I have to share this amazing gift/skill

Gail posted this at FB and I immediately wanted to pass it on to visitors here.

Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)




I followed the comment thread at YouTube and am adding notes to enrich this for y'all.

From what I have gathered, it is a generic story - a couple sitting on a peaceful park bench, the war starts, the song in the background tells of a woman waiting for her husband at home with a baby in a crib holding a candle, more bombs fall, she gets the envelope letting her know her husband has died, she visits the graveyard, then looks out the window with her son and sees her husband's ghost before writing "you are always near".

It's about the Nazi invasion of Ukraine, and a love story of a young couple. At the end she writes "I am waiting for you", to the Ukrainian/soviet sailor. That's why people in the audience cry, as Ukraine/Russia suffered such horrendous loss of life during WWII.
It's one of the most original things I've ever seen, and she's brilliant.

I am not sure if you know the history of Ukraine, but I do. Women cut off their own breasts and fried and fed them to their children because the famine was so bad.

These children are now parents to most Ukrainians, and the stories are only a generation removed.
If you were starving, would you watch your mother cut off her breast to feed you? Would you eat it? If you want to know why these people cried, submerse yourself in the history of Ukraine!

Yes, it's depicting Ukraine during WWII. Ukraine was one of the countries hardest hit by the war. One of every four Ukrainians died, I believe.

There were also some very stupid and racist comments in that thread so I am not linking it. The hostility between Ukraine and Russia is strong and the artist is Russian.

Which does not diminish the skill in telling this graphic story.

Enjoy.

--the BB

Behold the King!

Via Dolorosa
Kent Wahlbeck, 1994

HERR, gedenke an mich, wenn du in dein Reich kommst!

--the BB

Contrast

10 September 2007

19 December 2006

How would we know day if not for night?

I deliberately took the recent late summer photo (top) to contrast with the one below it that I took last December (on what would have been my mother's 96th birthday, were she still alive). I wanted the concrete visual contrast of differing seasons in the framework of this familiar sight, the sidewalk I traverse leaving work.

A few millennia ago when I was an undergraduate, Mme Crosby shared a definition of art in a course on French Renaissance literature: "art as a frame to contain contradiction." Certainly all the "fire and ice" language that occurs in much Renaissance poetry lends credence to such a definition, and I think there is truth in it. Through our art we express the tensions of existence, struggling to show "both sides of the coin" if you will. It is the dissonance that gives music its forward thrust toward resolution, the tension of sundry conflicting needs and desires that launches storylines that we can care about. Without contrast and tension there is no texture, only sameness, a static condition without interest. It is not even true rest, only boredom.

Part of the joy of creative artistry is setting a challenge for oneself and puzzling out how to meet it. I remember how celebrating the Day of the Dead on the Sunday of the Bishop's visitation some years ago led to a creative challenge. We already had scarves for our Ethiopian processional crosses made of an African fabric with bright marigold orange and black plus bits of metallic gold. Perfect for Hallowe'en and Day of the Dead. But I wanted to make some new vestments. My love of color and design ran amok to create what I call the "festal green" set. The design is worked in blues and greens and reds with other highlights, but the lining is California poppy orange! Somehow it all works (and the vestments have been pictured in this blog). Who knew what would come out of trying to make certain shades of orange into liturgical colors?

A challenge, a struggle, a creative result.

Tension.

Contrast.

Resolution in some new whole that contains the tensions and contradictions.

[All the lofty discourse above is simply justification for the fun of posting the two photos. Confession is good for the soul.]
--the BB