(6min read)
The year started off strong, riding the high of making two double portrait commissions in watercolor, on a pretty tight schedule. Incidentally, that was my first and last commission of the year. Not gonna lie - commissions stress me out quite a lot, and by the end I feel that the stress was never worth the money. For some reason, despite being confident in my skill - I always have the nagging feeling that this time it will go wrong. And when it doesn’t - I suddenly become infinitely more paranoid about spilling water on the finished piece or a fire burning down the entire house. I doubt I would have the same problem if the commissions were much more regular. But when an opportunity arises - I still take it, and suffer internally.
In the same month, I had my first watercolor lesson with an adult student - which I prepared for for over a month. We don’t meet very often, but through these lessons I have been able to remember so many aspects of my own learning process, and compartmentalize the process of painting in a new way. I try to always channel discipline and patience when handling watercolors - something I myself have only learned in my 12th year of using it as my medium of choice. I like my student a lot: they are fast at learning, and they are also very patient with me as well, as I am learning to teach.
In February, after being inspired by a great resurgence of traditional Ukrainian clothing brands, I picked up sewing, and worked on learning some new sewing techniques, making a couple of skirts in the process. This ordeal spilled into March - I have gotten really into the idea of collecting and recreating some old Ukrainian embroidered shirts (Vyshyvankas). I had previously cut out all the necessary pieces for a shirt and now I have committed to a design. I wanted to create a shirt with an adult cut, but mimicking the design on the shirt my paternal grandma Mariya had when she was 10 years old. It is a very simple design, but I think it is only fair that I pay tribute to her in my first shirt.
Grandma Mariya, with her father Yakiv, and her grandpa Petrakiy (with the crazy cool mustache).
My current collection, with first from the left being made by me, and the last made by grandma Mariya.
I worked on it to the point where all the pieces were sewn together, and in June I finished the edges. Currently the only things missing are the cuff and neck buttons - but I have already decided that I want to go back and add full sleeves of embroidery. It will just have to wait for another year… I am hoping to be able to gift it to Grandma.
Then, all of the sudden, I shifted gears. Say thanks to Kristin - her getting into block printing and showing off the fun times she was having at Friendsdrawing (occasional Sunday gathering of me and my friends where we make art with no pressure of accomplishing anything really) finally gave me a push to try it too. My fascination with Ukrainian embroidery just started to gain momentum - and I worked on making a series of linocut cards depicting different symbols and narratives, especially from a type of traditional ritual runner, called rushnyk.
The reason I am so unreasonably obsessed with them is because they were so common in Ukrainian households (of yore, unfortunately rarely so in modern days - but I am determined to fix it), that it was always safe to assume there was someone in the family who was proficient in the craft - and usually it was multiple people. Some patterns were shared from one person who received a local newspaper, or copied from piece to piece, but many were as original as they come. The ritual nature of these runners provided much context to be put into the embroidery. From wishes of prosperity, to god’s protection, to love and even silly anecdotes, etc etc. Of course many are also purely decorative, as it is very much in our nature to find aesthetic pleasure in the world and bring it into our home. But everyone did it their own way - making art their daily life, not a luxurious commodity.
The following are vintage hand-embroidered runners I have been collecting - I mention them later in more detail.
My maternal Grandma Nina told me stories of how in the winter, her dad and mom would embroider rushnyky, ornate pillowcases and bed skirts by candlelight. My great grandpa was a tractor engineer, so to learn that he was also a skilled needlepoint craftsman gave me a warm feeling of really belonging to the family I was born into. I also learned that grandma Mariya’s father was a highly skilled leatherworker, and many of my direct ancestors were weavers. That is something I am very excited to possibly explore in the future. In June I was invited to a very special tour of the Eiteljorg Museum and enjoyed a collection of native weaved garments and stunning beadwork for some inspiration.
Grandma Nina’s father (on the left)
But back to embroidery and linocuts. By May I made about 50 printed cards, and a limited edition of larger prints. I participated in a Ukrainian Society of Indiana auction that benefited a children’s cancer hospital in Ukraine, where I also sold a few of my 2022 paintings.
Shoutout to Olivia for agreeing to dress up with me in my Ukrainian garments/jewelry and looking like a beautiful, culturally ambiguous, goddess. If this image can’t start world peace - nothing will.
This was my first time styling a traditional Ukrainian attire for an event, and I made the skirt completely the day prior to the event.
I also completed a painting for the Watercolor Society of Indiana juried show, but it did not get in. As everyone knows, I love painting my family and my siblings as they grow up. Despite me being thousands of miles away - I talk to them almost every single day, but a touch is a touch, and presence is presence. Painting them is therapeutic. It helps me feel like I am growing with them and that I am not forgetting their features. And it makes me happy recognizing how similar we all look.
In June, in an effort to unload some of the artwork I have made in the past two years - I sold some things for really cheap at an Annual Woodruff Flea Market - and had some success, despite selling the pieces dirt cheap. The linocut cards all sold very well at their original price, which made me very happy.
That same month I returned to actual embroidery - determined to learn from professionals. I purchased a few detailed courses on a couple embroidery techniques and started grinding with an audiobook in my headphones. Three audiobooks later, in September, this replica of an old runner emerged.
Prekrasa Studio has absolutely amazing courses in Ukrainian to take.
In July I was invited to give 2 lectures on Ukraine and an art lesson to middle schoolers at the Global Village. I thought that was worth mentioning.
For the rest of the summer I immersed myself in embroidering and learning about it. I have amassed a great collection of vintage runners that I have been slowly shipping to my parents’ house, to then ship to myself in bulk. I have been hoarding literature, digitally and physically, on the topic, I have been watching lessons, listening to lectures on the history of Ukrainian crafts, etc. I also picked up crocheting - as it is a big part of adding the flare to the runners at their ends (see images above). I made a crocheted apron that my mom promptly took for my sister without me wearing it a single time.
In October I was in Ukraine for the entire month. I always draw a lot of inspiration from my country for the following year. I had great plans on doing some more research when I was in Kyiv, but since I got sick with a respiratory infection for the entirety of the trip - my activities were limited. Nevertheless, I had the pleasure of visiting a small art gallery and getting a curated tour. My friends and I were lucky to also attend a retrospective of Ukrainian animation, presented by the Dovzhenko Center. That was as much as I could force myself into while being exhausted.
My grandmas and I did some digging for old artifacts that survived the soviet onion times. We found old graves from a cemetery that predated soviet occupation. We visited Mariya’s sister-in-law, who also embroidered quite a lot, and I purchased one of her old pieces that she made in the 1960s. I took pictures of the handmade items around her house - it was my favorite place to go caroling on Christmas when I was a kid, as her house was always so warm and pretty. There is not a lot that survived. Even my memories of Grandma Mariya’s house are full of bright flowers on the rugs that hung on the walls. Almost none of it survived.
The trip in general was not something I wasn’t prepared for. War is hard on everyone, but it is the hardest on people in Ukraine and people whose friends and family are defending them on the frontlines. I got a much needed perspective on what exactly I could do from afar, and what I want to say in my art practice.
Once I came back I immediately started working on a new body of work consisting of embroidery. This has been my main focus for the past two months. It is much more tedious and time-consuming than painting, but nothing ever felt so rewarding than to feel reconnected with my family and my country in this new, material way. Currently this is something I am working on the most and I am nervous to share the results in a few months at an exhibit in Indianapolis I will be a part of.
In November I also participated in a group show at Storage Space with one single painting. Coming back to Indy, after feeling the exasperation of my Ukrainian friends from being misunderstood, dismissed and intentionally misinterpreted on the global arena, I had a bit of a cathartic moment putting up a contextless painting that said in Ukrainian “Some dumbass is about to ask: is this in russian?”.
This was my way of saying that the world sees Ukraine through the lens of russia, as a colony is seen through the lens of an empire. Despite the Cyryllic alphabet being created in Bulgaria, people tend to fall into assumptions that it comes from russia. This is a small example in a great pool of russian cultural propaganda that makes people romanticize russia without admitting that every aspect of their culture is responsible for the success of their bloody imperial expansion. Ukraine is dismissed the same way other countries with a colonial past are: stupid, unintelligent beggars, peasants who had no culture of their own, who needed a savior to civilize them. I am sure this sounds familiar to you.
Ukrainians have had a hard 32 years building up a country from shambles, on top of the always lingering russian influence, yet still persevering in becoming an independent nation, and becoming better day by day. That is something truly inspiring to witness and be a part of.
In the year 2024 I am hoping to deepen that connection, and continue thinking out loud through my art about the experience of decolonization.
It has been an all-over-the-place year for me - but with an overarching theme. Which tracks. I still sometimes have the feeling that it would be easier to find one practice that will define my art, and reproduce it in various shapes and forms. But I have almost come to terms that it just might not be me, and the reason that I make is because I can’t not make, which dictates the media. You can expect more of that in the next year for sure.
Thank you for reading until the very end!