Crossing The Mystic Sea
Crossing The Mystic Sea
Hand-cut Collages By Christina Zawadiwsky
Artists Bio
Christina Zawadiwsky is a poet, artist, journalist, critic and TV producer who has received a National Endowment for the Arts award, two Wisconsin Arts Board awards, and a Milwaukee Arts Board Art Futures award. She has also received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association and a national Council of Co-ordinating Literary Magazines Writer's Award. She is the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a TV series designed to showcase artists of all genres in the media, for which she received two national and twenty local awards and a Commitment To Community Media Award.
About The Photo
Although the collages in Crossing the Mystic Sea look rather fantastical, upon the completion of the series I, Christina Zawadiwsky, realized that it was really the story of my father and mother, Bohdan and Olga Zawadiwsky, leaving Ukraine to come to America a year before I was born. Therefore I dedicate this exhibition to their memory. One of my father's talents was photography, and he took this photo with his large German box camera on a tripod using a timer. Later he developed the photo and hand-colored it. It was taken in my parents' first apartment in the Bronx, New York City.
Discussing Flight - The two Assimilators are being forced to leave their homeland for a new reality even stranger than their own. They don't know the language or the culture of the new place but they must leave immediately. Here they are secretly discussing their journey and even the nature of flight itself. The female bird carries the blue egg which holds the genetic code of their land and their people, which they must never forget.
Crossing the Mystic Sea - The voyage itself is tumultuous and difficult. They must pass under the bridge on which they see portraits of Assimilators who have left before them. Their boat bears the symbol of an open eye, as they must be continuously watchful.
When We Were Hungry - It's a world with air and water and earth, but so very different from their past lives. The Assimilators have the ability to see into the future, and they envision birds on tree boughs covered with ice because it will be bitterly cold and they'll have to find a way to work, make money and avoid being hungry.
The City at Night - The streets of this very cosmopolitan city weren't lined with gold as they'd been told but lit up at night as if it were daylight. Everything looked beautiful. The male Assimilator said that one day his name, too, would be in lights. The beautiful birds didn't sleep or hide but displayed themselves on rooftops.
Finding The Box — The Assimilator Couple are fortunate enough to find The Box, a legendary treasure. No one knows whether it will foretell good luck and fortune or summon Pandora's ills. One of the Inhabitants {who are mostly robots with missing body parts} is able to take this slice out of Time and keep it for future generations to admire.
Growing Flowers — The Assimilators are adjusting. The female Assimilator is extraordinarily gifted at growing flowers, and so she does, and people come from far, far away to see her creativity. She values Life.
Learning To Fly And Learning To Drive — In this new kingdom everyone must learn how to drive and how to fly. The Assimilators struggle to do this because they know that success will help them get along with the Inhabitants. As they can see, the Inhabitants have had many successes and failures in their history as a people.
New Realms — Time has passed and our Assimilators have become Inhabitants. But what new and unusual realms will future generations discover when they too must leave their beloved lands?