What kind of material can one make portraits from? Practically any. The past few years have also added amber to this long list, to be more exact, the amber mined in Rivne oblast. Portraits made of this sun-like stone are becoming more and more popular. They are made by Olha Baranova, chief artist at the Rivne Amber Factory. She is rather reluctant to talk about her works and prefers to give the names of by no means all those whose image she carefully reproduces in the semi-precious sun-colored stone.
“All this began quite recently. Many amber plates had piled up in our warehouse. They are usually used in the production of jewelry, but just at that time they lay unattended. So the idea came to me to make a portrait of Taras Shevchenko. I did so quickly. I took the base and began to lay out the portrait with plates. This is very hard and painstaking work. You must choose the right hues of amber, without forgetting even for a minute about resemblance to the original. The first amber portrait was received well, so orders began soon to pour in like from a cornucopia. As a rule, unlike other portrait-makers, I never see my characters and cannot force them to pose for hours on end. The factory receives photos on the basis of which I make a portrait. I use the technique of Florentine mosaics. I take plates of various hues, polish them, and begin to create a portrait. For instance, when making a portrait of Leonid Kuchma, I used amber of entirely diverse shades, including even a gray-blue one for his eyes.
The most difficult thing in making the image is to find the point of departure from which to begin. This may be a certain distinguishing feature, e.g., a birthmark or a wart. Sometimes the search for such a point of departure is the most complicated moment in making the portrait. This happened, for example, when I worked on the image of Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko. It was very difficult to find a characteristic facial expression. All who saw the finished portrait said: “Look, you’ve made him too kind.” But I later saw a television spot on Mr. Tkachenko visiting his mother at her home. He sat with her, and his usually quite stern face looked surprisingly kind and appeased — just like in my portrait.
“In general, amber is a soft, easily worked, but not at all simple, stone. When you work with it, it takes in your energy: sometimes you finish your work day completely exhausted. But if you put on, for example, an amber necklace, you feel a tide of energy: the stone gives you its strength. And, to crown it all off, I want to make a genuine amber jewelry chest, like in a fairy-tale.”
