The art gallery is best accessed from Kontraktova Square [in Podil], although you can walk down from Volodymyrska or Desiatynna St. It is a matter of choice, or rather habit; some prefer to walk down, others to walk up to the gallery. In fact, Podil offers a short cut. Also, hardly an option, you can drive up to the gallery, provided you have a special license plate making traffic cops snap to attention, as Andriyivsky Uzviz has “No Entry” signs at both ends. This author and a staff photographer walked, of course. The latter snapped several shots of kids sledding down the steep street, having the time of their life. And there is it was, Gallery “Honchary” [Potters’ Gallery] at 10-A Andriyivsky Uzviz Street.
As you step inside gallery, you find yourself in a completely different world of colors, shapes, styles, and materials. It possesses an inimitable atmosphere; it is warm and has a genetically familiar touch. It is quiet, invisible, tranquilizing, captivating, and emanates from every item on display. It is the material. Clay that was first warmed, molded, and then placed in the kiln. They call it “two in one” these days. It is believed that human cellular oscillation frequency is akin to that in some clay varieties, hence their medicinal properties. You are reminded of the Creator working with the dust of the earth on the sixth day (what came out of it is a separate subject). The tradition is being upheld.
Honchary is the title of both the gallery and the locality, as Kyiv potters formed a guild and worked here in the 8th-9th centuries. Today’s Honchary is a creative association of potters and ceramists, founded in 1986, on the wave-crest of the cooperative movement during the perestroika campaign. It was aimed at reviving the endangered decorative-applied species, particularly pottery and ceramics. Honchary is both an art gallery and also a children’s studio. It holds workshops with several hundred artisans from all over Ukraine. Gallery manager Tetiana Andriyenko says there are about 40 permanent contributors.
Andriyenko believes that the interior must be filled with “living things” and this can be considered to be the gallery’s credo. Here, clichОs are taboo and every article is inherently individual, the only one of its kind. In fact, you won’t find a power-driven potter’s wheel at the workshops; everything is kept traditional as much as absolutely possible. The gallery often seeks authors in the province, particularly during the Opishnya Symposium, regularly held at the famous village of the same name in the Poltava oblast. Young artisans at the Honchary studio are encouraged to contribute to the exhibits. Many of them develop such a fancy for the craft, they cannot imagine living life without molding clay, turning it into shapes, filling it with meaning. I was told about a girl for whom the worst punishment imaginable was being forbidden to attend classes at the Honchary studio. This was a very effective method, at least much better than the traditional stick- and-carrot technique (you misbehave and there will be no pocket money!).
What holds back the craft is the unstable consumer taste; some have yet to develop it and others have lost it due to aesthetically dubious products on the market. Tetiana Andriyenko comments, “We have no ceramic consumption culture.”
Clay is somehow regarded as a secondary material and pottery costs several times less than pictures or marble pieces, even though the artistic level is practically the same. We are still willing to buy things made from plastic or Italian gypsum dwarves, tens of thousands of which are released from the conveyor belt.
There are, however, true connoisseurs. I asked about the average consumer type and was told that some would “buy everything if they could afford it.” But, as one would expect, the gallery’s clientele primarily consists of museums, churches, and restaurants wishing to possess a visage of their own. There are several sale trends: small pieces, “collective presents”, and truly valuable works are popular. What does this tell us? There is a lack of demand for average- priced commodities and consequently the absence of the middle class in Ukraine. Who can deny that politics and the arts are interconnected?
It is also interesting to note how the customer is directly involved in the process of fulfilling his order. First, there is an oral description or a sketch. The original design is then approved and, finally, the finished product is made. There is a creative cooperation between the author and the customer possessing his own concept. This relationship provides many amusing stories (A man commissioned Honchary for a big ceramic “the color of my Mercedes.” Eventually he was convinced that a different color would be better.). To attract customers, prices are set to meet the needs of all segments of the population, ranging from four to seven thousand hryvnias.
In addition to the principal exposition, the gallery also has an exhibition hall displaying collections by separate authors. These collections are replaced every two to three weeks. At present, Honchary features excellent works by Inna Kolomyets, a noted sculptor holding the prestigious title, “Meritorious Artist of Ukraine.” In fact, she is better known as the author of easel and monumental sculptures, but experts think highly of her small forms. She cuts a spectacular creative figure, having won recognition under the Soviets and, remaining in her creative prime, works with most variegated materials, including granite, wood, gypsum, acrylic resin, and clay.
This is Kolomyets first display at Honchary, featuring several cycles: “Chornobyl,” “Rivers,” portraits of women, and symbols. Actually, she depicts all phenomena, objects, events, and symbols, using female characters; for Kolomyets, women are mediums, intermediaries between the world of images and the viewer’s mind. She works the whole range of emotions and the subtlest nuances into the plasticity of the female body, ranging from the joyous triptych “Dance,” “Holiday,” and “Song,” to the oppressively tragic “Helplessness” from the Chornobyl cycle (a lonely old woman bent not so much under her as age as under the sheer despair of miserable subsistence). The subject is continued in Strakholissia [The Scary Forest], the name of a locality in the Exclusion Zone. A dynamic figure of a woman with raised and crossed hands, as touch protecting somebody or something, with a black bird soaring above and blue seagulls circling her, a symbol of hope. Every river has its character: “Prypiat” (a nude woman chastely covering herself with her hand, reminding one of the sensual Renaissance images, sailing atop a fantastic two-headed creature); the serene, “Desna”; “Stuhna,” with a strained nymph towering over an enigmatic archaic man; “Lake Halahany,” symbolic realism intertwined with philosophy, contemplation and a desire to act.
What makes ceramics special is the fact that you almost never know what to expect to be the end result. The author paints different colors and they turn out something altogether different after the kiln. This is what is so difficult to predict. To a degree, the product is a result of chance. Pottery and fire are inseparable elements. A true co-author, so much depends on the artisan coming to terms with it...
