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???

 

 

 



 

46. One Year Anniversary.

Because of my travel, I missed the exact date, but yes, it was last August when I started this blog. So I decided to choose several best (read: my favorite) drawings from previous pages for the anniversary post. With only one exception: the first one is totally new, drawn a week ago, and it already made it to my "Hall of Fame." Victor said that he just drew what he saw in his dream.

 

The rest is just a brief retrospective, but not of Victor's work, rather of my blog.

"Constellation of the Cow"

"Созвездие Коровы"

 

 

 

 

"Memories of Us"

"Воспоминание о Нас"

 

 

 

 

 

"Moses"

"Моисей"

 

 

 

 

 

"Waves of My Memory"

"По Волне Моей Памяти"

 

 

 

"Chronicler"

"Летописец"

 

 

45. Challenge - 9.

With unavoidable interruptions, especially during summer time, our "Game" has been continuing for almost two years. For this post I selected several of Victor's drawings that responded to pretty serious "assignments." It doesn't necessarily mean that his responses were also serious.

The idea for the first theme is pretty straightforward, but translating it in English is not. Russian word "Ожидание" can be translated as either "expecting" or "expectation," but both of these words have certain specific connotations that don't exactly fit the intended meaning. Another word, "waiting," is actually closer by its content, but it sounds too prosaic. The intended meaning of the word is not as much about the process of waiting, but more about the state, even closer to "hope" or "anticipation." But the drawings (Victor sent me two, I guess he was afraid to look too serious after the first one) are self-explanatory even without the exact title.

The theme for the next drawing, although seems related, came up on a totally different occasion. Here is another simple word that is not easy to translate with the exact tone: "Опоздание." Should I say "Lateness" (this is the first one that comes to a teacher's mind)? "Coming Late"? None of them sounds right. Google Translate gave me "Delay" - even worse. To make things harder, I'd have to translate the whole poem. My Russian-speaking readers probably know a wonderful author of children's poetry, Renata Muha. Victor has illustrated some of her poems, and this is one of them. Unfortunately I couldn't find English translations of her works, so my non-Russian readers will have to read everything from the illustration.

Finally, one drawing that responds to a serious theme is actually serious (well, more or less...). But it is still somewhat difficult to translate accurately. My "assignment" was: "Глаза в Глаза," which literally means "Eyes to Eyes." We talked about limitations of long-distance communication, when you just listen to a person but don't look in his/her eyes. The most surprising thing for me, as often, was that this drawing was made a long time ago, as though Victor had already thought about every tiny aspect of human emotions and relationships.

"Eyes to Eyes"

"Глаза в Глаза" 

To be continued... I am tired of all these translations...

44. Through Eras and Continents: Medieval Times.

Jumping through several centuries, we get into Middle Ages. I am not good in history, and I don't think it's worth to do any research here, so I am placing the remaining few draings in this series in a random order, or rather in the order I got them from Victor, all of them - long time ago. Only the last one was drawn a couple of years ago, when Victor visited Zaporozh'ye, a Ukrainan city on the river Dniepr, which was the center of so called Sich Zaporoska, a cossacks' camp in 16th century (I did look this one up...).

"Cortes"

"Кортес"

"Flanders"

"Фландрия"

"A Musketeer"

"Мушкетер"

 

 "Zaporoska Sich"

"Запорожская Сечь"

 

43. Through Eras and Continents: Unexpected Turn.

Jumping a few centuries ahead... I am not really good in history, so I am not sure my chronology is accurate...

I'll start with this "triple-portrait." I love it for its laconic lines, each of them plays more than one role.
Everyone with Russian (or any Slavic) cultural background will recognized them right away, but for others, these are epic heroes from around 1000 a.d. (yes, I looked it up!). I actually saw that their Russian name, bogatyr, or vityaz, was used in English untranslated.

"Russian Knights"

"Витя-зи"

Change of plans! Originally I just planned to present a mix of Victor's drawings about different countries between ancient time and now, but this will have to wait. When I posted this last drawing, I tried to think of some brief explanation about these guys, so my non-Russian readers knew what I was talking about, and I recalled a famous painting by Victor (!) Vasnetsov from 1898, and then I suddenly remembered one more depiction of bogatyrs that Victor drew when he was 21. So I decided that three images about bogatyrs deserve a separate post.

"Victor Vasnetzov, Bogatyrs"

"Виктор Васнецов, Богатыри"

I actually remember when and how Victor drew his version of this classic painting. At that time he made up images for all his friends and used them to tell stories about their past and current adventures. Victor himself is on the right. He explained that he'd chosen the image of Napoleon for himself because of his height and habits of a "little tyrant."

42. Through Eras and Continents: Ancient Times

For this post, or rather a series of posts (I am planning 2 - does it make it a series?), it may be helpful to provide some background information about the artist.

Victor's first degree was in Geology, since from his early age he was dreaming about traveling the world, exploring new places and digging something out. His favorite books, at least in his youth, as I remember it, were the diaries of Roald Amundsen and Thor Heyerdahl, and his favorite magazine for many years has been "Around the World." Being born in the USSR doesn't exactly help implementing your dreams, especially if they involve freedom to travel (including financial freedom). So for a big part, Victor had to satisfy this passion through his art.

I selected several of his old drawings about different worlds - both in terms of times and places. It makes sense to organize them in chronological order (although I don't guarantee scientific precision...).

"Cenozoi"

"Ксенозой"

The following drawing should, probably, be the last one in the series, but it fits much better right here. Besides, I originally saw these two at the same time, so they seem inseparable to me.

 

"Technozoi"

"Технозой"

I am not sure why the next drawing falls into this topic at all, and what era and what continent it is about. All I can tell it is not about "here and now."

 

"The Dream of a Roman Legionary"

"Сон Легионера"

Below is Victor's take on a Bible's story about Salome, a daughter of Herod Antipas, who requested the head of John the Baptist as an award for her beautiful dance. I am not sure that is how it all happened in the 1st century... Actually, I was also planning to make a post on gastronomical topic and thought that this might be one of the entries, but than decided against it.

"Salome"

"Саломея"

 

 To be continued..

41. Wings!

Choosing a topic for the next post, I looked through Victor's drawings and noticed a lot of wings. I think, this reflects his love of freedom, his adventurism and desire to travel around the world. One of my previous posts was about angels (#21), and there are some more of them, like in the following drawing, but it is not just angels this time.

 

"A Song of an Angel."

"Песня Ангела"

 

 

"Inspiration" 

"Вдохновение"

 

 

"A Flying Ship" 

"Летучий Корабль"

For the next drawing, I need to explain the title, although it has nothing to do with wings. I don't remember exactly how, but probably I was telling Victor something about my Geometry class, and the term "Quadrature of the circle" came up. Known also as "Squaring the circle," it's one of the famous unsolvable problems of antiquity. Victor sent me this drawing entitled "Cubature of the sphere". Being far from mathematics, he actually came up with the  title simply using analogy and expanding the wording from 2-D to 3-D. I've never heard of it, but checked it out, and I was very surprised to discover that this term  actually exist. The math behind was too complicated. So I am absolutely sure it is not what Victor meant...

"Cubature of the sphere" 

"Кубатура Шара"

 

"Untitled" 

"Без Названия"

 

"Wounded Eagle"

"Раненый Орел"

  

40. Challenge - 8: It is Actually About Me!

It is not obvious what unifies these drawings, why they are all in one post. One simple reason is that they were all sent to me within a few weeks, although some were made a long time ago, and some very recently. Another simple reason, pretty superficial, is that all of them have an image of a woman. More importantly, most of them were part of our "Game," Victor's responses to the themes I gave to him. My "assignments" this time were pretty vague and somewhat abstract, and his interpretations, as usually, were not that straight-farward, so it would be impossible to explain how each one responds to a particular theme.

I read a book about Japanese design, and one of its main principles was Perfection of Imperfection.   This idea impressed me because it was close to my sense of aesthetics. I shared it with Victor, and he sent me this drawing that was made awhile ago and actually depicted his friends. I can sense how it responds to the theme, but can't really explain it...

"Perfection of Imperfection"

"Совершенство Несовершенства"

This one is pretty simple. I told Victor that while driving Upstate NY and listening to music, I was singing aloud in my car, for the first time in my life. Why for the first time? First of all, I am rarely by myself in the car, and it was a lucky combination of songs that I like, great weather, anticipation of a good hike... So this was my theme, and this is his response.

While writing this, I suddenly realized that although this blog is definitely devoted to Victor ("My Friend, The Artist"), it is kind of about me as well. It took me only 40 posts to notice it!! Does it make me immodest? I guess...

"Desire to Sing"

"Петь Хочется"

The following theme came from my visit to the store REI in Soho, where I was buying gear for my week-long camping and hiking trip in Utah. Even after living in America for 18 years, I was shocked with the abundance of everything you can and cannot think about, and the task of choosing between dozens of brands, sizes, colors, prices and models of everything, from clothes and hats to sleeping pads and compasses. The drawing has nothing to do with the store, except the difficult task of choosing.

"Choice"

"Выбор"

I really don't remember what conversation caused the next theme, but it doesn't necessary require any background information.

"Past, Present, Future"

"Прошлое, Настоящее, Будущее"

The next one is actually pretty straight-forward. It's exactly what it's meant to be: I just told Victor that I had a happy day - for several material and immaterial reasons: my son found his first job, I was leaving to Utah next day, my school day was very satisfying. To make the day even happier, this was one of the rare occasions when Victor actually didn't find this drawing among thousands of what he had already had, but made a new one, although I am sure he could find many that would fit the theme.  

"Happy Day"

"Счастливый День"

39. Challenge - 7: How do you Draw Emotions.

A long time ago, in one of the first posts, I started showing Victor's drawings about various human states and emotions: Patience, Doubt, Despair, etc. He didn't necessary try to draw these particular feelings. As usually, when I gave him a theme based on something we talked about, or something I've experienced on that day, he would pick something from his work, name it accordingly, and send to me. Throughout the last couple of months, I received a few more of his drawings that fit this category.

When I give Victor a theme, I never know what to expect. I am thinking about a word, or an idea, in a certain way, but very rarely he finds something that matches my expectations. This is good, I guess, meaning his art is original and not predictable. More often he surprises me finding a totally unexpected twist of the theme I "assign." He may turn it into a joke, or play with words, or present some weird aspect of that very idea.

I gave him a theme - "Tenderness." I definitely didn't expect this, although I was amazed that in spite of ugliness and un-humanness of the creatures he drew, the feeling is so obvious here!

"Tenderness"

"Нежность"

Strangely, no twist in the following drawing. Or did I miss it?

"Jealousy"

"Ревность"

The following is not a drawing, but an applique. It is Victor's response to my theme "Remorse." In Russian, it is two words that would be closer translated as "gnawing of conscience." I couldn't argue with it, because we clearly see at least gnawing... I asked Victor when and why he made it, and he answered that it was a long time ago, when he was actually bitten by a dog.



"Gnawing of Conscience"

"Угрызения Совести"

The next theme was "Selfishness," or "Egotism." That's what Victor sent to me:

"Egotism"

"Егоизм"

I said that it wouldn't work: clearly, I meant this at a personal level, not in the political sense. Next day he sent me another version. I remember this drawing since the 1990's, and I doubt it had anything to do with selfishness. But surprisingly, if you think about it, it really does.

 

"Egotism"

"Егоизм"



38. Spirals attack!

A few weeks ago I noticed (but since then didn't have time to make this post!) that spirals followed me everywhere!  It probably started with the mugs that I made based on Victor's design. I wrote about this design in older posts, but I'll repeat it briefly here. When I took a ceramics class at Columbia University, Victor sent me this drawing that he made long time ago, not even imagining it would ever be implemented in clay.

Since then, I have made at least three attempts to bring this mug to life, every time messing up either glazing, or shape, or both. Finally, I made two mugs right before Victor came to New York in April, and gave one to him. They still weren't perfect, but my free course ended, unfortunately. Soon after that my daughter visited me, and after I showed her the mug, she noticed that it actually repeated the pattern on the rug in my living room. It's interesting that I walk there many times a day and never notice!

Of course, I wouldn't have started a blog post just for this reason. But around the same time Victor sent me this drawing made the day after he returned to Ukraine. Does my (his?) mug have anything to do with it? There is no way to tell. He never answers when I ask him questions like this. All I know that at that time he didn't know about the rug discovery.

After I received this drawing, I told him that I felt that spirals surrounded me, so I needed to make a post about them, and asked if he had any other drawings with spirals. This is the first time ever that I actually asked him to send me something specifically for the blog. He sent a few of his drawings with spirals in them with the comment that a spiral is one of the richest and most ornamental symbols. No wonder it's so common.

  

On top of all of this, in my Math Club last week we discussed spirals associated with the Fibonacci Numbers. This omnipresence of spirals is really scary!

I am not a symbologist and not going to analyze the meaning of spirals; this blog for me is just a way to present my friend's drawings in a somewhat connected and meaningful way.

37. Happy Mother's Day!

I don't need to invent a topic today - it's obvious. And I can always rely on diversity of Victor's topics - there will always be something on any topic, even though in Ukraine there is no Mother's Day as such. They celebrate March 8th which is Women's Day, whether it's a mother or any important woman in your life. But you don't need a special day to celebrate the miracle of motherhood.

These drawings don't really need comments and even titles, but I'll keep the titles that Victor gave them when he sent them to me, all at different times and on different occasions.

 Mother

 Madonna 1

Madonna 2 

Holy Mother 

 

The following two drawings can also (arguably) be placed on this page. Birds don't celebrate Mothers's Day, but we - human mothers - know exactly how they feel.