Art around my house

This week, they knitty blog-stalkers are doing "art around your house," and here is my contribution:

First off, the oil painting in our bedroom. I couldn't get rid of the glare (oil reflects flash), but I think it's still pretty recognizable. This painting was done by a very gifted unschooled artist in Kucevo, the small Serbian village where my mother grew up. It's a bit surreal, but mostly,t here are loads of things characteristic of the region. Dried red peppers, small houses, home-made bread... It's a very small village, and to this day, there's a village fair where people trade cows, goats, sheep, and where toothless old women in black clothes and scarves gather to gossip. Time hasn't exactly stood still, but it hasn't advanced very far, either.


This is a wedding gift from my friend Linda. Linda is a master tilesetter in Germany, and this is a large, heavy mosaic done in tile, with my and my husband's initials and the two rings. She's not only an excellent tilesetter, she's also a very gifted artist, and a wonderful human being.


This is the golden Jesus given to me by my uncle when I got married. Sorry about the glare, he's opposite a window, one of the first things you see when you enter our house. As you can tell, I was brought up in the Serbian Orthodox tradition. Now, my husband and I go to an Episcopal church, but I'm not giving up on my religious roots.
It took our parish a while to figure out that you can be goth, wear black, and still go to Church regularly!


This is another oil painting. My mother bought it for us in Belgrade. She got stopped at the airport because you can't export art of any kind without official paperwork. She wanted me to have this picture because the books and wine combination reminded me of her. Finally, my uncle in Belgrade got the paperwork straightened out, and my parents brought the painting the next time they came to visit.