Katya Reimann, Writer & Artist
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--Katya Reimann, 2022--

Katya has been telling stories, building worlds, and creating the art to go with them for most of her life.  
 
The content of these pages reflect her diverse interests over time

Ornamental Beadwork

11/28/2018

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A friend got in touch recently about my beaded Christmas ornaments. I'd taken a break, because the process is too hand intensive. I've given myself carpel tunnel symptoms more than once, working on these pieces--and I believe that I am never going to do one as big as this big boy again. It's 3" diameter, and I really didn't give proper thought to what this meant about the spherical surface area until I was well along! But--am glad to be revisiting these again.

Check out some other ornaments (if you haven't already done so) on my Artwork/Beadwork page.
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Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin (1897-1974)

11/24/2018

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All I know about Kochergin: something in his fairytale illustrations appeals to me. I came across this illustration yesterday.  It is a cropped image from a postcard that someone sold awhile back on Etsy.

I find this illustration humorous. Yes, that fox looks like he's in trouble (yes, I'm quite certain that foolish fox is a he), equally, I'm quite sure that he's going to come out of the situation scathed, but perhaps wiser.

I can't find out anything else online about the Fairy Tale (or, the thing I'd really like to see, an uncropped verstion of this illustration).
Russian Folk Tale
Russian Folk Tale "The Fox and The Eagle" - N. Kochergin, 1963
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:

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A 1920 ANTI CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA POSTER BY NIKOLAI KOCHERGIN (RUSSIAN 1897-1974)
EGE KAPITALISTU GORE, ZAGONIM EVO V CHERNOE MORE [Aha Sorrow to the Capitalist, We Will Drive Him Into the Black Sea], color lithograph, 1920, initialed in plate, 70 x 105.5 cm (27 1/2 x 41 1/2 in.)
SOVIET WWII PROPAGANDA POSTCARD, PUBLISHED IN LENINGRAD DURING THE BLOCKADE. ARTIST N. KOCHERGIN
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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:
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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.
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Snihurónka

10/19/2018

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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?

The archetypal nature of the icy grandfather, ceding way to his more delicate grand-daughter--who melts away in spring, cycling back to repeat out of the depths of each winter... it feels to me that something deeper (and older) is at work here than a late Imperial Russian fantasy.
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"L'Étang" :: French Words

3/20/2018

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Small frog in large pond
I am currently going through a French language obsession. Or, more precisely, a French word obsession. In trying to understand why, I'm seeing myself loitering (with great pleasure) at the building blocks stage of things.

I'm very much enjoying these Sicklemoon decks on Tinycards (that's a vocabulary App, a subsidiary of the language learning Duolingo program, and a log in is probably needed to see them). Each of these decks, like a sort of "sonnet plus one," has fifteen entries, each on a closely related theme. I think that's related to the way the program is set up, but to me, they are like fifteen word poems, introducing me, almost from a child's point of view, to snippets of French life: "Les Animaux de L'Étang." "Les Animaux de la Plage." "Les Fruits de la Forêt."

The pond one is a particular favorite (also the berries). Who needs to know the French words for waterstrider and whirlygig beetle? Evidently... me.

They're words--they are names--in an Ursula K. Le Guin sort of sense. Knowing the names... I think that still bestows real power--even if only a brief flare of it.

And... drat. The formatting has cropped off the accent aigu from the capital "E" of étang.




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Delusions of Spring

1/31/2018

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Actually, I was tidying something boring and this sketchbook turned out to have been shoved in there by mistake.

I'm pleased that it turned up, and really like what I'd forgotten I had drawn.
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Marie Bashkirtseff: the journal of a young artist, 1860-1884

4/25/2017

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I'm reading the "New and Revised" edition of 1919. My understanding is that there's a good, more recent, complete e-edition out (from Fonthill Press), an edition which restores all the "rampantly expurgated and cleansed" bits that her mother took out before allowing the work's publication.

Oh yes. Given the mischief I've read already on the page, I'm definitely intrigued to dip into Fonthill's unexpurgated bits, but... I'm also curious about the text that became a bestseller in Europe in 1887 (three years after Bashkirtseff's death)--the text, evidently, that held a beloved place of pride on the shelves of many a young educated woman of a certain class in the years before and after WWI.
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Thus far, the book has lived up to my expectations. So far, Marie is 16 years old, and I have moved only a little on from her early entries as a precocious 13 year old. But what an odd privilege, to read the words of this petted young woman, as she rackets around some fine estates in Italy and France:
[May—in Nice]
Paris—At last I have found what I longed for without knowing what it was! Life, that is Paris! Paris, that is life.... Nice—I regard Nice as an exile....

[September—in Paris]
Here there is neither morning nor evening. In the morning they are sweeping; in the evening the innumerable lights irritate my nerves... While at Nice one is comfortable! It is as if one were in a nest surrounded by mountains, not too high or too bare... I love Nice. Nice is my country...
Something tells me that both Nice and Paris must have been nice... in 1873, when Marie was living there.

Marie is known best these days for her journal, which she herself predicted... and somewhat for her paintings. She did some very fine paintings--not enough of which are on the internet (as of 2017). Here's hoping that will be rectified in the next couple of years.  I very much like these portraits.
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Thomas Andrews's Mount Auburn Cemetery Posts

11/8/2016

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My friend Thomas Andrews periodically posts short pieces, with photos, about his walks in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.  I love these pieces, which constitute brief rambles through a scenery with which I am intimately familiar.  Mt. Auburn, the first landscaped rural or “garden” cemetery in the United States, was founded in 1831 on a site that spread along the Cambridge and Watertown, MA line.

In honor of election day 2016 (US), I am reproducing here (with permission) his entries from today.  Text and photos, unless otherwise credited, are all Thomas's.

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Meandering Paths at Mount Auburn--Ann Chapman (click photo for linked source)

Less than 100 years ago, Helen Taussig was allowed to take medical classes at BU and Harvard, but not allowed to earn a medical degree from either school. Her Harvard histology professor only allowed her to take his class if she did not talk to any classmates, for fear of "contaminating" them.

She eventually got her MD at Johns Hopkins.

She was part of the team, with Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, who invented the first heart surgery, solving a common heart issue common to newborns.



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©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Helen Brooke Taussig, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.
©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Dorothy Dix, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.
©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Dorothy Dix, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.

Dorothea Dix worked tirelessly for the more humane treatment of the mentally ill.

During the Civil War, she was the Superintendent of Army Nurses.

She was never allowed to vote.

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The Year is 1844...

1/28/2016

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Equally, I could title this post, "cool things you find on the internet."

Here are the passenger landing cards for the first Reimanns in my family to arrive in America. 

It's not really useful information.  I believe "Jean Key" was the name of an owner, and not of the actual vessel, there's no port of embarkation (family lore says Bremen), and the names are somewhat wrong.  This Ludwig and Attillia Reiman went on their tombstones as "Phillip Ludwig and Maria Ottilia Reimann"--so I come by that second 'n' in my name honestly, or at least it's been used by my particular family for ~150 years.

But, although these cards lack an influx of really good new information, looking at these cards, one thing struck me: my understanding is that Ludwig and Maria Ottilia were not people of great means.  Ludwig's occupation "mechanic" was more a sort of a class competency than a profession (think: the 'mechanicals' in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, not car engines).  Yet somehow they arranged for their entire family to travel to America together.  Phillip, one of their older children, was already married to Margaret (listed on his "accompanied by, line, following his parents), and sister Barbara, also traveling in the group, was married just four years later, in 1848.  What prompted this middle-aged couple to pick themselves up and move here?  War?  A draft? A prospect of a better life?  It's true that, on arriving, the family traveled straight to Buffalo, settled there, and prospered.  But the family did know know that was going to happen when they set foot upon that ship.

I'm 50 this year.  Four years older than Maria Ottilia.  As I sit here, typing to you on this marvelous machine, I stretch my imagination to consider selling my possessions, and moving with my husband and children to a new country.  Chidren--I have three.  Would they all want to come with me?  Even if the stakes were high, and they knew they might not see me again?  My great-great-grandmother: she had 10, and all 6 of the survivors came to America with her on this ship. 

What was so wrong with where she was living that she, that they, made this choice?
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Terri Windling's "Perfectionism" post

8/31/2015

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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.

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When Every Day is Judgment Day, Terri Windling's 'Myth & Moor' blog post, January 7, 2015
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Tape Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota II

5/4/2015

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On Saturday, May 2, from 12:00 - 4:00, I demonstrated tape sculpture techniques, and showed some of my tape sculptures.  My focus was on teaching museum visitors to build tape sculptures using:

Armatures

 (a structural framework over which other materials can be mounted.  It remains embedded within the sculpture when the sculpture is complete)
and

Forms

(a stabilizing structure over which a sculpture can be built. When the sculpture is complete, it is removed from the form)
The staff at the Science Museum of Minnesota was incredibly helpful and did everything they could to make my time enjoyable.  The visitors were a terrific group, and very adventurous.  Some beautiful bowls were created (form sculpures), and a variety of creative masks, animals, spaceships, and flowers.

Thanks are due to all who participated and made it such a great experience.
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    Garden

    Sites I recommend

    These ones are maintained by long-time personal friends.

    William Reimann
    is a consummate artist.  There are so many images to enjoy on this site.  His carved wooden long-leaf red pine Rhinoceros (which he made for me when I was ~11 years old)  is a personal favorite.

    Starless River
    Is the U.K. based caving gear store run by serious hard-ass Tony Seddon. This link goes to the 'caves' section of the store's site--complete with alarming portrait photo of Tony ("After 7 days underground and 700m prussiking").

    The Oxford University 
    Cave Club
    Maintained by Steve Roberts, a guy who is extraordinary in so many ways, I'll just limit myself here to saying "Steve is a man who knows about motors."

    Bensozia
    John Bedell is an archaeologist, historian, and father of five living in Maryland. His blog is a fascinating grab-bag of historical, artistic, and political materials.  This entry about work and leisure gives a good example of his voice.

    Earthsign Studios
    This is Liz Manicatide (now Liz LaManche), principal at Emphasis Creative's personal art & graphics site.  I love Liz's work, panache, and aerial artistry, which leads me to-

    Flying Squirrel Consortium
    Phil Servita's site, and the place to go for custom fabricated circus equipment (either freestanding or fixed point), and aerial classes, if you happen to live in the area.

    Paul Nordberg
    Paul's site is... unique, authentic, & expressive, and pretty much exactly what I think of when I think of a website as an artform.

    Metro Bikes Trails Guide
    (St. Paul, MN)
    "Reviews and Reports on over 70 bicycle paths in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area!"
    Maintained by the tireless Seamus Flynn, and a great little site for those local to the Twin Cities area.

    Green Ivy
    I enjoy the Ukrainian/Russian artisanship on this website.

    Sites I enjoy

    I don't know these people, but I appreciate their work.

    What's That Bug?
    The title says it all.  A useful site for both the non-bug-phobic & the consummate bug-phobe.

    Margaret & Helen
    Best Friends for Sixty Years and Counting…

    Raging Grannies
    I'm not a grandmother (or raging!), but I appreciate this site.  Especially the fact-checking part.
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