Monday, June 13, 2011

'Those Who Live', Rosie's page in Masha's book.


Sheep!

I found I couldn't make a satisfactory page from my bird drawings but realised that Masha's birds inhabited the Moscow sky, Marcia's were by the shore and Katie's on the lake. So my creatures are in the fields of Northern England.

This is a montage of several of my drawings. The sheep and thorn trees were drawn near Whitby on Yorkshire's east coast.

The dry stone walls and old stone gate posts are from Derbyshire and Cheshire in the north west.

Oh, and the snail was in my garden in Hertfordshire, (south east)! At the moment there are snails everywhere as it's been raining copiously.

I hope you like this for the theme Masha. Once again it was not really what I'd intended. It's not a styalish drawing but I've enjoyed giving the sheep and the stone walls an outing :)

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Rosie's book is here!

My health issues put me in the hospital for a few days :-{

I am home now and I was so delighted that Rosie's book was here when I got home. Both my husband, Patrick, and I couldn't get over how exquisite it is!

I really have no idea what story I have to add. At this point I am simply honored to have it in my possession.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

a picture for Marcia's book

I don't know why I decided not to follow a romantic mood and restrained palette of previous drawings from this book... I'm sorry if my entry was too laud. It's been a long time since I began to think of what to draw there. Being one who moved from home city 4 years ago and changed 3 rented flat since, I can't show you all the parts of my collection of curiosities and dear things. It all was left at home. And, at the same time, our family have no regular 'home', moving all the time from Belarus to Russia, from Russia to Moscow, from one rented flat to another. So, I'm showing you what I keep with me.

Sandglass.
Grandfather's handmade sandglass he made for yoga practice. He was a yogin and occupied himself with asanas and krijas daily for more than 30 years.

Pins collection.
Soviet Union Association of Cactus Societies pins collection we once bought with my Mom, great cactus lover.

Lucky tickets.
Tram, bus and trolleybus lucky tickets from my home town Izhevsk. My husband and I collected them for one year. To check if it's lucky or not one need to calculate a sum of 3 left and 3 right numbers. If it's the same the ticket is a lucky one and you need to eat it for a good fortune.

Knitted rose.
Knitted rose brooch made by my Mom as a part of our knitted jewelry design project.

Monday, June 6, 2011

My Grandmother's Story in Rosie's Book



At 19, my grandmother left the Ukraine for America with her sister Julie.  My grandmother’s name was Sarah.  It was the 1st decade of the 20th century.  The Tsar had stolen their oldest brother and burned Jewish homes & villages in pogroms.  From the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic into the St Lawrence Seaway & the Great Lakes to Chicago.  Grandma worked in a handbag factory and met her husband, also a Jew from the Ukraine.  She spoke Russian + Yiddish + broken English.  They moved to northern Minnesota, opened a dry goods store for the iron ore miners, and had 2 daughters—the youngest my mother.  Grandma’s husband ran off with a young, gentile woman, leaving her to raise her daughters alone.  She made chocolate cake for my mother to eat at bedtime to show her love.  When my mother & her sister were grown, Grandma moved to Los Angeles where Julie lived.  They both worked in another handbag factory.  Grandma slept in a Murphy bed, ate at the automat and enjoyed sitting under palm trees in the park.  When I was a child, Grandma would take the train cross-country to our home in New York.  She’d fill our freezer with homemade cheese blintzes and rolled cookies with Welch’s Grape Jelly.  With flour covering her hands and across the belly of her apron, she’d call me Marsh-a-lah Marsh-a-lah Shena Madel.  Grandma wore a girdle & a brassiere.  She called panties bloomers.  She died at 93 and is buried in LA next to Julie.  Weeks before my mother died 4 years ago, she slipped my grandma’s old diamond rings on my finger.

Marcia Milner-Brage           June 6, 2011