A small body of work in painting tunes to something in my own body and sparks an emotional/physical response. I had that just yesterday, and, unusually (for me), it was for once easy, easy, easy to understand why that connection had sparked.

This painting by Rusu Ciobanu reminded me so strongly of my mother's work. There is the Eastern European element, for sure, and although the brushwork here is harder, or harsher, than my mom's, immediately on seeing this portrait, I knew this artist had worked this painting just as my mother would have done, in a studio with her subject in front of her, looking at and intuitively adjusting proportion and color, and winnowing away the extraneous details.

I love the marginally small, intense head, the big sensuous hands. The dead (possibly) Soviet architecture outside the window. I would love to talk to my mother about this painting, and see what she thinks. Unfortunately that conversation has no longer been an option, not since May of 2018.

Last year, Rusu Ciobanu's family still had her with them for those conversations (even though cataracts have long past cut short her painting life). There's a substantive article in the Calvert Journal (elements of which seem scrounged from this Romanian-language piece at Scena9) which touches through the major arcs of her life and art career.  I'm not surprised to feel the additional detail I've learned slotting into my mental landscape, locking down my interest in both her life and paining. This is an artist who has lived through "interesting times": A 19th century manqué Romanian rural childhood; the transition to portraiture of the Soviet collectives of the 1960s. And then, mature intellectual rebellion as she cemented her home in Chișinău, Moldova's capital city, hosted the Moldovan equivalent of a salon--a hidden, artful garden, within the concrete city--and began producing portraits of the artists and intellectuals of that grouping.

So--2020 was Valentina Rusu Ciobanu's centennial. Retired now, and living still in her secluded Chișinău home, she roused herself for the interviews and retrospective public attention of a world of art that came knocking at her door, belatedly, with a fresh world of change. What does a 100 year old person think about her art? Her "playful potraiture," as one modern reviewer described it?

A fair amount, it would seem, about a past, and a life, that was so sharply cut away from her by the geopolitics of the 1940s. "She paints like a fox," an admirer observes. Through her paintings, her harmless old lady comments twist under the weight of now long past decades of Soviet oppression. "People are all the same,” she says, on her centenary. But what really do those words mean?

Her son, Lică Sainciuc, comments that she has always been a story teller, describing the time that he, and she, spied a horse-drawn sleigh as they walked together in town. "Let's take it," she told him. "Who knows when we'll see another one."

The portrait above left, of her neighbor, was not the spontaneous moment of observation we think we see. To create this portrait, Rusu Ciobanu borrowed traditional Romanian-style clothes from a local museum. She did not stop there. Rusu Ciobabu wore the outfit herself to a Soviet-run artists' conference in Kyiv. To Rusu Ciobabu, the clothes were not museum pieces. They were part of something, in Soviet Moldova, that was at risk of vanishing. For wearing these 'historical' clothes, she was formally rebuked. 

One translation of her centenary exhibition has the title "Valentina Rusu Ciobanu - A Century of Loneliness.” Another "Valentina Rusu Ciobanu - one hundred years since birth." Can both translations be simultaneously correct? I feel the tense dance in her work between conformity to the arbitrary system that surrounded her, and her internal flight above those earthly cares. For Rusu Ciobanu, that dance was, is, a highly defined series of needles to be swiftly threaded, imposed by an authoritarian and threatening government. A folklore maiden facing the impossible tasks imposed by an wicked sorcerer could hardly have managed the task more deftly.

Rusu Coibana painted many, many interesting surrealist images, which I highly recommend taking some time looking over, if that is the work that speaks to you (I think valentinarusuciobanu.com, is the official site). For myself, at this day and time, I like, best the portrait of Dumitru Fusu.

I wonder what styles and forms will speak to me a decade from now, if I'm still here and moving forward in time on this journey of my own.

I got intrigued. The limits of the internet fascinate me.  And the more I looked for Kochergin images, the more I realized how familiar I was with his imagery.  To some extent, he has the corner on classic Russian fairytale imagery.  He owes a debt to Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942)--one of those innocent, tremendous "Golden Age of Illustration" artists who got caught up in weird Central European Nationalism (much to the detriment of their illustrations, I'd put Alphonse Mucha in this category also). But from what I can tell, Kochergin is a creature of a different generation.

I say "from what I can tell," because the internet isn't telling me anything about these next pieces, except that they are all images created by artists named, variously, "N. Kochergin," "Nikolai Kochergin," and "Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin," all of whom appear to have lived 1897-1974. I am pretty sure that these are all the same person. But--this is just from the internet, so maybe not.  In any case, Kochergin's images:

And then come these (POSTCARDS: 1960s. N. KOCHERGIN). Okay, I can see the Social Realism influence here, but there's a step (in history) that I'm feeling gets glossed over:

What was the progression from the young man who created the top image to the old(er) man who created these last images? I don't know if it would make a book. But it's something I'd like to know something more about.

Snihurónka is the Ukrainian Snow Maiden, companion to Did Moróz, Grandfather Frost.

Moróz has been identified with Morozko, the pre-Christian pan-Slavic personification of the snow (an animistic spirit, god, or demon, depending on your perspective), but it is widely accepted that his companion, Snihurónka, dates back only to the 19th century, and Alexander Afanasyev's 1869 ""The Poetic Outlook of Slavs about Nature."

I have yet to resolve to my own satisfaction why this should be. Afanasyev is, effectively, the Russian equivalent of the Grimm brothers, and his folktale collection techniques, where "he never tried to give any definitive version of a folktale: so, if he gathered 7 versions of one folk type, he edited them all,"* is considered to have been intellectually sophisticated and ahead of its time. Why Snihurónka should be relegated as Afanasyev's personal invention, rather than one among many folk figures that he collected--I have not seen the scholarship that tells me this is anything other than bias against the story--the Moróz figure, in other cultures, does not have a female companion.

Very little is known definitively about Slavic mythology, but one thing that is known is that the Slavic pantheon was full of unusual gender assignments, gods who are variously represented as female or male in different times and locations, and god-pairs with male and female partners. So--why not Did Moróz and Snihurónka?

Now, there are several artists I know whose life and work gives a viewer or reader moments of pause, in which it seems one is viewing/reading/experiencing something close to "perfectionism" snared. 

Terri Windling, who has maintained studios in Arizona, US, and Devon, UK, is one of those individuals.

Seriously--could there be anything more perfect than these images of her working space?  The books?  The drawings?  The tapestry?

(photos from Terri's blog entry, click the link below for the original page and context)

This said--the subject of Terri's post, and the wisdom with which she observes the topic...

"The ability to view one's own work critically is, of course, a necessary skill; but when healthy discernment turns into destructive self-judgment, there is usually a persistent "perfectionism" in the mix....and although some folks boast of this, believe me, perfectionism is Not Your Friend...."

Go and have a read.  She's collected a number of people's thoughts on the topic, and a lot of them are good ones--great ones--& inspiring.

Okay. This is for anyone who love comics.

First:
read the week's worth of cartoon strips that starts here:
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/06/02

Second:
take a look at Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis's Facebook post of June 6, 2014--and follow the link through to read to his blog post about the same topic.
https://www.facebook.com/PearlsComic

The old proverb:  "the shoe-maker's children run barefoot" doesn't always hold true.  Indeed, one of the delights of growing up in an artistic household is the fact that some of the furnishings and surroundings are unique, hand- made items that perform good service and enrich a home's comfort.

I had the good fortune to grow up in such a household.  Whether it was carved rhinoceri, miniature toy dogs, a dollhouse with a beautiful cupola, or numerous household items, my Dad kept his family well-supplied when his children were young, and continues this work to this day.

He originally constructed and carved this chair in 1963 for my oldest brother; it has since been used by all his children and grandchildren. 

The tray had needed refurbishing for a number of years; Dad recently completed this work over the summer and photographed the results.

Click here to see how beautifully the piece cleaned up.