Object as Talisman

I love writing almost as much as I do painting, so when Anne Hevener of Artists Magazine invited me to write a guest feature about still life, I was delighted. At publication she did me the great honor of featuring quite a few paintings in large reproduction alongside the text. It ran in the September-October issue of 2024, this year.

An Award, A Visitation, An Article

Happy (almost) summer to each of you. We are on our way to a month of painting in Maine, and my heart trembles with eagerness for the sound of the ocean, and the long, quiet days.

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Before I begin the news, I want to welcome each of you to “An ARTful Life: Curious conversations about the way humans make and use Art.”

What does a curator do? How do museums function? We will find out this and more LIVE this Tuesday, 4 June, at noon EST on LinkedIn live, and on my IG @hefferlin. Our wonderful guest will be Chief Curator Nandini Makrundi of the Hunter Museum of American Art.

A live video conversation about ART, the best thing EVER!!!!!

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I write to you from a hotel in Chadd’s Ford, PA where today Daud and I visited the Brandywine Museum, enjoying the magnificent works of three generations of artists, both men and women. It was a real shot in the arm to see so many beloved paintings in person, and to see new pieces. And beyond that, the STUDIOS of both N. C., Caroline and Andrew Wyeth!! I choked all up. The characters of the artists was so perceptible in the rooms, and the light… I could go on and on.

The easel painting studio of NC Wyeth. Beyond, down some stairs, is his mural studio. Chadds Ford PA

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So that’s the Visitation.

The Award was a First Place win from Oil Painters of America summer online showcase. The great thing about online shows is that I don’t have to ship or frame a painting, and I can “show” a sold painting. I’m really thankful to OPA for this nod to my still life “After the Sorrow,” which is now in a private collection in Tennessee.

After the Sorrow | oil on linen | 34 x 34 in | 2024

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And now to Daud for the Article: Watercolor Artist honored the love of my life with a beautiful article about his works on paper in the Summer 2024 issue. Many of these pieces are available at Cutter & Cutter Fine Art, and I could not be more proud. I think Daud is one of our best living watercolorists. That’s something great that came out of the Soviet art educational system!

Enjoy your week, and do something creative with people you love!

Gone Walkabout, and what I discovered.

I had the most relaxing and restorative two-week drive around the American West. I’ve always loved a road trip, either with someone I like or alone. This was a solo journey.

My first stop was at Oil Painters of America's National Convention in Missouri to fix a frame that broke in transit, and it allowed me to scoop up all kinds of amazing paint at discount from Michael Harding, the great British oil paint guru.

Lucas, Kansas was my next stop, where I marveled in stunned curiosity about the folk art installation called, “The Garden of Eden” from about 1919.

I then continued West to Castle Rock Colorado, where I enjoyed visiting my first roommate from 40 years ago. Nancie and her husband James have a fabulous wine bar, Crush, which you must visit. It's a friendly yet sophisticated place, much like Nancie, whom I remember with a purple buzz cut and spiky accessories. (Do not ask what she remembers about me...) James will find the wine for you WITHOUT FAIL.

I drove northward to Denver and the Vandewater sisters, friends from highschool, who showed me the Denver Art Museum, Cherry Creek and the lovely Sax Gallery. With Amy and fam we watched the eclipse, which I heartily enjoyed, and then we bathed in the Indigenous Peoples collection at the DAM.

Watching the Eclipse in Cheeseman Park, sans glasses

Loving on the 7th floor Hennings at the Denver Art Museum

With artist Lynn Vandewater we visited Denver Art Museum’s collection of Western art, which was dazzling!!!

After that I drove through Vernal Utah, seeing fantastic dinosaur bones, as well as spending a sunrise alone with petrogyphs from the Fremont people of 300-1000 CE. I was totally inspired. 

And finally, a stop with family friend Jennifer Jordan, author, filmmaker and wonderful human.

Then Daud was getting pneumonia, and I had to scamper home. If you can call driving for three days “scampering.”

One remarkable consistency about my trip was Americans being kind to me, a woman alone on the road. Gas station attendants, shop keepers, fellow hikers.... Everyone was so helpful. I felt lucky, and reconnected with the Heartland.

But why, you may wonder, was I circling the country away from my family? Not painting? Construction is the answer!!!!!

Daud knows I hate construction, and my studio needed to be disassembled in order to build a new, 25' foot wall in the bank hall to stop the falling sand, and to make hanging art easier.

Plywood going up over brick

Sheetrock up over plywood

Being painted

The crew, so good!

Speaking of Daud, upon my arrival the coughing and feverish artist had tried to surprise me by creating a new mosaic for the portal between the bank’s kitchen and vault room. It’s not done yet, and there’s much patching, cleaning and grouting to do, but WOW!!!

WIP, of course, but already lush….

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Thank you so much for accompanying me through this recollection of my road trip. I hope your Spring is wonderful, and that you’ll join me and Nina Froriep for our second episode of “An Artful Life: Curious conversations about how people make and use Art.” These artistic conversations are about 40 minutes long.

Our May 1 guest is architect Heidi Hefferlin, celebrating 25 years of HK Architects, and we are going to figure out how Art and Architecture intersect to enrich our lives. Bring your questions!

An Artful Life | Season 1 episode 2 | May 1 at noon on LinkedIn live, and later on YouTube

Yours with best wishes this beautiful Spring,

Every think about Public Art?

Public Art is something the USA does only erratically. Well-placed public art can unify and focus a community. The Statue of Liberty is a piece of public art. The Eiffel Tower. Abraham Lincoln in Washington DC. These pieces of art bind us together, and make public space welcoming to each visitor. “Look,” the art says, “we hoped you would be here. Welcome.”

(You can get it wrong. In our Spanish village our station for the bullet trains has a large sculpture outside: a high tower of dirty and broken suitcases. The message the sculpture conveys about their freight handlers is alarming, and the station gets a C- for trying. It is at least a reliable conversation piece.)

Directly above, the tower of decaying luggage. RENFE station, Antequera Santa Ana, Spain

Thirty-three years ago my husband, recent MFA graduate Daud Akhriev from Ingushetia, agreed to emigrate with me to the USA. (How we met is another, wonderful, story.)

Very shortly upon arrival, a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation engaged his services for a large mural in their new community hall. As conservative protestants, Adventists had been against church ornamentation, so this was a real surprise, and a windfall. We were broke.

He completed the painting at exactly the time his family’s home in the former Soviet Union was hit by a shell in a civil war. His salary for the mural paid for their new home. Even though once again we were broke, we were also filled with gratitude for having been able to rescue his family from homelessness. It felt like a miracle.

I really like the painting, as does its congregation. Every time I see or think of that painting I fell blessed.

That’s what I have to say today about public art.

Do you have a favorite piece of public art in your community? I’d love to hear about it.

Daud Akhriev, “Wedding at Cana” 18 x 9 ft, oil on linen, at the Collegedale Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Tennessee.

Suffering Artists

Artists who are miserable create more profound work.

I believe this myth is untrue and destructive. Making art is work. It is a job. And humans work best in the long-term when they are rested, fed, loved and exercised. (I make us sound like pets. In these ways we are the same.)

And just like engineers, housekeepers and schoolteachers, or anyone else with a job, we can output great work under pressure and in bad circumstances, but this is not BECAUSE of the bad circumstances or pressure. And it cannot be maintained indefinitely.

However, as is true for all living beings, trauma and sorrow WILL touch artists’ lives. How does an artist’s creativity react to sorrow and trauma?

In the last two years my life has been darkened by two murders, the war in Ukraine, a loved one having a stroke and a loved one struggling with dependencies. Mourning for climate change. Israel and Gaza. I am responding in two ways. 



One way is by creating still lifes about the sorrow, which I try to make beautiful in a somber way. The other is through hand-pulled prints, where I feel able to speak a little more literally. I am inspired in these prints by Barry Moser by the Kathe Kollwitz (see below).

Because I cannot predict what images will be consoling to others, I try to make images that are meaningful to me.

Kathe Kollowitz / “Widow” / woodcut / 1921

Here’s a recent print of mine called “Invasion,” about a young woman who is having a normal day, refreshing her manicure after a bath. Instead of nice day outside her window, tanks are rolling in. Her life is going to change radically. To me the real vulnerability is in her being unclothed, and that she hasn’t noticed the tanks. Or she feels like she can change nothing. The dog seems to have an accurate grasp of their situation.

I understand that darker images are harder to live with, but for me, making them is important.

Hefferlin / “Invasion” / 27 x 27 inches / hand-pulled linocut print 2020

Happy New Year from the studio

I enjoyed my studio time in 2023 more than ever in the past. A gift of tail feathers has provided endless fodder for compositions, many of which will be debuting at our exhibition, “Parallel Journeys,” at Cutter & Cutter Fine Art on January 26th.
This is a little video of the painting I finished on New Year’s Eve, so my last of 2024. It was a puzzle for me to fit in the weave of the antique silk damask from Rabat, as well as the embroidery on top of the silk. Not to mention the iridescent feathers and glass. Weirdly, the way I found to represent the super-refined textures was through rough, direct brushwork, sometimes with canvas peeking through. I have not worked this way in decades. I’d love to hear what you think!!! Click here to email me your reaction, and your 2024 plans : )

New book, “Parallel Journeys,” will debut in person at the exhibition of the same name, but is also available to order HERE.

Sizzling Summer

It’s Heating Up out there

Hello dear friends and art lovers. I write to you from Andalusia, where I we are “enjoying” our fifth week of temperatures between 95-105 degrees. Let me assure you that we do all our errands and exercise before 10 am or after 9 pm. The balmy nights are the reward for surviving the sizzling days. We are well. We hope you are, too.

Family book of paintings, coming this winter

Hard-back book in conjunction with a large exhibition at Cutter & Cutter Fine Art opening January 26. Book to pre-order now for delivery first of the year.

I write with news.

We have a new book coming out, published by Cutter & Cutter Fine Art to accompany the 2024 exhibition in St. Augustine of the same name. Oliver Price at Komodo Creative designed it using around 50 images from each of us three artists. He also designed my last book. “Parallel Journeys” will be 168 pages about Daud, Timur and myself and the miracle of being able to work as a family, with overlapping vision. Essays by three gigantic women of words: Ann Patchett, Jennifer Jordan and Tamera Muente. Hardback, $50, available for pre-order now. The official release will be on January 26 at Cutter & Cutter Fine Art, but pre-order books will ship in time for Christmas.

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Other news

Sothebys NYC sold Daud’s Pastel “Glance” at their recent ARC auction. He sends thanks to both institutions, and looks forward to the next ARC Salon competition. We both do.

Laura Series: Laura / Pastel on Paper

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Eastern Regionals

I’m sending this small rabbit to Oil Painters of America’s Eastern Regionals exhibition and competition in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the Red Boudoir. Oil on Panel. She’s small…. maybe 8 inches wide. I need to measure her, obviously!

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In Closing

Daud and I hope that you and your loved ones have enjoyed the summer thus far, and that you will be in touch with news of your lives and projects, ideas and memories. We humans are story-seeking creatures! (quoting Samir Selmanovic.)

All the best!

Melissa

Pandemic in Venice and Venetian Microstories

The Venice Report

Daud (Akhriev) and I spent more than a month in Venice between May and July, harvesting inspiration from the heart of Venice, Italy, while it was relatively empty from pandemic lock-down. I focused on imagining small dramas unfolding in pen and ink drawings, to be later converted to paintings, prints and scarves. Daud spent his days on non-stop plein air painting. By the time we left he was on small-talk terms with a large portion of the gondoliers because they spent the days in the street together. I was the same with the fishmongers, silk venders and other shopkeepers whom I haunted in search of still life objects and textiles. The trip was one I’ll never forget, and I hope that the images pass on the magic to you. See the Venetian work presented on this Cutter & Cutter digital unveiling.

Or jump directly to Melissa’s Venetian drawings or Daud’s plein air work from Venice.

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Backstory Competition

This hand-pulled print proof was cut into a sheet of rubber and the print pulled in Venice, based on a drawing of the same name. I had an idea about a backstory for this woman with her shopping bag and her stripes, but I released a competition for a 100-word microstory for her. The winner was to be chosen by Daud Akhriev, and the prize was an original print on Japanese kozo or unryu paper. We ended up with TWO WINNERS. Thank you to each participant. I loved them all. Here are the submissions, formatted identically for consistency:

1. Sofia sensed the sound of traditional Italian opera. It was full of improvisation, with ascending and descending notes creating the emotion she remembered from her grandmother’s record player. she moved to the edge of Ponte de Chiodo - the only bridge in Venice without railings - to determine the source of the music. It grew louder as a lone gondolier approached, and he raised his hat. ‘Signora, would you like a trip aboard my gondola - your striped dress looks captivating against your hair?’ They celebrated their first meeting at the same bridge each year, and she always wore stripes. - Stuart Weston TIED FOR FIRST PLACE
   (Artist note: I wondered if he used the married form of addres, ‘signora,’ on purpose?)

2. She came to Venice to escape the doldrums of loneliness. The nearly empty streets she wandered: lost; sad; alone. Then she saw him, The Gondolier. His smile sparkled as a beacon, like a lighthouse on a dark shore. His eyes bore deep and bid her welcome. She booked a tour and sat in his gondola. He showed her the secrets of Venice; she looked only at him. Five afternoons, five tours; and, still, she saw only him. “Meet me here tomorrow, 7pm,” he said. “We will dine together.” But she never saw him again, though still, every year, she returned. -Andrea Heffernan TIED FOR FIRST PLACE

3. Her stripes are a message: he will notice her while he is rowing in the channel. He will see everyday a beautiful woman wearing the same stripes as his T-shirt, in the same place as his boat, and he will note her between millions of tourists. She wants to tell him, “Guardame, sono Veneziana come te.” - Carola Moretti

4. Camilla often found herself here. Just as the tides are bewitched by the moon, her heart’s longing brought her to this place of meetings and miracles. Sighing, she slipped beneath the rail, feeling the slick surface of the gondola. A sweet sadness washed over her, recalling first casting her eyes on Papa - proudly perched at the helm of this fine vessel. She felt the presence of the gondolier, quietly leaning into her reverie. “Your Papa’s spirit is here. He knew your heart would lead you to him”. “Si, Paulo, the timeliness of our meeting was fate’s gift to us both”. “The gondola “Camilla”, his joy is now yours to carry your Papa’s memory . Let us go, Camilla! We will take her for a morning row with your Papa guiding us to your next port.”
   - Samantha Palmer

5. Though Lucia had never walked these streets, the city felt familiar from his stories. All of her life, her Nonno spoke of Venice- the mystery and love hidden in each alley and canal. For two years he trained to be a gondolier, like three generations of men before him. In 1940 he finished his training with such pride; his mama was his first passenger. After the war came, he left Venice and never returned. Nonno’s final wish was that his granddaughter would visit his home. Tonight, Lucia felt less alone, and closer to him, than she had since he died. - Mary Kate McClure

6. She spent a lot of time in prison, because of him. - Nandini Makrandi (with a wink)

7. He always loved it when she wore stripes. “My little zebra,” he called her, taking delight as he bought her all manners of striped clothing. Black or blue or red stripes. Narrow or wide. He has bought her so many striped clothes over the years that they have taken over most of her wardrobe. But she doesn’t mind. Each item is a reminder of the years they shared and the memories they made. Now his eyes have gone milky-white, but he likes to claim he can still tell when she’s wearing her stripes. “I know when my little zebra is here,” he likes to say. So she wears stripes every day, to make sure he always gets it right. - Celine Jeanjean

8. She fell in love with him the moment she saw him, with his straw boater tipped at a rakish angle and his inky black hair dangling in his eyes above a slightly crooked smile. He called out to her, offering her a free ride in his gondola since her dress matched his own striped top so perfectly. She blushed and stammered a reply as he punted them away down the canal. It was the best afternoon of her life. She would always regret the shyness that stopped her asking for his name, that feared asking him to stay after he dropped her back at the pontoon. She has been wearing stripes ever since as she walks the canals, searching for his crooked smile. - Celine Jeanjean

9. The night he died, they wore stripes—dressing up like venetian gondoliers for a fancy dress party. A nod to when they first met, sharing a gondola. It happened while he was out to buy a nice bottle of wine. She waited for him at home, putting the finishing touches to her hair. She wore the same clothes, the stripes, for a long time after that, trying to trick herself into believing that he was still just out for wine and would return to her soon. In time her grief faded, which was worse, in a way, bringing with it the fear that one day the memory of him might fade too. She wears the stripes still, to keep him with her every day. - Celine Jeanjean

10. And lastly, my own:
    She held his beauty against him. His profession, too. The language barrier was problematic. And yet…there he was. Not out of her thoughts, or her evenings; not out of her bed. The intensity terrified her, as did the surety that he was a playboy with a boat, in a ridiculously pretty city, and that he would leave her for another tourist or a local Catholic girl. The tattoo was a surprise. Lunch with his family another. When he fell and hit his head she cried, “oh God, not like this…” Years later, the beauty remains. And always stripes.

Cutter & Cutter Exhibition Report

Art in the Time of Covid

The Cutter & Cutter team threw a genuinely grand opening for our family of three exhibition in St. Augustine Florida, on 19 and 20 March, 2021. It was an experience I won’t soon forget to see the large gallery full of the work of my son Timur, my husband Daud and myself.

The work remains up.

THIS IS SUPER COOL: Use your mouse to manipulate a virtual tour of the exhibition.

During the day we each did casual demos in the gallery. I pulled linoleum prints, Daud drew a Flamenca from memory, and Timur worked on a portrait in oil.

Because of Covid, the Cutter & Cutter team invented a new evening format to keep everyone safe. Group of ten couples were invited into the gallery in 90-minute segments on Friday and Saturday evenings, in which each artist spoke a bit about their work, and Len Cutter introduced each artist from the gallery’s perspective. Gallery director Nicole Wolfe and her team made everyone welcome, and managed the brisk sales with grace. My thanks to the gallery for the extraordinarily beautiful presentation of the work, and the management of the collectors and our own entourage during the weekend.

Here is a link to the available work of Daud Akhriev Timur Akhriev and me (Melissa Hefferlin)

Here’s a link to the show catalog in digital format.

One of the walls of Timur’s work at Cutter & Cutter

One view of my Spanish paintings room

Daud at the gallery front in St. Augustine before the show.

Happy Spring to each of you and your loved ones. We are now back in Spain, vaccinated, and hoping that the era of Covid will soon end.

With affection and good will,

Melissa

Hefferlin Still life article with Poets and Artists Goss 183 Magazine

Publisher and impresario Didi Menendez graciously invited me to curate a section about contemporary still life painting in her recent edition of Poets and Artists magazine, Goss 183. You may purchase the issue here. Below is the my section. I’d like to thank the wonderful artists for permitting me to feature their work, and also Rosemary Dibben for helping to clean up my always-too-florid prose.

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Earl Sherman Braggs wrote us a poem.

Portrait of Earl Sherman Braggs by Timur Akhriev

Daud and I met Natalie and Braggs when we were still a very young couple. It was an opening in the home of art dealer Linda Woodall, the beginning of a treasured friendship. I’ve benefited from cross-pollination with the couple, exchanging music and ideas, doing so when we’re lucky over their wonderful food. We share a history with the former Soviet Union, as both Daud and Natalie (Earl’s wife) were born there. Earl admires the poet Anna Akhmatova, and he and Natalie have toured Russia and the Ukraine. Conversation with them is always intriguing, sometimes passionate, always treasured.

To have Earl unexpectedly send us this beautiful composition about our meeting was a life highlight. It’s an honor to share it with you.

I hope you’ll enjoy the work, which I think sounds great read out loud. Never miss an opportunity to hear Earl read his work in person. His books are available on Amazon and from Anhinga Press.

“Melissa meets Daud
for everyone, Champagne


Linseed oil, pastel colored paint impressionistically etched
into the actual color of unmixed reflected light that night,

the night she met him somewhere beneath the sometimes
stubborn white branches of Russian white birch trees. So

the lack of shimmering leaves remembered their names
as white Russian winters would have them not. Sometimes

the colors of paint forget the words, but the canvas always
plays on, music, like pages of a Boris Pasternak love song.

Van Gogh said yellow is the color of love. Saint Petersburg
was still a yellow city then. Patiently, without words, they

fell in color with the silent love of canvas covered wet paint.
Real-life and still-life afforded each enough natural light to

see the small softness of harsh rides on subways and Russian
crowded bus stops/steps up, down Nevsky Prospekt (Street).

A song, perhaps the first, they sang on the steps of the Singer
Building, Prince Alexander Nevsky’s most notable landmark,

in Soviet times known simply as the House of Books. There,
they read/re-read the short story of each other’s eyes. There,

he taught to her the Red Square root of Russia. There, she
taught to him the circumference of an American circle. There,

they taught to each other that color has no shape. Texture
and concept tried to tie her balance to his, still they fell from

atop the tallest roof in that yellow town, spinning, spinning,
down, down at the speed of floating flowers, Van Gogh’s

sunflowers, one dozen like roses. A vase, slowly back-dropped
in a pillow of yellow. Soft Flowers land softly, the steps of art.

So there they were, playing paint. Melissa waltzing the way
a red dress waltzes, waltzing across a palette page, a perfect

stage, still-life, Green, oil on linen—blown glass green bottle,
big as the chair upon which it sits—a green silk scarf hangs

from the left side chair back, sweeping, cascading, pleasingly
graceful, elegant. Softly fanning blue, a painted floor. Miles

away in the next room, Quiet Neighborhood, Venice, Daud,
slow brushing the colors of slow drying paint before looking


into the eyes of Laura in Blue, (figurative) oil/11.625x7.9375.
Stylistic pluralism, Daud and Melissa, realism and still-life.

The first time they met was not the first time they met, for
they, each, had known forever, the brushing sounds of color.

Repin Institute of Painting painted them before they painted
each other that Saint Petersburg night when the city was still

Van Gogh yellow. I met them in America one art show night,
a night when the necessary was so unnecessary. Perhaps by

chance, first glance, I knew who the coloring book colored
them to be. Me, I’m a poet. Recognition, not a hard question.

A place of galleried paintings, seemingly miles from anywhere,
a room of art rooms, Linda Woodall’s place, a house placed deep,

dark in sacred woods. There in the lobby of painted life, still-life,
my wife and I stood, situated upon edges sharp enough to believe

in the comedy and tragedy of love. This is where we met Melissa
and Daud drifting without drifting amongst tables for tea, coffee,

red and white art-opening-night wine, red caviar and cheese. It
was one of those nights when the moon knew everybody’s name.


In conversations banked upon Russian vodka banked upon being
Swedish made, they drove us that evening through Russian city

streets of The Long Winding Road. The Beatles took us home as
I remember. Too awake to drive, I was remembering the colors

of them standing upon things remembered. They remembered
blue as the two painters painted Timur, Daud’s son, softly into

the picture as the third painter in a family of three. Together,
madly, they all fell in love with what they were already in love

with, the perennially planted brilliancy of soft drying paint. Then
when in Spain, Spain already knew how to spell Melissa’s name.

Madrid, ever the kid in Daud’s playful mind, knew him as well.
He kissed Kiss of the Peacock-oil on canvas. Delivery Boats-oil

on gessoed panel, Evening at the Port, Harbor Conversation, Daud,
talking on water again. And in Spain where Spanish dirt invited

each of them to plant olive trees and watch them grow, he painted
the matador and the bull. The Spanish sun loved his studio light.

The Spanish moon loved her rhythm, Spanish Rhythm-oil on canvas,
76x40cm; Sevillanas and Stallions-oil on canvas, 200x 100cm. Jazz


in the lobby of a painter’s life, a Spanish guitar, a piano. I know
paint and colors on canvas don’t know perfect. Perfection doesn’t

want to know the colors and textures of wet paint. Improvisation
knows without knowing, improvisation feels without feeling what

painters and poets and Miles Davis, trumpeting Sketches of Spain
never learns to name— that which can be named is not the Tao.

Melissa meets Daud, beautiful meets magic, wet paint meets brush
for lunch; champagne-chilled, caviar, Canvas Cafe, and then, Zen.”

Earl Sherman Braggs
”

Pursuing your Dreams with Dennis and Adisa

Strangers Bearing Gifts, Part 1

This is the first in a series of blogs about by our experiences with the strangers who came to our home, and the gifts they brought.

The motto “Beware of strangers bearing gifts” comes from the Trojan horse story, more specifically in some translations “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” I have the impression that contemporary thought often distills the phrase to simply, “Beware of strangers.”  While I know there are broken and dangerous people in the world, and I have encountered a few of them, my overall experience with strangers has been nourishing.

My attitude towards strangers is informed by the fact that since 2011 Daud and I ARE “the foreigners,” or the “giri” as known locally, here in Andalusia, Spain. (I asked my friend Tatiana how “giri” actually translates, and the best she could do was “imagine an English person who is prone to wearing clunky sandals with socks.”)  Thankfully, Spaniards meet us with seemingly boundless welcome and oft’ needed patience, and we believe the gifts we bear to Spain in return are benevolent ones.  This experience fortifies our endorsement of human mobility in general.

"Giri" sighting, explained a local.

Apart from our own foreignness, a home in Andalusia has given us another reason to appreciate what strangers have to offer because of our participation in the website community www.workaway.info.  This is a hub where travelers volunteer assistance of most any sort in exchange for room, board and cultural exchange. When inviting volunteers, of course one sorts and investigates possible matches in hopes of maximizing compatibility. But still, all participants are strangers to one another, and usually from different countries. The website would naturally self-sort for people who are adventurous. 

From our Workawayers I have learned many new skills, acquired new points of view, expanded my knowledge of other cultures and formed friendships. I want to share some of their stories, beginning with Dennis and Adisa.

Dennis wrote to us on Workaway, remarking on the similarities between our lives. Not like us, Dennis is a quadruplet born in southern California, who while in grade school developed a love of maps of far away places. He found a high-school exchange program which permitted him to travel to Kazakhstan’s former capital, Almaty, and live with a family for a long stay. He fell in love with the place. Now in his early thirties, Dennis moved post-university to Almaty and married Adisa. So, Dennis pointed out in his initial letter, we  are two couples, both with one American and one person born in Kazakhstan, whose lives have Russian/Soviet art in them and who love to travel. Not something that you meet every day.

A creative powerhouse, Adisa is a native of Almaty. She is tiny, but athletic and energetic, with a 1000-watt smile and a command of English that would do an NPR radio journalist proud.  She founded an English language school for adult entrepreneurs, where she herself is the rock star private language coach. She sings well, and learns with Dennis a song in the local language from every country she visits, which is not a short list. She married Dennis in a fully-traditional Kazakh wedding which was broadcast on national television, complete with sheep’s head and (not so traditionally) California in-laws. She is a keen observer of the cultural differences and similarities between her mixed-culture families, and a diplomat of the highest order. She’ll try anything, including starting Petalka , an craft cooperative for Kazakh women. She's won international grants to help them get their wares to market. I fell in love with Adisa as soon as her smile hit our town.

After moving to Almaty, Dennis become a Kazakh television personality. (As you do…) When not filming episodes of “Discovering Kazakhstan,” he has a business conducting private walking tours of the former capital. www.walkingalmaty.com While doing all the walking tours he noticed a plethora of aging Soviet mosaics, stained glass installations, monumental sculpture and various other kinds of public art. He was naturally curious and wanted to tell his walking clients about the installations, but nobody local seemed to know much about the artworks, nor were many people interested. It was as if when rejecting the Soviet Union, the artwork was thrown out with the bath water. Some of the art installations were decaying. Dennis began a web archive of all the public art he could find in the city, posting photographs of the work, along with whatever provenance he could dig up.

People are taking notice. The news, governmental and cultural entities in the city have begun to use www.monumentalalmaty.com as a resource. Denis has formed an alliance with a good gallery and a group of patrons who are backing an upcoming exhibition and the publication of a book about Kazakhstan’s public art. The website now has over 150 monumental art installations on record, and is growing steadily. Dennis has hired a dynamo research assistant to share the work load. Perusing the website, which I highly recommend, gives the impression of a city in love with decorative design, and an exuberant national creative spirit, resulting in many genuine masterpieces. The monumental art of Almaty also is a beautiful document to the Soviet Union’s belief and investment in the power of public art, even if their purposes were ideological in addition to aesthetic.  The artists were often Kazakhs, but there are artworks by other artists from all over the former Soviet Union, as well. Dennis reports that a sense of ownership of these masterpieces is returning to the city, especially among the younger generation, and pieces are attracting preservation and restoration. He has become friendly with many of the now-elderly artists or their families. An American quadruplet who plays the ukulele is the catalyst for a Kazakh public art renaissance.

Part of a six-month walkabout, this couple spent a month in our home. They made themselves useful in exchange for room and board, and they did so while infusing our home with a sense of joy. They made a spreadsheet of everything in the pantry and then created recipes to utilize supplies which could go to waste. They played music in the evening. They helped out by doing the grocery shopping, taking photographs we needed and stretching canvases. Adisa posed for paintings as well as Serithea scarf publicity photos. Their contribution to our home gave me back several hours a day to devote to painting. We shared a Christmas together I’ll never forget. Sitting around the table every evening we had informative conversations about mosaics and mosaic techniques in different parts of the world. Systems of art education. Films, lots of films. Methods of monumental art preservation. As we primed linen or mixed drinks, Adisa and I shared and compared our experiences as spouses who both have half a family from Central Asia and half a family from the USA. Adisa sat me down and showed me how to use Instagram, about hashtags and “stories.” One evening Dennis got out his Ukulele and convinced me to attempt to accompany them on my violin while he played Christmas carols from around the world and Adisa sang. I was not musically brilliant, but wow, was it fun. Dennis told us about consulting on a film we loved, “The Eagle Huntress,” and about hunting carpets in Kirgizia. At the end of their visit, Dennis gave us a walking tour of Olvera, in the style of his Almaty walking tours.

What has stuck with me about this couple is how they steadily pursue their inquisitiveness and their dreams, and the surprising life path unfolding before them as a direct result. Because Dennis pursued his love of maps and wandering curiously on foot, he finds himself a documentary host working in the entertainment industry in Kazakhstan and catalyzing a public art rebirth. Adisa loves languages and meeting people, she now has her own school, skills in three languages, and an artists’ coop getting off the ground. They are an inspiration to me, and their boisterous attitudes fed my soul. They bolstered my sense of purpose about my work and the subjects which are dear to me, and they gave me much-enjoyed camaraderie as mixed-culture, mixed-religion families. I am deeply grateful to them.

That's my story for today from my Spanish studio (where today I got a brand new skylight!!!! Whoohooo).  I'd be delighted to hear about some of your positive experiences with strangers bearing gifts.

Yours truly, Melissa

With Ukrainian artist, Victoria Kalaichi, and her husband Denis Sarazin who's taking the photo, at the top of the Malaga ferris wheel. But that's a different story.

The History of the Magical Rabbit

VIDEO SHORT

This Spring blog features my treasured still life subject, the winged rabbit. That such an unlikely prey animal should possess the power to fly charms me and is symbolic.

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NEWS

A new adventure is underway for Daud and myself, a quest to fulfill a long-held dream. We are creating artist-designed fine silk scarves under the name Serithea. (in Greek: "Seri" means silk and "thea" means goddess.) Woven into both of our life histories is a passion for textiles. Scarves are a way of life for a large portion of the planet's women. The four women in Daud's family have libraries of exquisite scarves to enhance every occasion. I remember inheriting one of my Swiss grandmothers Hermés scarves, and what a useful and sensuous heirloom it remains. Another influence is my mother and a sister who are quilters---composing fabric into useful and elegant designs which will pass on through generations. We want to create wearable, artistic heirlooms on finest silk.

It's early days yet---we are sourcing the silks and selecting production partners, and of course, designing. Initially the project was Daud's. He already created the first suite of designs. But I could not keep my hands out of the project and will be cutting linoleum prints for a more graphic suite of scarves.

We are deeply grateful to ThreeTwelve Creative branding and marketing company. They are helping us with the identity for the endeavor. Simultaneous thanks to each of you for the enthusiasm and support you've already shown towards the project.  Thanks to John and Angela Shaheen and Pierre van Minxel who set us on the path to the silk makers. Our passion towards Serithea scarves means that we are busier than ever because we continue to be easel painters, but the creative reward is worth the time. We hope you enjoy the results!

Early prototype scarves which meet our standards will be available for pre-launch sale within weeks, and we hope to have our web boutique within 6 to 12 months. To receive information on Serithea's awakening, click on the link below, or comment on this blog.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LANDING PAGE FOR THE FUTURE WEBSITE OR TO SEND US A COMMUNICATION ABOUT SERITHEA HEIRLOOM SCARVES

Thank you for visiting my Olvera studio this Easter morning, and I wish you a wonderful Spring.

Melissa