January

…and another short story

Vincent

There are two suitcases in my room. One is very small, it contains everything I know. The other, the one that occupies the rest of the room, has everything I don’t. When I was a child, just a baby really, i often took things out of big suitcase and placed them in a small one. As I lived my life that’s what i kept doing, or so i thought. For a while i even thought the small suitcase got bigger than the big one but it was just an optical illusion from standing right next to it.

I now take things out of small suitcase and examine them thoroughly. Sometimes I put them back in, but more often than not I take them to a bigger suitcase. I think not knowing is just as important as knowing, and is certainly vast and mysterious, and flavors life with a sprinkle of distant stars. I believe that accepting the very idea that your knowledge will always have limits,  and horizon is forever receding, and the rainbow can’t be touched - knowing this makes you a true believer of miracles. I mean, you got here with a limited knowledge and rather vague map - what other proof you need that you gonna be okay?

There are billions of us on this planet with our small suitcases of individual knowledge, and I can’t help but thinking what would happen if we bring all of them to the same room? and open them up? Will our collective knowledge be like a night sky with billions of stars, all light years away from each other? Or can we weave contents of our suitcases into one collective patchwork, a giant tapestry of human knowledge, a quilt where individual experiences woven into fabric of universe, where nothing discarded and everything reciprocated? And available to everyone just for asking, for wanting to know, for reaching for it? And anyone can tap into it and take a long drink of cold starry water from a fountain of knowledge. I do believe that’s what Vincent knew. That’s what he painted for us. Thousands of stars on thousands of nights, available to everyone just for looking up.

Notes from my studio

It’s been a cold January and steaming cup of tea and heating blanket were things that made my studio days little less of a misery. I’ve been working on new embroidery panel since early December and although major elements are mostly in place now, I keep changing things and adding details. I will talk more about inspiration for what i hope will become a new body of work in my next newsletter. Most of 2025 will be dedicated to it, and will be part of my solo with Haven Gallery at the end of the year.

Much love to you, and stay warm and inspired.

My orchids started to bloom.

There is so much to love, always.

XOXO Larysa