Blog

The Guardian, detail, Zlatina Cholakova - Avolifa

 

May 12th . I am walking outside , finding cobblestone streets with grass grown in the cracks . Clouds of lilac and wisteria behind the fences. The silence is blessful and anxious. The air is clean.
 I am listening to Michelle Gurevich in the quiet evening :

“ How quickly life can change
  Into something very strange
  The spring has sprung
  But it’s no fun “

I can see so clearly details of the distant buildings,  aproximately fifty blocks away. Very soon the life will become clear too. Many sources of distractions and temptations will melt and disappear. We’ll become more selective and will keep focus  on the important.
I believe that despite the problems, rising like  dark waves, something beautiful is ahead of us.  We must be patient and insightful, to survive and to experience it, to create it. A cleaner, less materialistic world, slower living, more cooperation than competition, chamber art,  kindred spirits, maybe.

The rose bushes and the heavy scent of the linden-tree replaced the lilac but soon  disappeared into the summer greenery.  So many things happened behind the closed doors too.
The answer is in the long walks. Narrow, dark and humid passages between the houses, wild white flowers shine unexpectedly. The magpie’s song in the evening, the warm thankful skin under the favorite tea shirt , the taste of mulberry and peach, the smell of fried zucchini. The senses are sharp , the seasons -  exeptionally beautiful , a luring set in contrast with the Happening .

 

In The Most Unexpected of Hours, detail, Zlatina Cholakova - Avolifa

Along with narrative/ fictional portraits , I continued to paint semi abstract landscapes in acrylic and mixed media . In contradiction  to the portraits, they were running insistably, like underground rivers in my mind. They express the controversial thoughts and feelings during this strange year, dominated by a growing unbearable movement, ressembling hapiness ... or the thurst for it.

 

Paraclete, detail, Zlatina Cholakova - Avolifa

I had a kind of a guru when I was younger. An old Artist who is not among us anymore. He too believed in the new era and now, during the Coronavirus time, I am thinking of him .
Once, on a wintry  trip, crossing a field, I received a gift from him - an old camera in a dusty black box. You can find objects of inspiration everywhere, even at the bare field, if you really look . 
I was funny, turning around like a whipping-top, observing the frozen dark ground. For a moment , he almost disappeared into the fog, walking fast ahead of me in his flying green coat. I was running after him with the camera . Why I didn’t take a picture of him that day?  Choosing to forget the dear  features,  I left them to melt in the fog.

He was my fjord.
He kept me awake and aware, opening horizonts for me. A geniune connection, generous , platonic. His aura was golden. He filled up the space, beyond the invisible border, the world felt bland, inhabited with grey silhouettes. The same way I felt , sitting on a bench, looking at The Sun in the wooden hall in Munch’s Museum in Oslo . Home.
They exist, the golden aura people. I was happy to meet a few. The rollerskater with Botticellian beauty, who helped me to find the way in a foreign town in the middle of the night. A child who made the pain go away when I was sick , and a female stranger who had unknowingly a high-impact on my life. Sometimes they are with us for years, sometimes - for days, even only for hours . They exist, the Guardians, silently leaving a golden trail in the dark .

I am exploring a new fjord now, alone. Like a nomad on a bare windy ground - a little bit scary but exiting. The air is crystal clean. Is someone waiving at me, on the other side of the shiny water, a figure in a contrajour with a flying coat like a wings ? Rainbow colors  slip over the rocks, the sun light blinded me for a second. I continue walking, taking a breath. I am holding his old camera, I keep focus - won’t miss  anything.

 

Behind -the -Scenes, detail, Zlatina Cholakova - Avolifa