Works of heArt

Just as I was going to write a lamenting post about how I am tired of this endless winter, the sun came out and the rest of snow is melting and everything seems cheerier.

Since quite a long time I planned to post the painting of a Kulobi dancer which I finished last spring. Kulob is a region in Tajikistan where ancient traditions are kept sacredly from generation to generation. Their beautiful dances and colorful, hand-made clothes are captivating. So now I just have finished a “sister” painting of a Kulobi dancer – “On the market”. Both paintings measure 150 cm x 50 cm, medium: acrylic paint on cotton canvas.

They are not cutting edge contemporary art pieces, but warm memories that come from the heart, colorful souvenirs that can brighten up someone’s day.

Embroidered piece from Central Asia (Suzani). Designs often include flowers and circular forms signifying the sun.

 Have a sunny weekend.

Love,

AB

Getting smart or Tales of the Jazz Age

I need a new phone. Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking, but really, I NEED one, because my old Sony Ericsson is in bits and I cannot hear a thing when I am in a noisy public place. OK, it  does have many buttons - apparently it is something not very “in” right now (how was I supposed to know? Buttons are still perfectly cool in my world). It is time to go for a smartphone. 

I don’t know why, but somehow iPhone seems like a logical choice (because of the iTunes lark,  for the biggest part). So here I am, standing in front of an Apple store in Zürich feeling totally intimidated and unsure of myself. It seems like all those quirky looking people darting in and out of the store have a special aura: of knowing the difference between…hmmm….ah, just knowing the difference.

 Image: www.iphonemag.ch

I dive – literally – dive into the store (to avoid the danger of changing my mind and pressing buttons for another decade) and bump into a friendly young creature called Raphael-the-assistant. I explain. He sympathises. I look around and see a nice iPhone 3G: smooth design, acceptable price. Raphael-the-young-creature-the-assistant looks tense, he is obviously upset: I choose the wrong stuff (of course)! 

He explains to me that in a year this model will be FOUR years old (it's my turn to sympathise now: in his life calendar four years take lots of space ;-). Raphael takes me by the hand (figuratively speaking) and brings me to an iPhone 4G – masculine, angular and somewhat overpriced. I patiently (and as cheerful as possible while eyeing the exit) explain that I am coming from a world where buttons are still perfectly cool, that acquiring an iPhone 3 is a huge - I repeat - huge leap forward. He sympathises again and calls his colleague to join him in an effort of converting me into an iPhone 4 kind of person.  

Luckily the other assistant is nearly half my age as well, so the forces are equal. It is a matter of a principle  for me (plus the smooth design, the acceptable price…), and I am holding my grounds , and they surrender, hang their heads and lead me to the check out. Oh no, of course I do NOT need a case! (Why should I hide the “retro” beauty of my iPhone 3?)

Day passes in what seems to be useless fiddling with my new toy necessary equipment, but in 24 hours here I am, sitting in a café, sipping my cappuccino and “talking” simultaneously to my friends , scattered between Tadjikistan and Mexico, and in short pauses scanning through "Tales of the Jazz age" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, downloaded from iBooks, while keeping one eye on my train schedules - yet through another iPhone application. I am feeling very -VERY - modern and “smart”, so let Raphael laugh, and tell stories to his friends about a clueless girl with a rotary dial phone he met yesterday. 

Have a good weekend everybody.

Love,

AB

Bright Thoughts

Ouch! I have been diagnosed with a BSD! Never heard of it? Oh, yes, you had to: Beautiful Spring Disorder?.. Symptoms? Hmm… Severe laziness, uncontrollable daydreaming, and atrophy of shame for all of the above. :-) (Nothing  new, heh?) Ok, seriously now, it’s wonderful outside isn’t it? But I have been trying to working and my Kulobi dancer is nearly finished and my summer atelier is cleaned up nicely. 

See, my summer atelier in winter is an “I-am-too-lazy-and-it’s-too-cold-to-go-to-the-cellar-so-I-ll-leave-this-here” kind of place, so…lots to do in April. But this newly arranged cosiness doesn’t help, mind you; all I want to do is lie on my oriental bed and look out of the window and listen to all the insane birds singing outside, and imagine all the exciting things this spring is preparing for us, and visualising finally burning bringing to the cleaners my grey winter coat, and putting on something like that:    

Ah, if I only had those legs! (Sigh.) These are creations of Mary Katrantzou, a fabulous designer I have discovered today. Ok, I agree, these pieces are kinda hard to pull off  (especially if you are a guy), but aren’t they lovely? After her Spring 2011 show Katrantzou said: "With this collection, I wanted to put the room on the woman, rather than the woman in the room". She also says, she'd been looking at the highly stylized seventies photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin when it occurred to her that the interiors in the pictures were just as important as the models. And guess where the images of these interiors are coming from? From old issues of Architectural Digest!

And if in her Spring 2011 collection a woman tries on an interior filled with beautiful objects, in her Fall collection the woman IS a beautiful object:

Don’t these images make you think of Fabergé eggs, Ming porcelain vases, and mistresses of the Luis XIV?..  “Everything about man should be beautiful: the face, the clothes, the soul and the thoughts,” wrote Anton Chekhov. Mary Katrantzou would probably agree, don't you? :-)
 

Have a lovely weekend, everybody, - bright and filled with magnificent things!

Love,

AB

 

The Power of Place

Returning home from far away places is always good; returning home with the latest copy of Architectural Digest sitting on the mail stand is even better :-). That means the far away places come to you – all at once! “The power of place” is the title of the last issue featuring eight beautiful homes around the globe.  

I have been a raging fan of the AD magazine for ten years now, and it never ceases to surprise.  A team of talented writers and photographers labour on each issue to make is special. Passion for design and beauty shines through every picture, every line. AD taught me to appreciate mid-century design and to love lived-in things, showed me how to look at objects from a different angle, and  dare to combine uncombinable. 

Photo: by Marina Faust, published April 2005, AD magazine

Not everything I am onto is a success, but the process of cutting, re-painting, and re-stretching is fun on its own.  The last attempt is a winner I think, so I dare to post a couple of pictures. When a friend moved to a new apartment, I “inherited” her grandmother’s PFAFF sewing machine. It looked something like this one by Adler...

No, I wasn’t going to become a seamstress; the idea was to make a table for my bedroom. First I removed the machine leaving the wooden base, but it looked heavy and dated. So a couple of days ago I went radical, removing the whole wooden structure and replacing it with a thick glass with round corners. Voila! The surface is much larger now, the table looks weightless and one can see all the nice a little dusty cast iron details. :-)

 I wish you a constructive weekend!

Love,

AB

Love and other impossible pursuits

101^st reason why I love travelling is that I can watch movies without feeling guilty for the loss of time… Today it's a drama with Natalie Portman “Love and other impossible pursuits” (very suitable title for my spirits today). What else is left to do if you are stuck in the hotel, and the much needed trip to the desert of forbidden art didn’t happen?.. 

 I travelled to Tashkent as soon as I got some feedback from the Nukus Art Museum: the director of the museum Marinika Babanazarova swiftly responded to my e-mail with a warm welcoming note…but it was a little too late, all flight tickets to Nukus were sold out, I even rushed to the airport in a desperate attempt, but all was in vain. For a moment I contemplated  aircraft hijacking, but what could I threaten the pilots with, my brushes?   

Somewhere between Khojent and Tashkent...

"The desert of forbidden art" has to wait.  I forgot to mention, that it's a name of a film about the amazing story of the  Savitsky Collection, created by Amanda Pope & Tchavdar Georgiev. 

 Image from www.desertofforbiddenart.com

"The Desert of Forbidden Art is, itself, a work of art about the art world," says ABOUT.COM. Here you can find the list of next screenings . 

P.S. I take it back! I take all the whining back!!! Spending the whole afternoon at the State Museum  of Arts of Uzbekistan calmed my nerves…or was it a glass of highly overpriced Georgian wine?

Image from www.caravan-one.uz 

The 102^nd reason why I love travelling is extravagant meals in the middle of the day (not that something stops me on a regular afternoon…). See, travelling is stressful (or so they say) and the best way to find comfort in any a strange place is drinks FOOD. Especially if it is served in the middle of an art gallery… Caravan One is an art gallery and a fine restaurant of traditional Uzbek and European cuisine - strongly recommended (check the wine prices though!).

 

Mural painting. Varakhsha. VIIth century.State museum of Arts, Tashkent 

So, back to the State Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan…It is located in a huge marble (maybe a tad too monumental) palace. I knew exactly where I needed to go –  the Avant-garde section. Definitely is not Nukus, but I made a few discoveries indeed. Two paintings by Kandinsky hung modestly  by the window… 

  

Kandinsky V.V.Composition on yellow. 1920. 

 

Kandinsky V.V. Composition. 1920.   

But my absolute favorite was an Uzbek avant garde  artist of Russian origin Alexandr Volkov (1886 - 1957).

Volkov, Aleksandr Nikolayevich. Pomegranate colored  tea room.

1924, Oil on canvas,  105 х 116 (This Volkov's painting belongs to the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow )

There was also a nice antique shop by the museum, where I found a great book and a small graphic by a local artist.  

Agapov. Ink on Paper, 20cm x 20 cm, Ca. 1970.

So it was a good day after all. Time to pack, my plane is leaving in a few hours. See you in the West!

Love,
AB