Seventy-seven-year-old Volodymyra Adevnina from Ternopil has an unusual hobby for her age. She makes quaint figurines of animals, fairy-tale characters, flowers, miniature replicas of medieval castles and even the Holy Virgin’s Church out of cockleshell stone extracted at the local quarry. This craftswoman has cleverly laid out all this “stone embroidery” among the fall flowers and low shrubs on the green lawn of her country retreat. It is as though you are entering a fairy tale: near a small improvised lake are swans, a mermaid, water lilies, a frog with a coquettishly raised paw, and other well-known characters, including all sorts of gnomes. A little farther off is a swallow’s nest that closely resembles the one in the Crimea. When this master craftswoman once saw the Crimean landmark, the architectural ensemble impressed her so much with its light and perfect towers that she wanted to have a similar palace, at least in miniature form, in her own yard. It took her a long time to complete the work because she uses nothing but a hammer, several different-sized chisels, plaster, and water. Ms. Volodymyra takes painstaking efforts to work these stone wonders.
She once dreamed of being an architect. She painted very well, but the Second World War dashed her hopes and she had to work as a seamstress. When she retired, Ms. Volodymyra began to create wonderful little sculptures out of stone. She likes painting her objects in green, red, orange, and other vivid oil colors. The “stone embroidery” seems to raise the spirits of everyone who visits the master craftwoman’s yard.
