Day 24

September 24

Up at 3am. The driver picked me up at 4am and off to the St. Petersburg airport. 

It was a quiet ride there as the rain continued to fall and the temperature has dropped by 20 degrees In the last 2 days.

Slept through breakfast on the plane heading back to Frankfurt.

Arrived in Frankfurt with a 5 hour layover.  Did some last minute shopping with what Euros remained and then boarded the plane to Atlanta.

Thought about what has happened in my life over the last three and a half weeks. Truly too much to digest right now.

Watched various movies on the plane and arrived in Atlanta after 22 hours of travel.

My friend Virginia was nice enough to be there waiting with a sign of my name in Russian.  She dropped me off and I arrived home at 6 pm only to find a surprise return party was in progress.

The place had been decorated in the style of my installations by Melindo and several people close to us was there. Ceviche and pulled chicken and wine was flowing. What a wonderful way to come home.

It also served as a surprise birthday get together for Virginia complete with a tres leches cake. 

Over the last 24 days, I have experienced so many wonderful  encounters.  

  

 Special thanks to: The staff at CEC Artslink, The National Center for Contemporary Art, The people of Nizhniy Novgorod, Ed Woodham, my wonderful assistant in Nizhniy Irina, Virginia Sowell, my assistant in St. Petersburg Sasha,  Melindo Rabanales for all his hard work on producing the flags and support on all my projects and the community at 46 Leitinyy for their interest and support of BLUE.

Day 23

September 23

Up early this morning and ran down to McDonald's to get breakfast for Ed. Today is his birthday.

Afterwards I walked over to my installation at 46 Liteniyy. Seeing it for the last time is very emotional. I  met with one of the ladies responsible for me leaving the project up for a longer time and I agreed to October 1. The community will be responsible for the de-install. I gave them instructions on what to do with the materials. 

 Got back to the apartment and was greeted by Linda Hesh and her husband, Eric. The three of us and Ed went for lunch. It is so much fun hanging out with them. Linda gave me one of her "EVIL" apples. 

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Then spent some time  running around and shopping before Ed and I went to dinner at Buffalo.

Then back to the apartment to finish up laundry and to pack when there was a power outage and I cannot see anything. The maintenance man arrived and after about an hour got the power back on.

This is my last blog from Russia. I cannot believe after waiting 14 months that these 24 days have gone by so quickly as they always do. So many wonderful things have happened here.

Day 22

September 22

Up this morning and off to meet Sergey Krylow at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art.

A marvelous tour of the place where Sergei teaches hot enamel technique and monumental painting.

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                                                                      Classroom 

                                                              Wall relief in hallway

                                                                Sergey and Ed


Then back to the apartment for a nap.

After lunch I went to my installation where the lady responsible for the space, Olga, asked if I would leave the installation up for a longer period of time.  I was honored to be asked such a question. This is the wonderful  part about my installations. I get to spend days in the space getting to know how the space functions and getting to know the local people all the while creating community.

There was a group of about 25 artists doing sketching in the space.

Olga then introduced me to a lady that had lived in this courtyard her entire life and had done 6 video clips of my piece.  She brought me hot tea and various images she had taken from her upper floor apartment.  She also asked if I would consider leaving the piece up for a longer period of time.  So plans have changed. Now I intend to leave the fence up one more week. At that time the local children get to keep the flags for projects and the uprights will be used in spring plantings.

Heading home I passed by the Drama Theater to see several public works including word pieces by Nicolas Frasier 

Tonight was the closing dinner party….and what a wonderful dinner party it was. I feel like there has been a party every night since I arrived. They really know how to do this in Russia.

It started raining and I came back to sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s packing to head back.

Day 21

September 21

Walked over to the installation site this morning to check on things.

It is raining and the colors are always more intense. Looks beautiful.

Meandered through the city for the most part of the day visiting various public art pieces.  

                                                                A favorite image.

                                                           Shadows from a railing.

 Found a shop that sells only  cat themed items. 

                                                     Cat looking out apartment window.

In the afternoon went back over to the installation and found a children’s exercise class being conducted amongst the flags and an art class sketching the piece. Very interesting.

                               "These are the best days of your life" from Ed's installation.

Then to see Ed Woodham’s performance piece that was drawing crowds in front of the storefront window.

Went to the apartment. Caught a beautiful sunset and headed out to eat dinner with Ed.

  

                                                                The apartment

Back to the apartment at an unknown hour.

Day 20

September 20

Up this morning and had to run to the camera store to get a new memory chip as mine is full and my camera suddenly will not advance images to delete.

Worked on the blog for an hour .

Packed all my supplies and a car arrived for the larger supplies and dropped me off at the park.

It is a beautiful day here. Perfect for the installation. Over the last days I have learned that this garden is over 200 years old and the music school that is located in one of the buildings was the Count's Palace.with his servants quarters in another.

My wonderful assistant, Sasha, arrived and spent the day between explaining the project to the local people and helping me string the flags.

All throughout the day photographers dropped by to document the project.

We finished the install around 5pm. I am completely happy with the result. My idea was to create an environment with a color story relating to sadness, BLUE,  with a secondary reaction coming when encountering the words embroidered on some flags. 

                                                                      SLEEP

 

I continued to work on the piece, as classical piano music poured out of the windows of the music school, until the group arrived that was touring various project around the city. 

I left the space at 8pm and went to see two video projection pieces by Andrea Steudel and Paul Notzold.

There was a big after party for the event. Sadly I was too tired to attend.

It was an amazing day.