Let’s discuss an important topic today.

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

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

Changing

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

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

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

The ending of the year

I want to thank everyone who is interested and reading this post now.

Thank you, friends, for being there.
This year there were many interesting events related to my artistic activities.
I didn’t always have time to report this, and sometimes I was deliberately silent, because I don’t like to discuss , but the year is ending and I’m pleased to resume.

At the beginning of the year, a jury selected my work to make a banner in the city of Pickering near Toronto and now my composition adorns the main street of the city.
When I created the banner, I used a composition of the wave or element symbol, which is inherent in the image used in the First Nation in combination with the popular Petrykivka style, Ukrainian traditional style.

I am very pleased with this decision in the style of color. Since the element of water is blue and the city of Pickering is located on Lake Ontario. The flowers depicted on the banner speak of an earthly image.
Below is the banner Water Element’s image:

Later, in the summer, I returned to this image and, creating a collection in the Petrykivka style, I depicted this composition on wood again.

Autumn gave me my dream and I flew out of media life for a month and took up icon painting. While teaching lessons, I not only had students, but I myself went through and updated my knowledge. This is how my icons appeared.

A huge incentive for me was the result of the jury, which selected my two works in Petrykivka style for the exhibition Roots, which will open in January 2024 in Toronto.


When I sit down to create a painting, I first of all study my previous works. So, this beautiful painting was created, which is dedicated to my beloved Lvov

And absolutely new two large decorative paintings.These are memories of summer, sun, warmth and flowers, happiness and love. Large butterfly on canvas, made in a mix techniques and creating an extraordinary atmosphere of freshness and joy.

I would like to wish you, my readers, a good next year, health and prosperity to you and your families.

Merry Christmas!

Helen Polishuk

Creativity.Step One.Beginning.Naivity

A simple story, similar to many stories.

There was a girl, she drew.
And here’s how this girl entered the group of the best artists of Ukraine since 2022, how she became an artist. This is a series of films about Helen Polishchuk. Follow the link right now

Film about Helen Polishuk

CHANGE

Modern drawing made in the style of Petrykivka painting by Natalia Stasiv-Garko

It may seem that time is unchanged. More than six months have passed since the last publication. During this time, many events have passed that can be packaged in one word – change.
The Chinese, when they want to wish something bad, say that you should live during changes. They make sense because this is the most uncertain time, which slows down any planning, postpones things indefinitely, interferes with meetings and postpones events. But what to do, when this happened to you.
Therefore, I will briefly summarize my post.

I’m sure many people have found themselves in this state.
Today I am only talking about the present tense.
The large collection of wood paintings I created in the traditional Ukrainian style was shown in August and had both positive and negative responses. I may return to the positive ones, but I’ll dwell on the negative ones in more detail.
This is my first time painting on wood. I have not done this before. If we approach the creation of the project technically, then its goal was to create mutually complementary objects that together would create the same composition.

Composition of the drawing, completed in Petrykivka style and presented for teaching drawing techniques in a book about Petrykivka painting

The critics felt that I did not perform the traditional Ukrainian Petrikovsky painting correctly, or to put it differently, in an original way. Well, although these critics do not know how to draw and have a superficial understanding, they decided to consider me a failure.
I am not defending myself and I am not going to argue. But thanks to the first women (Petrikovsky painting is known for the fact that the first women who mastered it were women who painted the walls of their houses) who painted cockerels, birds and flowers in an absolutely free style and decorated their houses with them, we now have a whole galaxy of artists of this style. If you look at the works of each of them, they are very different and they have in common the creation of a composition around several symbols.

One of the founders of Petrykivka painting in Ukraine Maria Prymachenko

Years have passed and this style, thanks to modern graphic programs, has reached absolute perfection. Moreover, many schools and courses have appeared that are ready to teach you this skill for your money.
And yet, based on primary sources, I would advise you to remain tied to the three fundamentals of this painting – creativity, composition around symbols and image technique.

One of the famous paintings created by Maria Primachenko


That’s why I wished and wish today to everyone who is fighting for something, look at the primary sources and add your creativity – you will succeed.

Another painting by Maria Prymachenko, the founder of Petrykivka painting


The most interesting thing in learning any folk painting is mastering the principles.
Although I will now be criticized again, the founders of this type of painting did not interconnect the composition; many objects of the composition were, as it were, separated. If you look at photographs of one of the first creators of this type of painting, you can see how stamping, the creation of separate drawings, which are located one next to the other.

Modern apartment decor in Petrykivka style

Two centuries ago, the goal for artists was to create a drawing that would create coziness in the room, protect it and harmonize with everyday life. Therefore, cheerful roosters and hens, wonderful bright princes with colorful plumage and long multi-colored tails, flowers of unusual shapes and color harmony appeared on the walls.

It was rural folklore, the art of the country people who decorated their homes.
And today, Ukrainian artists have supplemented and improved it and created masterpiece collections of paintings, introducing this type of art into the traditional Ukrainian folk art.
I’ll return to my collection. Drawing on wood requires its own skill. Technically, this is a more long-term work, and I was also required to create compositions on two chests, several kitchen boards, kitchen wooden shelves, souvenir wooden houses, Christmas tree decorations and sections of wood. I also tried painting on bags.

Photo from exhibition where was present my new collection.


I liked the combination of animals with modern elements. I took the cat as a symbol on the bag. That’s why I received criticism.

Another part of the collection among the exhibits on display


I’ll wait until the passion to ruin someone subsides and all this settles down and still, I’ll remain silent.
Someone else criticized that I was too confident in myself.
Friends, no. I hid, broke all my brushes, threw away the paints and am sitting waiting for something else to come to me.
I would like your problems.
Today I have donated several works to auctions and I believe that they will be useful.
Tomorrow is not predictable for me, I will say one thing – only those who do not do and do not create are not mistaken.
And I am again full of news and ideas, which I will tell you about in the next post.
All the best

Radical Stitch and Radical Design Hamilton

March 23,2023 in Hamilton was Radical Stitch &Radical Design in Art Gallery Hamilton 123 King Street West,Hamilton .

Designers:

Jason Baerg @jasonbaerg

Angela DeMontigny @angelademontigny

Dusty LeGrande/ Mobilize

Evan Ducharme @evanducharmestudio

Special guest DJ Kyle Joedicke @kylejoedickart

This was great collaboration with Woodland Cultural Centre .

This event was showcased Indigenous fashion designers from across Turtle Island and featuring models from the Six Nations of the Grand River Community