувшин" ("koovshin"). The closest translations are a  "pitcher" and a "jar," but when I wanted to choose the one that is more appropriate for this post and googled "images" for each, for the most part I saw baseball pitchers and those standard containers used to preserve food. What I was looking for is beauty and elegance, because that's what the post is about. So I chose "vases", although it is definitely not what Victor meant when he named his drawings  "A woman and  a ... (jar???)."

Just this week Victor drew two of them with the same title. Why? We talked about ceramics again, how I wish I would continue doing it. Clearly, even though it has been awhile since I took my ceramics course, the topic is not exhausted. So these are the two new drawings:

 

 

After receiving the two of them, I remembered I'd seen similar ones before. For example, when I just started taking ceramics, Victor sent me this one. I've already published it in one of my ceramics-related posts, and even explained its title (see post 23).

"A Goddess Firing Pots"

"Богиня Обжигающая Горшки"

After seeing all these women with all these jars/pitchers/vases, I asked: Why so many? Victor responded that he loves to draw women with vases, because, number one, their shapes  are very similar, and number two, both are sexy. And then I remembered one more that he drew about a year ago, this one was actually called "A Vase." I guess, he is right in his comparison.

47. All About Moving.

It's been almost a month since I opened this blog... First it was the beginning of the school year, then I suddenly decided to move to a new apartment. Only now I finally settled in my new place and can think about something else.

The topic for this post came naturally: moving, especially since Victor illustrated main steps of my struggle. This was his first response when I just told him that I am moving, because, as I mentioned to him, my collection of shells was the first to be packed.

After the first box with shells, there were many-many other boxes with other things, things that I need and things that I don't really need. I was complaining to him that I have too many things, and that's what he sent to me on the next day. I actually have many, if not all of these objects:

Then I moved. The first thing I did as I walked into my new apartment was trying to turn the light, and... there was no light, although I ordered it for this morning. Of course, it was Saturday, and Con Edison said there is nothing they can do until Monday. We already started making plans how to survive without electricity, and suddenly a guy from Coin Edison showed up (miracles do happen!), and fixed it in a minute! Of course, Victor sent me his version of "Let there be light!"

 

 

 

I was also complaining to Victor that I had to make too many decisions in the process, and I ordered him a theme, exactly this" "Making decisions." This is his response:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, as soon as I posted this picture I realized that the signs here are in Russian. It's a hint to a Russian saying, and translating either the words themselves or the saying won't really help. But the image depicts my state very well.

 

P.S. After I published this post, Victor sent me another drawing. I was so sure he just made it, inspired by my moving endeavors, but he said he had drawn it a long time ago. So once again I had to be amazed how on Earth 10 years ago he knew what would happen to me now???