Kasia in the Countryside

Lying is a bad thing to do but telling the truth isn’t good either.  When you grow up society expects from you to have a job, to make money, to find a partner to reproduce new offspring and after that do the same to them what your parents did to you; program them.

For thousands of years humans have agreed to be so and to do so.  Without any guarantee that our lives will be better, happier or healthier. The primitive instinct to procreate and the other strong instinct; to stay alive, occupy the humans’ minds.    It is encoded in our universal DNA even if we know we all die, eventually; and that our death is often despicable and undeserved.

We are working with persistence to develop new technologies, to make our lives easier but at the same time to destroy each other with more sophistication. We created a kind of civilisation, but it is very primitive. To be true we didn’t change as homo sapience a lot the last 10000 years. Wars, conflicts, exploitation, slavery, deceptions, envy, propaganda, jealousy and the all surrounding fear control our existence.

The best way to survive in this world it is to find your inner child and escape into that reality; hide there and wait till the end of your life.

Puella aeterna and puer eaternus are the heroes of my new series entitled “Peter Pan”.  They are not present in these paintings; you can’t find their faces at surfaces or in the background. They are invisible; only their souls are smiling to us.

I think that becoming a mature person isn’t synonym for better. Definitely, it doesn’t mean better life. To stay a child for ever is only the one possible alternative to survive in this horrible world.  Contrary the physiologists arguments……..Live Long Peter Pan!  Voilà

I am dreaming about different world because the reality of this one I just don’t like. I am painting my own sweet and cute non- reality.

This time I am invite you into the world of Piglet, Mike, Bobby, Tony and Kasia.

This painting is an acrylics on canvas.

"Return of Peter Pan" - acrylics on canvas 2011

"If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
— J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)

The painting “For Lesiu Orzesiu” is atypical for me at this moment. I used to paint in this way when I was 14 -16 years old. It was in the era when I first discovered oil paints and canvasses. My first oil painting, which I still have, presents Pinocchio, a toy made in Russia. I got it from Christopher, when I was 15 years old. I still have my Russian Pinocchio, unfortunately, he is missing his nose. The nose became detached somewhere, somehow, at some point during our joint trips. Pinocchio is made from plastic (such a very hard plastic) and is wearing knit wear made by me. I took him everywhere with me; we travelled together through almost the whole of Europe and some other parts of the world.

As a child I loved the story about Pinocchio and Geppetto. This wooden puppet gave me courage and hope that there was always a chance for salvation and rebirth. Although I was the opposite of Pinocchio, and told the truth. However, telling the truth got me constantly in trouble, too. I remember being surprised hearing my Mum telling lies and not growing donkey ears, I really expected her ears to grow. I am still waiting for this magical moment. When I finally realized that telling the truth is not practical, it was already too late for me. Not telling the truth turned out to be even greater torture than telling the truth. At some point of my life I started to create made-up  stories, and this fact began to cause me much satisfaction, especially observing people listening to my far-fetched absurdities. My excuses for doing that were very simple. It was not lying or cheating with premeditation, it was just my imagination that needed to take flight.

Returning to the painting “For Lesiu Orzesiu” the creatures in it are real and the colours too. Lesiu asked me to make his beloved creatures immortal. I guess the painting will travel to India with him, soon. And so the word became flesh (the painting!) It is a medium sized painting on canvas 70cm x 50cm. I used the best Rembrandt’s acrylic paints (I think they are one of the best) with a minimum admixture of oil.
I hope that Peter Pan will always be alive in Lesiu and that Lesiu never lets him fade into oblivion. Amen!

A mouse (plural mice) is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse is of course the common house mouse. But in a case of Lyalls Cottage, the common species are the field mice. They have stood with us in the autumn and winter time and they are visiting us on regular bases every day in the spring, at the moment. Our mice are very keen on expensive chocolate. They also like very much my paintings, especially the ones which contain seeds. Often they are very timid face to face, but not always.
Since mice could be a perfect companion pets I don’t understand why some are so afraid for them. They can be playful, loving and can grow used to being handled. But I admit I didn’t try it with our field mice, no time for it.

The mice have more reasons to be afraid of people than vice versa. Mice are a staple in the diet of many small carnivores. Humans have eaten mice since prehistoric times and still eat them as a delicacy throughout eastern Zambia and northern Malawi. In various countries mice are used as pet food for pets such as snakes, lizards, frogs, tarantulas and birds of prey, and many pet stores carry mice for this purpose. I didn’t hear real stories about mice eating people, till now.

I don’t like them when they are trying to damage my paintings by eating them, but except for that, I like them, actually. In my new painting there is a small image of a field mouse we found in our bath-tub. It was such a small, tiny, frightened little thing. And now she/he is the honourable guest in my painting.
I used acrylics, cd, leaves, seeds, canes, wax and lots of other unusual things. It is a kind of abstract image of Lyalls Cottage and Dunchideock (the village) at this time of the year (Spring).

I love this time of the year. I know lots of people think it is nonsense and commercial and only about money, food, drink, and presents and this kind of stuff.

For me Christmas means hope for us. I always become very hopeful for our species (normally I am not), more positive, more optimistic in this time of the year. It is just for a very short time but it keeps me going for the next year.

And I love decorating the Christmas Tree (a very old pagan tradition), probably it is very silly, but I just find it irresistible.
Again, Merry Christmas and a really peaceful 2010 (no war!) for this planet.

Here is a special message from Mintaka with a really funny mixed media art work.

My name is Mintaka. I am stranger here; I was born in the Nebula of Orion.

Your species is dominant, but weird. The only time in the long calendar of the year when you are kind, forgiving, charitable and pleasant for each other is the Christmas time. It is the only time when “men and women open their shut-up hearts freely”. (One of your famous writers pointed this out a long time ago).

I am not sure I understand that. Why don’t you behave in such a way on all the other days of the year? I am watching you and waiting to see you brave and beautiful. Maybe one day….

Mintaka Meditating on the Meaning of Christmas

My studio is situated in the epicentre of the garden, in a certain way that is. It is in the middle of the gardens ‘natural resources” and flora, as well being centred in the macro and micro dimensional sense. Among the trees, bushes, and flowers there are also a huge variety of insects, birds and other animals, both alive and dead. The nearness and the intimacy with the nature has an undeniable affect on my imagination and it so happened that my new born paintings are full of leaves, styles, petals, filaments, fruits, and small stems from trees, bushes, flowers and weeds; but also some parts of dead and alive insects and birds. In some of my old abstract paintings I have already used couscous, rice, diverse seeds, grasses and bay leaves. But it was only incidental and my imagination was limited by the ingredients I had in my kitchen and on my balcony. In Dunchideock, in the garden of Lyalls Cottage I have unbounded forms, colours, pigments, consistencies, structures and odours; the last aspect is only significant for me not for the paintings I am afraid.

At the moment I am still at the stage of experimenting with the natural diovan generic alternatives materials, dried and fresh. I take small cones, flowers, actually everything with interesting constitution and facture. Some of the leaves, styles, fruits and stems I let desiccate and use/ will use them dried. I am thinking of experimenting with natural pigments from fruits, vegetables and leaves. I will keep you updated.

Once, strangely my right hand had became paralysed for around 10 minutes, and I had a weird feeling before and after like someone had acupunctured my hand with 1000 needles. Prior to this sensation I had used lots of orange-red fruits from a plant growing in our garden. Afterwards Jim checked this plant on Wikipedia. It appeared that this woodland plant was known by an abundance of common names including Wild arum, Lords and Ladies, Jack in the Pulpit, Devils and Angels, Cows and Bulls, Cuckoo-Pint, Adam and Eve, Bobbins, Naked Boys, Starch-Root and Wake Robin and is poisonous (especially its attractive orange berries). The berries contain oxalates of saponins which have needle-shaped crystals which irritate the skin, mouth, tongue, and throat, resulting in swelling, breathing difficulties, burning pain, and stomach upsets.
Furthermore I discovered that the juice from blueberries isn’t violet like the berry. It is more like brown-green-dark purple. Only the skins of the blueberries possess the right violet/ dark pigment.

In my new painting on the Barb-Blueberry cat, I used juice from the blueberries, acrylics, stamens from an unknown plant, a piece of a branch from a cypress tree, petals of red and scarlet roses, dried and fresh. You can also find stamens, hairs and petals from a weed called Common Corncockle (also poisonous- “it has been used in folk medicine to treat a range of ills, from parasites to cancer but it may produce chronic or acute, potentially fatal poisoning”).

Back to my painting: the story is obviously about a cat, a lady cat. I have satisfied myself that my Tabby cat shouldn’t be single. And so the Blueberry Barb was borne. (The Barb is from Barbara, women with this name are very close to me).

If we don’t know the title for a painting and no description is given to us, then each of us will interpret it in different ways depending on the individual. Every version could be right, every reading could be wrong.

A painting is not a collection of images in the way that a film is, it is just one static frame. If you read the title first and then proceed to analyze and study the painting, you will be conditioned by what you’ve read along with your interpretation of the work. The knowledge about the title limits our imagination and guides what we receive from the work.

I experiment very often, particularly when I am visiting a museum or gallery to see new work. First I just look at the painting, I make my own vision, my own story about the painting and afterwards I look at the title and the description. Very often, especially in the case of modern art, I interpret the work in a way that does not reflect the intention of the artist.

My new painting tells a story, a true story, one that happened in the Garden of Lyalls Cottage.

Our neighbours have a cat. This cat is a hunter and a killer. They call him Tabby, which is obvious because he is a tabby cat; a real Mackerel tabby cat.  I like him very much, although he can be stubborn from time to time, especially when he needs attention. He visits me sometimes in my studio, jumps on the arm-chairs, looks at me for a while and then falls asleep and purrs.

In our garden grows a Smoketree which grows to about 5 metres high and has beautiful red/orange/purple leaves. The Cotinus Coggygria (Latin name) contrasts magnificently with all the greenery that surrounds it.

Once I found a bird close to the Smoketree, unfortunately he was dead. Only the beak, the eyes, something that originally could be called a head and some feathers were left as the rest has been eaten. It seemed to me that it was a black bird.

This inspired my new painting: “The true story of the cat, the tree and the bird”. The cat is a surreal giant cat, as ultimately he is the victor and dominates the story. The tree is only a blabbering witness to the events, and as for the bird… We should respect the bird with silence.

The true story of the Cat, the Tree and the Bird