Saint-Petersburg and other.

This summer I was lucky to visit Saint-Petersburg. In my family many memories are connected with this city. I also traveled there a lot during my student years.

This time I was hosted by wonderful people and artists Philip Davydov and Olga Shalamova.

They managed to show me how to build processes of the image, while working on their own projects at the same time. I learned step by step and tried to be a good student. I hope to use the information about the processes concerning drawing and sketching in my current and future work. However, the most important thing I have learned while working side by side with Philip and Olga was to enjoy everything that is brought my way: be it work, fatigue or the possibility to correct a mistake and go on.

While I was beavering away at my sketches and was blending colors for my icon, Philip worked on glass mosaics. Unfortunately, the photo doesn’t give the same impression as when one sees it in real life. 

When sprinkled with water the mosaics becomes glossy and glitters with full colors; when dry, its soft matted looks are very pleasant to an eye. The full size picture of the mosaics can be found here. This is just a part of it.

Olga was working on the icon of the Mother of God “Fedorovskaya” with selected saints. I would have watched her work all day long, but I had to work on my sketches and colours. The earlier versions of this icon can be found in Catalogue The icon that was being done before my eyes by Olga also was decorated by the words from the Akathist. I hope Philip will share the pictures of it later.

There was an Exhibition ‘Byzantium acrossthe ages’ in the Hermitage Museum. I was happy to see icons, mosaics, manuscripts etc. with my own eyes, not just in the printed materials. It was a good presentation of what Olga and Philip had been talking.

After that I’ve visited the Russian Museum. Photography was allowed there and despite the reflections of the glass this material will be useful in the future. The pictures can be found here.

One exhibition was dedicated to Mother Maria of Paris (Skobtsova). I had seen her picture before, the one with a cigarette and I ignored her (maybe that was a gesture of disapproval). And here I could see her sketches, embroidery, letters, pictures and read a book about her… Everything was put together. Now I have deep respect for this woman.

Here you can see the pictures of this exhibition.

We have also celebrated the Liturgy at the Feodorovsky Cathedral. There, in the lower church, I saw frescoes and icons by Father Zinon and his disciples. The view made a great impression on me and the only thing I wanted at that moment was just to stay there and quietly admire it.

  

Pictures are here, but a piece of my soul was left in that place forever.

New impressions play an important part in our life. While daily routine teaches us humility, if there are no new people and impressions in it, we get a feeling of being stuck in the same day – the Groundhog day.

Thank you to Philip and Olga for all these impressions. I hope to make use of all of it. I’m starting to make plans for 2017:))

Yours sincerely,

Alla Kireyeva

P.S. Thank you, Masha, for translation!