Sunday, July 30, 2006

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.

9 comments:

Trillian42 said...

Cool - I didn't know you were Serbian! So is hubby's family!

Bezzie said...

Aw, I like your Jesus. I'm not religious, but it reminded me of home where there's a very heavy Russian Orthodox community and therefor a lot of gorgeous icons available. You don't see that much in the Lower 48 (at least not where I've lived down here!)

cpurl17 said...

You have beautful Art--and I love that each piece holds such meaning for you. How special to have Art brought over for you

SuzannaBanana said...

I love that painting of Jesus. I took course in early Christian art for my degree, and I loved the Eastern style. So beautiful.

You've got a house full of gorgeous things.

Libi said...

Lovely art. I love the Icon. I have many friends who are Greek Orthodox, so I've seen quite a few.

What a statement to make as someone enters your home. :)

Jo said...

The icon picture is very striking - I like it. Do you often get comments from visitors about it?

Batty said...

Thanks, everybody! People do occasionally comment on the icon, though they're commonplace in most Serbian households. My parents are actually keeping another one for me until we have room -- it's done by a cousin of my dad's who paints icons for a living. They're even more beautiful.

Batty said...

Wow, I got blog spam! Who knew people spammed blogs!

If they think this will do anything except tick people off, they're so wrong!

Anyhow... thanks for checking in! I feel happily stalked by everyone except the blog spammer. : )

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