Figure Study

I will be going to Long Pose Figure Study sessions in Raleigh, NC. Below is the info. You can attend 4 sessions for $48.

I will be going there on March 23, April 6, 20 and 27. You can join me on these dates if you want to share the ride. Or feel free to go on any of the dates below in your own car.

Long Pose Figure Study

Saturdays, March 16, 23, April 6, 13, 20, & 27 10:30am-1:30pm

Price for four sessions: $48 general / $40 members, students (ages 18 and up), and educators Drop-In Sessions: $16 general / $14 members, students (ages 18 and up), and educators

Long Pose Figure Study is a non-instructional session geared towards artists who want to work on one extended pose. It enables artists working in wet or dry media the opportunity to complete a figurative work.

At the first session attended, participants will receive a punch card good for four visits (participants choose four of the six Saturdays). Registered participants can elect to attend the additional two sessions at the rate of $12 per session/$10 for members, students (ages 18 and up), and educators. Non-registered participants will pay the drop-in rate of $16 per session/$14 for members, students (ages 18 and up), and educators. Students and educators must present ID.

Participants are required to bring their own supplies. Easels will be available for use.

A minimum of 10 pre-registered participants is required for the program to take place. To register please call 919.821.2787.

http://artspacenc.org/create/adult/figure-study/

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Why the crow?

I was going to publish more stories about my paintings and then a friend asked “Why the crow?” So I will start from this one.

In the Room With Memories. Oil and collage on canvas. 48×36.

The crow in the painting “In a Room With Memories”  is a memory from my childhood.  My mother had a pet crow.  The crow just came into the open window one day and stayed to live with us. My mother named her “Vichka” (short for Viktoria). She loved my mother and hated me, probably out of jealousy,  and tried to bite me if I came too close.  I was only 4 years old, I was scared, but fascinated with the crow and was trying to gain her trust.  In doing so, I learned to speak like a crow, but that just seemed to annoy her more.  In this painting I am finally becoming friends with the crow and making peace with my childhood memories.

The image of the crow is also appearing in “Self-Portrait in the Red Turban”. I thought about how the feeling of me being rejected by the crow in my childhood is similar to the feeling of being rejected by the art world. I felt rejected when I heard from someone at about the age 14: “There had never been great women artists.”  At first I tried to argue but I had no facts to prove the opposite.  During the 1970s in the Soviet Union no one knew about Artemisia Gentileschi,  Georgia O’Keefe, or Lee Miller.  It was obvious that all “great artists” of both present and the past were men, especially those who chose to join the Communist Party.  I heard negative remarks about “women’s art” which was often considered unimportant and limited to flowers and such.  At the same time in the United States Linda Nochlin’s 1971 article, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” was published.  It is ironic that the same words that empowered women artists in the United States made me give up my dream of becoming an artist in the USSR.

Self-Portrait in a Red Turban. Oil on canvas and paper. Artist-made frame. 

The image of the crows in this work represents great artists whom I admired and wanted to belong but was rejected.  Just like being rejected by the crow in my childhood with whom I wanted to be friends.  There is a statement in this work that I do belong to the art world.  I state this by representing myself in Van Eyck’s famous red turban and by painting crow feathers on my coat.  This connects me to the art world as well as to the crows’ world.

 

 

 

One of the crows. Oil on gessoed watercolor paper

 

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Magic Casements: Poem by Tom Kirby-Smith

OK! While I really should be in my studio, painting, I will spend a little more time in a virtual world, boasting about myself. Actually, about having a great friend, a poet, Tom Kirby-Smith who wrote a great poem about my art for my book:

MAGIC CASEMENTS
“ . . . magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”
–Keats

Alla Parsons’ paintings speak to me
As in the song, “Do you see what I see?”
Her gaze transfigures all that she beholds—
Clouds, faces, trees—the sunlight that enfolds
Those creeping wavelets, distant church’s spire—
Bare-breasted angels on bright wings aspire–
A croissant on a plate, a pot of tea,
Two smiling women—suffused with mystery—
As Jane Ann wrote me, “haunting, mystical”–
All Alla! But not one bit egotistical.
“Come to the window; sweet is the night air,”
Said Matthew Arnold to his lover there
Above the Dover cliffs. Let Alla call us
(What happier invitation could befall us!)
To share the windows of her soul, and see
Within those magic frames the mystery
Transforming common things until they seem
“The glory and the freshness of a dream”
As yet another poet wrote. Open this book,
There’s nothing else to say. Just, simply, “Look!”

Tom Kirby-Smith

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Publication in The Lexikon of Fantastic Artists, PhantastenMuseum Wien

My work “Self-Portrait in a Red Turban” was published in:

The Lexikon of Fantastic Artists (2nd german extended edition) ISBN: 9-783848263073

The official presentation of the book is Saturday, February 23, 2013 11:00 a.m. at the PhantastenMuseum Wien
Palais Palffy 1010 Vienna Josefsplatz 6

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