How I love amusing splendour...

Ting, ting, ting... go the lulling sounds of a child's musical box, and overflowing with sunbeams, childhood memories and dreams begin to slip before me...

As children we played at 'secrets'. Each had her secret putting-place, a dug-out hollow under a glass in a hidden spot where various treasures were placed: an old brooch of mother's, a dried dragon-fly, ribbons - anything which seemed precious and could inspire delight and admiration between us. We were caught by the thrill of enriching our treasure-troves and showing off our achievements. Each wanted to reveal her secret and so become 'initiated'!

Thus 'Netlyenka' and 'Dukhovka' came to be! Here she is - grandmother of my works of today! Ah, what riches I managed to gather! These are no Fabergé eggs - my treasures weren't hidden beneath sterile museum glass: they lived the full turbulent lives of favourites of fate. Time itself materialised on their surfaces. Yellowed photographs, crumbling antique lace, porcelain fragments inscribed with cracks, pieces of wood gnawed by the sea…

Such objects, placed in unexpected surroundings, torn from their prosaic past, took on new roles. So it was with the fasteners from a lady's theatre case. Now they 'work' as frames for brooches, and the simple bottle-glass that dwelled a long, long time in my so beloved sea worthily takes the place of emeralds. How I love amusing splendour...

Many of the things covered great distances before they came into my posession. African agates, ...xtonicheskie... rich Berber hangings, ancient beads from China and India, a thousand and one nights... the tales of the peoples of the world, the mysteries and secrets of civilisations. And if you attune your ears, you can hear the unhurried discourse of these 'fellows'. Strung on the thread of history, in exchange with graceful porcelain heads they whisper and make secrets with antique scent flasks. Sturdy keyholes are dedicated to the secrets of faded photographs.

When the incombinable are combined, a space forms for new relations between old things. Entering into an unending polyphonic conversation with obsolete objects, one can witness how they return to life in their coming together.

Ting, ting, ting... goes the musical box...

And so it shall be, until the seas become dry!

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