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I studied Soviet history extensively both in undergrad and in graduate school - my Master's degree is in Slavic linguistics, so I was immersed in both the language and culture of the region for about 20% of my life on this planet.
One of my favorite classes was a Russian art history class, which explored the genres that were born under Soviet rule.
At first, it was all very offputting to me, before I learned the history. I didn't understand the thematic background just viewing it as a Gen X American child with no context. But as I learned more, even though my focus was language and literature, I found myself revisiting the art more and more. The more I understood about the time in which the art was created, the more I appreciated the art.
It was dark, I'm not going to lie. It was also extremely spare - there was nothing extra in the art of the time period I studied. And now I know it's because that time was extremely spare.
I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a family that experienced the depression - I am the youngest child in a family that reaches much farther back. It taught me so many life skills that I value more than anything else. As much as I didn't love the freezer burned corn and lima beans my grandfather served when we went to visit him at holidays - I completely understood where that came from and I learned from it. It has served me well all my life, and is especially comfortable now.
But lately - in some of my classes, I've had some conversations about whether or not we should be documenting all of the crazy things that are happening right now, and as the granddaughter of a man who wrote a line or two daily every day of his adult life, I can emphatically say - YES - we should be.
As much as I enjoy writing, I enjoy visually documenting things even more. And so today's post is your permission slip to make your cards reflect this bizarre time we are living in. It needs to be recorded in one way or another so that some lucky college student in the future can have the wonder I had discovering the strange life of Soviet Russia...
So today's cards all heavily rely on real life as we know it this year. The first one is probably my favorite. I sort of feel like recklessness has been misappropriated and I'd like to reclaim it. So I distanced my friends from a new stamp set I'm obsessed with -
A Walk in the Park - and the companion set. I used the new sun stencil and a sentiment from this set. The shadows were made with
the transfer paper hack in this video. I have a coupon code in the footer for
the transfer paper. I wanted to separate the people in the scene, but also have the hopeful, bright sunrise, and I did that with
this stencil.
This one is a combo of oh so many themes for 2020 and covid.
This awesome new floor stamp made me think of chess, which is such a great metaphor for our issues. I separated the people on the floor, but also colored a few of them because I think we all have this sense that we have no idea right now who is infected, who is vulnerable, who we need to protect. It's the perfect imagery - and wouldn't you love to know that if you did everything you could do right now to protect vulnerable people that in the end, your kindness mattered?
Finally, and not because it's not my favorite, because it is, I abstracted the background in
A Walk in the Park to make a Seurat inspired scene. When I saw the image, I imagined it like A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - but now - without people. So I stamped it in a light grey ink, and then dotted acrylic paint all over it with a combination of Q-Tips and my ball stylus.
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There is so much fun new stuff today over there today so check it out!
Loveyameanitbye.
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