Category: Uncategorized

At the rhythm of summer

Helen Polishuk


It’s already the summer solstice. This is the middle of the summer cycle and today is the longest day of summer. It’s +30 outside. Full moon. A mixture of dense air, warmth and sun.

Wonderful.

But I have to note that I can’t keep up with everything. My calendar is out of touch with reality. Does this happen to you? Do you notice that you can’t keep up with time? Well, at least for a little bit, for one day or a little more? I notice this and then I rush, trying to catch up. And now I’m sitting near the ripe cherry tree in the garden near the house and I think that I’m a little late again. Just yesterday I watched it bloom, fed the birds near the trees. Then there was a lot of work and for a whole month we were busy with rehabilitating Chucky. For some reason, during this period, the birds flew away from us. Maybe they saw that we had no time for them, maybe they didn’t notice how the feeder was overgrown with raspberries. There were only sparrows in the pocket, and the female and male red cardinal sang and flew in other gardens .Today the female returned. I was at home, went out for a walk with Chucky, he is already seriously getting on his feet and staggering, but walking. The female red cardinal flew up and asked me for food. For more than a month. Of course, I gave it to her. And then I noticed, that I had guests – these were large scorzes with red breasts, who feasted on my cherries and were sitting on a tree. I raised my head up and saw that the cherries were really already ripe and they were feasting on them. We need to collect the cherries, otherwise in a couple of days there will be none left. This year the cherry tree was large and sweet. A Ukrainian cherry, a small tree, was hiding near it. In Ukraine they call it “Dichka”, It is strong and prolific, but it doesn’t like the neighborhood and this year it dropped almost all the flowers and does not produce a harvest .Last year I picked my first ten cherries. It was a real gift for me.

However, this year I wanted more fruits from this tree, but the tree decided everything differently. It didn’t like the proximity to the cherry tree and raspberry bushes. It threw a couple of shoots in case it conquered a new territory. Such cherries are very creeping and tenacious. And then it bloomed and dropped all the fruits that had set. Not enough space. Not enough freedom. Not enough space.
We’ll have to give it space and trim the neighboring cherry tree in the fall.
When I look now at new technologies in China, when they make fences out of trees and cherries grow in bunches, I want to try, but I’m afraid that I will ruin the life of my tree. If I had a lot of space, I would try, but I I have a very small piece of land.
I’m sitting on the balcony, watching as the sun hides in the clouds from the heat. Somewhere thunder begins to rumble. It might rain, or maybe it’s just a scare. However, the air is already changing to cooler and this is comforting. The heat is subsiding. Cooler weather is coming.
I sit and think how much we have accomplished in the last month.

Nature and the Artist VINCENT VAN GOGH

Helen Polishuk

This is a very large article where I, as an experienced artist, am trying to understand and understand the work of the artist of the past, who became a symbol of Dutch artists.

The line in Museum of Van Gogh in Amsterdam

A tragic and very sensual story of the artist’s life and work introduced me to a visit to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The museum has a separate exhibition of a contemporary Chinese artist MATTHEW WONG who follows in the footsteps of Van Gogh.

The exhibition is located on the left side on three floors and attracts visitors with its scale.

I would pay respect to the organizer this idea, since it speaks of the heredity of the artist’s work, that he really wanted it, because the whole life of Van Gogh’s brother Theo was aimed precisely at this.


Separately, three floors display the works of the artist Vincent Van Gogh himself and partly his friends.
I (I think not only me) was shocked by the story of death and the third floor, where the last days of the artist’s life are told in detail and his last works are exhibited, saturated with bright colors, which are very eye-catching, even without knowing the history of their creation.


I believe that Vincent had an unusual view of the world, in his mind there was a special view of the color scheme and he reproduced this in his last paintings. For this, huge thanks go to those initiators who saw this in his paintings and raised Van Gogh’s work to international popularity and gratitude.
Of course, I fully admit that it is possible to repeat his work, but I really like the video image generated by AI and which I will now present.
It really catches my eye. It’s the long aftertaste of his strokes and the brightness of his colors. Rich yellow, bluish, clear azure blue.
I would especially like to dwell on his love for his brother, his gratitude for him and these beautiful letters, where he addresses his brother, draws portraits of him and sends them to his brother, where he congratulates his brother on the birth of his son and gives his nephew a uniquely tender picture.

Agree, how vulnerable she was the soul of this artist when you look at this picture.
And now, thanks to marketing and the image of this picture on bags, coffee cups, notepads and pens, you seem to appreciate creativity even closer. Hold it in your hands.

In general, I like this approach to perpetuating the work of talented artists of the beginning of the last century, who created several new directions in which modern artists work today. It was a time of an unusually strong economic, cultural, and industrial breakthrough of humanity.

There remain many achievements in science, cultural and scientific discoveries One of these was Vincent Van Gogh’s unusual yellow-blue mark.

This fabulous art from Vang Gogh is my favorite.

This page will add even more interesting details to you

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/stories/nature-and-the-artist?utm_source=mus-nb-en-202405-te-zien-te-doen&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=verhalen

Let’s discuss an important topic today.

Helen Polishuk

I hope it won’t be a one-way conversation, and I see you all as active participants in this discussion. The subject is history.

Topic: history
I was inspired by the lecture I just listened to about Aina.
Inspired
Now, against the background of changes in history, which is being written in our days, we are all involved in it to a greater or lesser extent, we are all witnessing new discoveries.
Discoveries in history are associated with the expansion of the study of historical facts.
At one time or another, we ascertained the events that took place, but as we become more interested in the facts, history returns to its study anew.
I have always been interested in studying history
Back in school, I remembered battles, signing treaties, and truces in detail.
In my school, the history of Ukraine was studied so superficially that when I was behind my son’s “fours”, I had to sit with him and help him learn world history, and with it the history of Ukraine (because the teacher of these subjects was the same woman, also the director of the lyceum), then I discovered a new story for myself.
That is a completely different story, in which the Cossacks and the Cossacks were described in detail.
As for my knowledge, I, and my generation, we simply did not know the real history.
She graduated from school in 1980.
Ah. Why was she an excellent student?
Maybe because even now, when everything is changing rapidly, I look into history, looking for answers.
And then, it was good that my son brought a two, we sat together and taught him several lessons in advance, so that the teacher could not pressure him and give him low grades. And I studied history again.
So then we surprised the teacher with him, he answered every question automatically.
She chastised him in both world history and Ukrainian history… and he answered perfectly.

-Sit down! Well done! But tomorrow he will call his mother to school…,- this was our victory with him.


Today I attended a very interesting lecture.
It is caused by the development of this trend in the world and gives an idea of the ancient history of the Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Hokkaido, located in the Sea of Okhotsk.
If you are interested in the topic, feel free to search for it, but I am not talking about it today. No, I can tell you. If you are interested, write.
Listening carefully to the lecturer, respected professor, scientific researcher, I noticed several interesting details.
The first concerns the fact that humanity develops and lives cyclically. The most flourishing
of world cultures and civilizations falls on the 13-14th century. And this trend was on all continents, touching various civilizations of America, Europe, Australia and other continents.
And at that time there was neither the Internet nor airplanes.
The rapid development caused many wars two centuries later, which destroyed entire nations.
The next such peak was the end of the 19th and 20th centuries, which, after the inventions of electric machines, the Internet, airplanes… caused bloody wars.
Now about discoveries, finds, historical values.
The lecturer was asked why there is so little and how does she collect and transfer collections to patrons and collectors?
She replied that she was looking at Who is transmitting!
What (!)conveys and How!
Not everyone is who they say they are…and not all finds are real.
Now about culture and descendants.
The population of this ethnic group in the Sakhalin region is only 300 people, in Japan there are 25 thousand of them.
There are many more of them, but most of them were assimilated into Japanese culture.
How did they survive? With the help of excavations of the remains of their culture and libation stick finds with a prescription of their cultural traditions.
They survived with the help of writing and traditions.
They have their own characteristics, ethical values, traditions.
Women have a special tattoo around the mouth – mandatory for married women, because in this way they were protected.
(In many nationalities, I found that a married woman was tattooed in order to preserve her)
Recently, I found this about the tribes of the First Nation in America, but they were tattoos on the chin. It was also done to girls to keep them in the tribe. Individual poenmen tattooed the faces of girls in different ways to distinguish them.
The Bedouins still tattoo beautiful girls.


The Ainu tattooed the whole body and limbs, applying a specific pattern similar to the pattern of the Australian aborigines. (In men, on the face around the eyes, on the neck). Bald, but with long hair on the temples. The tattoo pattern was also applied to the kimono, in which they walked, that is, the pattern was repeated on the clothes and it tells about the tree, the life tree of the family.
Fishing was very developed.
Now about traditions – how did they preserve traditions?! After all, there are very few of them, they have almost died out.
Men hunted, fished (currently they are fighting to be granted a special status of catching fish), were engaged in growing plants. Women were busy with children, in the summer they went far to the mountains to collect plants for the winter.
Traditions were transferred from generation to generation with the help of customs, dances and songs.
This is how women skillfully play something like a pipe (chip) and dance plastically. The dance is accompanied by a specific exclamation.
Just imagine: they sit in a circle and start singing and dancing.
The dance and song were passed down from generation to generation and carried the spark of traditions, which helped today to restore this small nation, to give it belonging to traditionally indigenous peoples.

I notice again: everything has cyclicity. Wavelikeness.
While raising a child, women pass on traditions. This helps to preserve culture.

Let’s move on

Helen Polishuk
new works by the artist Helen Polishuk in her favorite style

I really want these warm sunny days already.
No matter how warm this winter was, it was not sunny and the lack of energy and warmth affects the mood of people in Toronto. However, I always repeat that everything passes. And after the cloudy days, warm days will come. And the seeds planted will break through the cold ground into the ground. And the gardens will bloom and the ringing singing of birds will flow, which notify about their offspring.
And we can live. After all, a new day is wonderful. A new video with the latest Petrykivka for you, my dears.

If you don’t already know my most active page, here it is. It contains all the latest news from the world of my creativity and painting.
Let’s move on

March

Helen Polishuk

….Don’t quarrel with nature, she knows what she’s doing….

from the exhibition

It is no coincidence that I chose my quote for this post.
Look how sunny and warm it is on the first day of March. I want to believe that this weather will remain and help nature come to life and bloom.
In nature, everything is natural. After the cold comes warmth, after flowering the fruits ripen, after the harvest, nature sheds its leaves and asks to give peace and rest to the trees before the cold. Prepare for death naked. Winter comes and the trees meet it naked, ready for renewal. Winter passes, heat for plants, the state of renewal comes with the first warm days of spring. And so this cycle repeats every year.

We also experience these cycles if we listen to nature. If not, and we are blind and deaf, then we lose a lot in the wrong cycle of life.
And you need to feel this cycle. You need to feel that after the strong, heavy magnetic elemental days of February, the gentle, cat-like days of March come. Even if it’s one day longer this February, then March 1st came and the weather changed completely.
Just yesterday evening, at sunset, I managed to notice the unusualness of the clouds on the horizon. They were curly, small, bluish-gray multiple clouds, densely standing in several lines on the horizon, like a flock of lambs on a soft pink background. The combination of these colors was unusual. Such a sunset too unusual.
“It will probably still be cold tomorrow,” I thought.
And only when I woke up today from the rays of the sun that appeared in my eastern window, I realized that, as always, spring has come. And it has come firmly, showing us that March will be warm.
Well.
Let it be .

So much hope for renewal, for blossoming and warmth.

May March bring more love and understanding.

We will clean our houses, put our gardens, lawns, and vegetable gardens in order to plant a good harvest.
And I will start a bunch of new projects that attract me.
One of them, but it’s more of a continuation than a beginning. It opened yesterday. It’s friendly to me

ROOTS which was open on the last day of February in Cloverdale Mall,Etobicoke.

I wish success to all the participants in this exhibition. I am pleased to see both familiar and completely new artists among them. And regarding their creations, I am a fan..
I just always like painting, which feels free, like the creation of images that are inherent to the master without any pressures or restrictions, with characteristic experiments and departures from traditions. With their inherent brightness and contrast. That’s how it was now.
The exhibition will be held FEBRUARY 29-APRIL 11,2024 in partnership with QuardReal and present the 5th show of ROOTS’exhibition series.

This year-long exhibition celebrates the rich cultural diversity of Toronto.Ita fifth edition will feature eight incredible African Artists in celebration of Black History Month.

Announce

Helen Polishuk
My Petrykivka from past year

I am pleased to announce all the changes that accompany this month.

Sometimes you shouldn’t stir up the past, even if it’s not that long ago. The page is closed. We live and work. Announcement and planning for the coming months.


Not everything in our lives is so neglected, so now an announcement of news from me.
Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone who reads me on International Mother Language Day.

Still, why celebrate it?
If humanity had not created writing and language for communication, we would hardly have had global communication between nations today. And although we are all representatives of different nationalities today, we are united by knowledge of the English language, which the majority of us speak.
And if we don’t know this language, then our circle of communication is greatly narrowed. Of course, we can use the services of translators, but this makes communication more difficult and difficult.
Therefore, I only welcome learning new languages as an opportunity to expand my abilities.
The past week was very active and I can’t boast to you that I painted or exhibited anything in galleries. I don’t have enough energy and time. I’ll try to catch up and present you with new works.

My immediate plans include a return to icon painting and the final stages in the production of icons. An announcement of these actions will be coming soon.
After the seminar that took place last week, I am preparing to submit my visions for planning assistance and developing art in my city. Here, I would be happy to listen to your ideas. You can send me and enter into a chat with me on the FB page

https://www.facebook.com/helenpolishukart

where I have been publishing my work for the last two years.
Please, I will be glad. Believe me, I check and respond to emails on that page.

The next point is that I received a lot of offers, both related and not to the last year of my activity. And this is both the creation of films and the organization and implementation of projects.
Will I continue them in the future? Let’s take a look, study the offers and choose what suits me and what I need.

Still, the emphasis is on completing the creation and printing of the book and continuing to study the history of art and searching for points of joint projects in this direction. The choice is aimed at developing programs and projects in this area and related.

The next thing I continue to be interested in is the creation of new forms of selling works from creative people. Well, something that has not yet been created.
This is where I am interested in the geniuses of our planet and their clubs.
After all, I already emphasized at the seminar that creative people are divided into (my opinion) two groups. The first group is absolutely creative people who cannot sell. They can only create. There are many of them. They are passionate about the creation process. And that’s all. There are always such people someone must support and sell their product. It could be an organization, a gallery, a restaurant or a government agency, anyone. Believe me, this is a big win, you can live and make money on this, and an example of this is the same Van Gogh or Picasso, and even Mozart , who during their lifetime did not sell enough, but created a lot. And now their works are wonderfully used by their heirs and generations.
Second people are managers of their creative self.

Unfortunately or fortunately, there are fewer such people and they can be called blacksmiths of their idea, their craft.

They create, analyze, select, study, accumulate and implement.
So it’s no longer a secret for a modern artist that it’s simply impossible to live off drawing alone.

Today you need to work at a surviving job and then relax and draw. And what’s new is that the artist himself must now learn to have many computer skills in order to be able to sell and create himself.

Now we look ten years into the future, the conditions of survival will become even worse. And all this is due to the rapid development of digital.

I am optimistic about these next ten years, because I don’t need any more for my activities, then it will become more and more difficult for me to manage myself. That’s what I’m leading to? I’m leading to the fact that my stage of accumulating my artistic works has almost passed and I am pleased to enter the period of implementing these works, working on transferring my skills to students.
And here is a new announcement. I continue my mentoring work. This is not only icon painting, which I mentioned above. This is also the creation of maser box offices and workshops.

And the last announcement.

Since I have already entered the senior category, I will be happy to celebrate my last visit.

On February 21st, I hosted monthly Seniors’ Advisory Group meeting where I learned a lot of interesting and important things for me as a resident of Etobicoke.

To be continued. Stay, don’t switch

Changing

Helen Polishuk

Today we will touch on the problem of climate change and with it, changes in us.
It sounds kind of loud, but that’s what touched me yesterday. What exactly?
In recent years, we have seen how the climate is changing. It is becoming hotter in southern countries, rivers are drying up in Europe and some countries are experiencing water shortages. These changes are changing us, society and production. Thus, classical production is being replaced by modern, which is not requires ancient manufacturing methods. We are changing, although we hardly notice it. But we are changing.

Why have we changed? Water shortages, the concentration of some hydrogen and the struggle to reduce emissions are leading to the closure of many old industries and the transition to newer methods and manufacturing processes.So, due to changes and reductions, livestock breeding suffered, and many food growing industries suffered. Changes also affected the textile industry,industry for the production of raw materials and even influenced their manufacturing processes. Today we are talking about silk production. Southeast Asia is traditionally famous for this.

How have the changes affected this region? It’s simply catastrophic. It’s scary to imagine that silk production, in its traditional form, is experiencing huge problems and there are only two factories left in Japan for growing and manufacturing natural silk.

And these are two small factories that use the traditional technology of growing a cocoon, using only natural materials that have been used since the original production. Now these factories are on the verge of dying, because it is very difficult for them to compete with artificially created silk, which may be larger and cheaper, but more industrialized.

This film is unique because it shows the ancient way of making silk.
Therefore, this film is interesting to me and I am happy to show it to you.

Interesting East

Helen Polishuk

In the piggy bank of every artist, if he constantly works, collection after collection is created and this is not just a bunch of paintings.
I don’t stop being interested in trying a new style or getting carried away by some direction: everything is interesting to me: painting and decorative arts, ceramics and mosaics. And I want to get acquainted with everything and learn it manually. I really love the society of artists and always welcome new acquaintances. A few days ago such an acquaintance took place thanks to the society in which I am.

Her name is Meryam Ashan, a beautiful Iranian name and she carries the personification of beauty and femininity. She also brought a bunch of her paintings to our meeting and showed them. Her style is the traditional Iranian style of creating miniatures. And when she showed her works, the artist from Pakistan just jumped with admiration, because this is a very popular artistic style of miniatures, known and traditional for the East (China, Pakistan, Iran and India).

Example of miniature

The style means the creation of miniature compositions united by one meaning. So, before us was a picture in which the artist herself is presented in the center, and around her there are cats in different poses. And they are all unique, bright and in different positions.

Persian tradition miniature from 19 c.

Her miniatures were beautiful. She stood up and walked over to the switched-on computer, typed in a page and showed her her first work.
The work was created in a graphic black and white style: an image of her, movement around her and a running horse nearby.
“This is a horse. This symbol has a very interesting meaning in Iranian mythology and I, as an artist, personify myself with a horse.”

The Persian horse has held a place of great prominence and prestige in Iranian culture throughout its rich history. Symbolising power, loyalty, and grace, these horses played a vital role in the ancient Persian empires.

Ancient Warriors and Horse Bas-Relief: A Testament to the Achaemenid Empire’s Military Prowess

It’s interesting to meet an artist this way.
You will agree that each artist, depicting his works, brings a special culture and traditions, plus a huge amount of knowledge accumulated over the years.

TIME TO JOY

Helen Polishuk

January 28,2024 in Toronto at Huculak Centre the most active volunteers and participants of Etobicoke organizations were awarded YVAN BAKER,MP for Etobicoke Centre,former MPP&BCG consultant.

I had the honor of being selected and awarded as an active member of the organization IOUC FOURTH WAVE .It is pride to stand among the awarded and receive an Awards from the hands of YVAN BAKER.

My awards for the Annual Community Recognation Awards nomination include not only scripts and the creation of video content, but also the popularization of the Ukrainian community beyond its borders, among Canadians and the organization and holding of an exhibition that united the Ukrainian community with other Canadian communities.

The past year was multifaceted in this regard, there were many events, I got to know our Ukrainian diaspora better, I spent all my time organizing events to make them as interesting and useful as possible for the diaspora.

Of course, this is volunteer work, which takes a lot of time from my main job and from my family. And I will never give it away time ago.
But the year has passed, it is closed, awards have been received and I hope, having received a great experience, there will be new events this year.
After all, I got to know an enormous number of people and we became closer and already have many new plans for new events.


Photo:during award ceremony

PETRYKIVKA BY HELEN POLISHUK

Helen Polishuk

I am pleased to announce that last week the opening of an exhibition January 18,2024 in Toronto was a success, where two of my works in the Petrykivka style were presented among the works. The exhibition was organized by Art Etobicoke, together with QuardReal and Art Council Toronto. The exhibition shows the winners of the competition, immigrants from Europe, and is called ROOTS. A lot of information about the exhibition, which will take place for a month(up to February 22,2024), is published on the city’s websites. I would like to say that the atmosphere of the exhibition was wonderful and meeting with creative people is always a great success:LORETTA FAVERI,CHRISTINA YARMOL,ALEXANDRA IORGU,FRANCESCO BORI,DARIA BEER,VLADIMIR TOPAL,DANA SEWELL,SZENDE TUNDERLIGETI and me,HELEN POLISHUK.

Two of my works were selected from Petrykivka, which I exhibited for the first time for a Canadian audience.

This painting for sale

Petrykivka,winner jury competition

It so happened that upon arrival in Canada, I again began to draw and create my own paintings. I painted to order, signed up for competitions, paid for them and received adrenaline, supported and I went to exhibitions of other artists and realized that I was drawn inside to painting flowers in tradition ukrainian style, from which my artistic creativity began. So I returned to painting Petrykivka. The first paintings were made with oil paint, this had difficulties, since in winter they did not dry well. But I continued to create and collected separately, as a collection. So, depending on the year, sometimes 4, and sometimes 10 Petrykivka came out a year.

Not a single one of the paintings I created repeated the second. And the society of Ukrainian artists, the creators of Petrykivka, inspired me .I even took a course from them then and practiced with an outstanding artist, Galuna Nazarenko, to whom I am very grateful for her mentorship. I was so captivated by this skill that I continued to create it, despite other competitions. And I did it without much advertising. So Somewhere in 2020, I already collected about 50 works and I opened my website on Facebook,

https://www.facebook.com/helenpolishukart

which was called CanadaPetrykivka. (This is my answer to some why I put such a hashtag). Last year, in 2023 ,I decided to exhibit my works at the ROOTS competition, I sent 5 arts and 2 won and are presented in the gallery QUARDREAL at Cloverdale Mall, Etobicoke. This kind of interesting news happens to people who create a lot and love creativity very much.Today both works are presented for viewing and for sale.

I continue to work and, already inspired by the opening of the exhibition and meeting creative people like me, a new work has already been created, which I will undoubtedly publish in the next post.
And for my admirers and envious people, I offer you this tea.

This tea contains mint and helps you relax and not care about the troubles that happen. This winter tea is called WINTER EDITION HIVERNALE and is sold in our supermarkets in winter and helps to get what you want from the impersonality of unforeseen problems.


Let’s drink tea and relax