MICHAŁ OPRYSZCZKO – PROVIDER OF ‘SPIRITS’ AND BEER

As well as pulling the occasional ‘pint’ of Żywiec for me down at Rubikon, Michał Opryszczko also takes photographs..! In fact, the whole bar is proving to be a magnificent resource of young talent and good conversation, with Michał ranking as one amongst three of the gifted bar staff who have studied art… (Situated in Nowy Świat, our adopted local by the way is well worth a visit if you’re ever passing through Białystok).

Michał Opryszczko - 'Look To Another Time'

Now I know, Art, more than any other activity, is overloaded with amateurs, and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, if and when you’ve been rumbled as an artist, to learn that just about everyone you meet in a bar daubs a bit here and chisels a bit there themselves. What does occasionally come as a surprise however is when some actually turn out to be the genuine article and even more – good…!

This thankfully is the case with Michał. Young he may well be, but already he is showing promise beyond his age. As a photographer he already flogs the odd shot or two to the press and in my opinion is beginning to build a portfolio which has in it the odd photo or two which rank as some of the best work I’ve seen here in Poland since my arrival two years ago!

His work is well worth a look here.

SOMETHING BREWING

And whatever it is, it isn’t a refreshing glass of the amber stuff!

Now I’m not one to believe in premonitions, or even predictions of any kind, but I don’t know, there’s something not quite right since we moved from Warsaw and my ‘confidence’ seems to be diminishing the longer we remain here.

Dominika calls it the curse of Bialystok (actually, I’m being dramatic here to keep the doom and gloom mood going); she can occasionally be heard to cry out ‘Bloody Bialystok’ when things are not going quite right, nothing more…

‘Curse’ however seems an appropriate word for whatever is effecting today's mood…

I dunno, perhaps being on my own so much lately, feeling a bit homesick, or just that, the reality that we seem to see so much less of one another since we moved here, but there’s definitely a cloud hanging over me and Dominika both at the moment which I don’t see lifting until we are properly together and can finally begin living life like any other ‘normal’ couple…

Dominika particularly feels this and seems overly desperate sometimes to kick off the old baggage completely and get going - Can't say I disagree, but everything would be so much easier if only 'certain factions' saw our love for what it is and gave genuine support rather than what can only be described sometimes as shear disgust and hatred regarding our union…

Ah, I’m surely talking bollix, things aren’t that ghastly, we certainly have a wonderful time whenever we’re left alone to get on with stuff together and poor Dominika isn't being pulled from pillar to post!

Yeah, simply just a bad day… Positive thinking – that's what's needed - aye, bring it on!

SAINT GEORGE'S DAY

I guess most of us aren’t much bothered that it's St George's Day tomorrow. Unlike the Scots, the Welsh, but more especially the Irish, who proudly celebrate their national days, the English are largely oblivious to April 23. While Celts take great delight in wrapping themselves in their national flags, the English aren't even always sure if they have one in particular beyond the Union Jack...? Well, that’s the way it used to be no more than twenty years ago...

It’s now trendy 'again' to be English, or that’s how ‘the market’ hopes it were and tries its best to make it so, for it's impossible not to be aware Saint George is here..!

However, just as it used to be that most of us have never felt it necessary to make a song and dance about being English, I suspect most still feel the same today regardless of any recent efforts by government and media alike to bring our identities in line with those of our immediate neighbours… I suspect the main reason for this indifference is actually based on the uneasiness surrounding the fact that unfortunately, since Scotland and Wales have achieved some semblance of self rule, just as the Union Jack was usurped by nationalist and their skinhead devotees beforehand, England and its emblem have now been hijacked by modern-day racist groups and their ‘charva’ following.

There remain more aspects to love about England than to hate however which for me anyway are to a great extent based firmly on the multicultural factors to have emerged since the middle of the twentieth century.., and until the bigots who currently wrap themselves in the beautiful Saint George Cross simply crawl back from whence they came, then I won’t be bothering with April the twenty third.

NOLI ME TANGERE

Perhaps the most important moment in the catholic calendar for both the hierarchy of the Church and the oppression of women alike.

Noli Me Tangere – Giotto - Arena Chapel

Described in John’s gospel, ‘Touch me not’, is the one moment in the life (or death or resurrection) of Christ, whereby the future repression or emancipation of women hangs ‘erotically’ in the balance. After his resurrection, the ‘fact’ that Christ appears first to Mary Magdalene and not St. Peter, as Peter himself would later proclaim, is all the ‘proof’, and what the blokes in charge of the Catholic Church down the ages have feared most, that Gnostics and ‘Da Vinci Code fans’ alike need to suggest that Christ favoured Mary Magdalene above all the other disciples and at this very moment sought out her alone to pass on the reins of leadership.

Peter had other ideas of course, and to play down the moment, the Church consequently includes the little ‘Touch me not’ proviso to the narrative..! Historically in art, you’d be hard pressed to find any images depicting the scene other than Christ’s rebuff of Mary; I've personally come across only a couple of examples - Jacob Cornelisz (c. 1515) and this one by Cano (c. 1640).

For now then, Szczęśliwy Wielkanoc (?) Oh, p.s., and although the snow did melt after all by the end of the day yesterday, it’s back again today – about three inches of the bloody stuff [Shocked Smilie]

WHAT’S GOING ON..,

.., with the weather here? IT’S APRIL THE EIGHTH MAN and because it’s been so warm of late, I’ve been sleeping with the balcony door ajar… Waking up with teeth chattering however, let it be known that in Poland, even at this time of year, this just isn’t a good idea unless hyperthermia is a desire… Yes, you’ve guessed; this is what greeted me from the balcony at 7.00 this morning, and although snow isn’t unheard of even in England around Easter, after weeks of clear skies and T-Shirt high temperatures, it’s suddenly cold enough for this stuff to hang around for a while!

So, glove and woolly hat weather again is what’s going on outside, inside and what we finally have is the beginnings of some new work on the 'gold for canvases' from Warsaw which has seen a return to the figure. Perhaps incorporating some urban elements, (although the plans carried out so far suggest otherwise), the last couple of days painting has been a pleasure. Not counting chickens just yet, for it can all so easily go horribly wrong within the blink of an eye, but the promise of something special is in the offing here! Steady as she goes then and should have something new to publish here in the next couple of weeks.

‘WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING, IT’S NOT AS IMPORTANT AS STROKING THE CAT’..,

.., an old Polish proverb which clearly must apply to what the suppliers have been up to over the last couple of months or so instead of getting my canvases done.

Last Thursday’s desperate enquiry on my part was the last straw when it ended in yet more excuses and another proposed week’s delay leaving me with knout, or very little, to be getting on with for more time than I could bear or afford - the excuse this time being that ‘the machine’ used to stretch the bloody things wasn’t.., as an abbreviation of a more recent Polish proverb goes: “.., broken, but.., uh.., modular”...

Inexpensive, ‘ready-mades’ might be, but the whole experience has left me wishing it were less expensive to knock up the buggers myself in the future, but it’s quite simply not, and it’s virtually impossible to get hold of reasonably priced linen or cotton for less cash than the finished product eventually costs – strange - but true...

So anyway, finally, what I should have done weeks ago, and a 400 Kilometre round trip to pick up two '120 X 100 Windsor and Newtons' from Warsaw was the outcome last Saturday. Not as expensive as it may sound either, and to have the brilliant white things set up in the ‘studio’ right now is already getting the juices flowing again.

And although the juices are unfortunately flowing in other ways too, as I have a voraciously stinking cold making merely shuffling around painful when in Warsaw, it was also great to spend a day back in the capital again. The trip gave me a chance to check out one of the galleries I want to eventually approach (the other was unfortunately but unsurprisingly closed), and what I found at Gallery Program gladly lifted the heart. Good stuff to be found in Warsaw is without doubt possible, but has proved hard to find, and the discovery of this place and hopefully local_30 in the future helps greatly with any forthcoming prospects.

Okay then, with work to be getting on with at last, for now, do zobaczenia, and, as I begin to attack these virgin canvases, I’ll leave you with just one more Polish maxim: “It's better to copulate than never” – Wise words indeed.