Matryoshka

I bought this matryoshka or Russian nested doll at a market in Abu Dhabi. These sets of wooden dolls were first carved in Russia in the nineteenth century and the creator was apparently inspired by a Japanese doll, perhaps a daruma. (Though I don’t know who made this particular doll or where it was made.)

Typically the outer doll is a Russian woman in traditional peasant dress but here she is an Arab woman in an abaya – I think this abaya is meant to suggest a traditional burqa worn by older married women (and those in rural areas) in the UAE (and also in Qatar and Oman, and by Arabs in southern Iran). But I don’t think an older and more conservatively dressed woman would wear her abaya open like that – though she may have something as garishly bright and patterned on underneath, who knows..?

Living in the Middle East, I was often surprised at the range of abayas (and other kinds of outer garments that women and girls there wear to cover themselves) and how colourful and intricately patterned they can be.

Perhaps that’s why I like the colours of these – that and the flash of what lies underneath..!

You can find out more about matryoshka and hijab on Wikipedia.

Down Bathurst Street

Catching up with another old friend last night got me thinking of places I haven’t been back to in years...

I made this sketch at the top of High Street, looking down Bathurst Street. I was sitting outside an awfully old-fashioned outfitters that used to be there – and perhaps still is – when an elderly lady stopped on her way in to scold me, very politely but quite insistently, for sitting out there in the cold. I assured her that although it was chilly I was warm enough and went back to my sketch but a short while later she was back – with an armful of flattened cardboard boxes that she’d requested from the outfitters. I could only smile and obligingly sat down on them to keep from catching my death of a cold.

If my sketch itself looks a little worse for wear it’s because I stopped to lie in the sun on the grass near the Drostdy Arch on my way home, only to have to leap for my drawing board as the sprinklers were turned on..!

Travelling on words

I recently pulled out a whole bunch of letters and cards and postcards – all from one of my closest and oldest friends. We met when we were eighteen and in first year at university, and we've been writing to each other ever since – though letters have become emails and text messages, and even these are a little outdated already. But we’ll still sometimes send handwritten cards and postcards – hers in bold, rounded letters and sometimes very jumbled spelling, and mine in smaller, rather wonky – and at times pretty illegible – letters and slightly breathless punctuation – somewhat like this paragraph..!

Since we've almost always lived far apart (we were only at the same university for two years), these letters and cards and postcards have had to travel across the country or around the world to reach us.

But the ones that caught my eye which I picked from the pile were those she sent when she was studying towards her masters. I think they mean even more to me now because I’m just beginning my own research and struggling to set a routine and stick to deadlines – just as she had.

Here in South Africa, she had received little support and supervision but she’d applied for a Fulbright and, over a year later, was sitting in class at Emory in Atlanta, Georgia. It was so exciting – and such a leap for her! But it was also very demanding and difficult because she’d gone on her own and her husband could only fly out once to visit her.

These are from some of her letters and postcards that she sent from the US. I travel there on her words because I’ve yet to go myself...

8 January 2003

We went off to New Orleans which was quite strange, a tourist town with a French feel that’s been accentuated. Everything’s very “shabby chic”, if you know what I mean, with that old time grubby feel, lots of old buildings or at least the facades of them, all “broekie laced” out, with cast-iron winding staircases and pots of bright posies, slap bang in the middle of a city with looming buildings in the distance. Then we went off to Florida, to Mexico Beach, and rented a hotel room on the beach, with waves breaking outside our front door. The landscape in the US South is pretty dull, lots of strip malls with tons of chain food branches. You could drive for miles and feel as if you’re in the same place, the land is vast and flat, but Florida’s lovely in a “calm”, “cool dude” kind of way. The weather was fantastic and the sea was blue blue with little lapping waves and because it was Christmas time it was completely deserted.

January 2003

I just want this thesis to “come to life” and leave – go off on its merry way – soon... and very soon I’ll be leaving! I’m starting to miss home again. I’m still in two minds about home and what there is there for me, but here I feel no connection. I do feel very lucky though to be given the chance – at least... I only wish that it didn’t still all feel so alien. At Emory everything’s bright, new, expensive and shiny. I couldn’t believe that the place is actually quite old (built in the 1800s). It’s a lovely campus though, very leafy with little reading spots all over the place. I’m going to enjoy the last couple of months here ...

(On a postcard included with the letter) This is a view of Emory village – I liked it because it reminded me of “Northern Exposure” – I don’t think that I’ll be moving over to Alaska or anywhere snowy and cold... The weather here’s been wonderful – I’ve preferred winter to summer, it’s cold but the sky’s the most amazing blue.

I went to my first “blockbuster” exhibition. Some works (Impressionist mainly) from the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. I was so amazed – about twenty people gathered in front of a work and just “stood” there transfixed – then they shuffled off to the next one. It was amazing and it was packed, everybody staring at Monet’s “Flags”, Degas’s “Bather”. The exhibition itself wasn’t that incredible but Americans went to see/experience something French... They had mimes and an “orel” player, hmm... Quite something. Oh and they had croissants and giant choc-chip cookies just to add an American flavour!

12 March 2003

I’m crazy busy again which is good since I only have a couple of months left in this place and I have my thesis to finish. The support I’ve been getting here is SO incredible, I sometimes think that they want me to finish even more than I want to myself. I REALLY need that right now, it’s been such an undertaking: this MA. At this moment it feels as if they’re pulling me out of who I used to be. I in turn have to pull the thesis out. It’s all a bit like having multiple births, and equally exhausting. Geez, after this, kiddies are going to be a breeze... I shouldn’t say that though, you know fate.

26 April 2003

 I brought a pile of your postcards here to remind me of my sunny kitchen and the dreams I had of Tate Modern. I’m off to New York soon and I’m really looking forward to that. I’m planning to go to DC from there, probably only for a day though, really just want to see the Smithsonian. I’m off to LA for my internship and at this moment I really just want to get out of this place altogether and far away from all the insanity. I’ve really felt as if I’ve had to slave away for the money I got and I guess that being in a war-crazy country doesn’t help either.

12 May 2003

I’m off soon to UCLA and the Fowler – it’s almost all over. Can’t wait to be back home but I’m realizing that I’ll probably miss all this hyper-stimulation and the cheap books and super-fast internet access etc... At the moment I’m frantic again, finishing off chapters and packing and watching too many technicolour Hindi movies. They’re fantastic and I’m completely hooked, only problem is that they’re 3 hours long! Sigh!

19 May 2003

Was completely overwhelmed by the Met. Spent the entire day there and still didn’t see everything. Which I’m reconciled with. The Met is awesome, too much, impossible to absorb it all. But I’ve seen many wonderful works that don’t translate well in print or slide. All those landscape paintings we studied I finally saw, a Turner hung next to a Constable. I still love Turner. There was a great Manet and Velasquez exhibition at the Met, a “blockbuster” where people greedily gobble work. Even saw wonderful Goyas. I’m lucky to be staying in Greenwich Village which itself is quite an experience.

4 June 2003

LA is great, the nicest city in the US I’ve been to so far, and the internship is going well. I’m at the Fowler, UCLA’s museum. They have a very successful community outreach programme and I’m here to learn about that and to learn about funding – how they manage to get so much money for really great projects. I thought of you when I went through the Mexican popular art exhibition. I’m sure you know those giant, bright candlestick holders they make out of clay? The exhibition was great... All the buildings on campus (all of the old ones) are Spanish inspired. And it’s lovely to feel close to Mexico. I didn’t get to it and this is probably as close as I’ll get for a while. Oh! The Mexican exhibition. Somebody did this wonderful “Like Water for Chocolate” ” tree of life”. They even had Gertrudis on her horse with the moustachioed, sombreroed Zapatista! You’d have loved it.