The Volgograd Children’s Art Gallery has turned 15. This unique phenomenon came into being thanks to Elena Vladimirovna Orlova.
Today this house is already too small. The gallery has grown; it lacks wall space and rooms — it has outgrown them with its plans and ideas. Children’s works are exhibited here, but here, in the art studio, they are also created. In fact, the art gallery grew out of the children’s studio “Province,” which the artist Elena Orlova began to lead 25 years ago. And since her ideas about the value of art rested on a single criterion — the manifestation of talent — a problem arose: how could the works of the studio’s pupils be shown? In their own gallery, perhaps... Thus, out of the need for motivation, an entire life’s work grew. Today the art gallery is already a real centre of aesthetic education. And this is a separate, high line of motivation...
She is unwavering in her conviction: all children are talented, but they must be taught.
“We teach children to read and write,” she says simply, “so let them begin to draw with the help of adults. And all children must be taught, as early as possible.”
“Why do we need so many artists?” I say, before I have time to think.
“That is not the task,” there is a slight emphasis in Elena Vladimirovna’s voice. “We teach love. Only a penetrating gaze can discern beauty in the surrounding world. How can one teach understanding of another person if the soul is not developed? One must influence the child’s emotions and feelings, and only art can do that...”
“Without developing feelings, we risk bringing up technocrats,” she says, and gives the example of high-tech Japan, where the human factor paradoxically became a brake on technical progress. And what saves the Japanese? Sakura saves them — the blossoming Japanese cherry, that is, beauty. More precisely, the ability to love beauty.
It was precisely the Japanese who highly valued the Volgograd Children’s Art Gallery as a unique phenomenon. Five years ago it was included in a catalogue of art museums of the world published in Japan. By that time the little artists from Volgograd were already “shining” at numerous international exhibitions and biennales, receiving prizes and medals, and the gallery’s activity was being noted by professionals in the field of art promotion. And here is another confirmation: an invitation to a UNESCO conference has arrived from Lisbon. Moscow has sent a letter proposing that the gallery’s pupils be included in the all-Russian catalogue “Gifted Children.”
So out of all the initially talented children, someone is still singled out? How can genuine art be seen in children’s works? Or is it something else? It turns out that even artists ask such questions. Elena Vladimirovna states that not everyone is capable of perceiving children’s creativity adequately. But she knows that even the smallest child can draw Tsar Dadon — as he sees him, of course. Orlova perceives them in different ways at once: as fighters and as creators. But more about that later...
It was an adventure — children’s scribbles on the walls! But support was found nearby. Elena Vladimirovna’s husband, also an artist, Evgeny Fedorov, at first merely dropped into the studio in the evenings, but gradually became infected with the idea of creating a gallery and became its “motor.” “It would be a sin to complain,” Orlova waves her hands. “Very many people helped us and still help us; otherwise the struggle would not have produced such a result.”
Yes, the word struggle relates to her whole life. Thirteen years ago, when her husband died, she was left with two boys in her arms, the younger only a year old. The idea itself was also in her arms. While telling this, she again catches herself and begins to name those who believed that the cause was important, almost sacred, and therefore deserved participation.
And I understand something else: not everyone is capable of gathering people around an idea alone and bringing plans down to earth. Elena Orlova, while doing this, remained an artist. Her wonderful landscapes and still lifes are made in a droplet technique: colors are decomposed into the finest shades, and the result is something astonishing. A mosaic in the brush. At first a quick glance catches the effect: something shines from within. Only afterwards does one begin to look closely at the details of her style. Gradually one understands how fascinating it is to look into life in general — the cosmos is nearby; one need only turn toward it. The artist suggested and showed this.
Another successful project for children also could not have done without Orlova — the magazine “Prostokvasha,” edited by Sergey Vasilyev. People are sometimes surprised: is this really a Volgograd magazine? It looks so joyful, and so solid. This can be explained by only one thing — the authors’ love. Elena Orlova naturally regards this work as a continuation of her mission:
“To raise the viewer, the reader, the listener — the future consumer of art. Once, in spring, the deputy mayor of Dijon came to the gallery. Naturally we could not fail to show him the exhibition of young artists, so appropriately timed to the anniversary of Impressionism. And it proved to be a convincing argument for mutual understanding...”
“When a small child comes to an exhibition of children’s works, he becomes a little viewer. It is like a circulation of creative potential,” Orlova continues trying to explain to me. And the circulation is fantastic: exhibitions of the gallery’s pupils have been held in America, Holland, France, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, India, Germany, Finland, Poland, not to mention Russia itself. “In some foreign countries Russia is considered not very developed, and therefore the works of our children produce a stunning reaction — everyone is amazed that talented artists can grow here, that they can manifest themselves so brightly at all.”
Art and children — that is our “gold reserve.” Elena Vladimirovna has so much faith in this conviction that this alone may have carried the idea through. Indeed, in fifteen years many art studios and schools of art have appeared in Volgograd, and they have already gained a worthy role in children’s education: children are brought and brought to artists. The gallery accepts everyone — the inexperienced and the advanced; everyone here has the chance to unfold, like a flower or a moth. “When we announced the festival ‘All Together into the 21st Century,’ we knew we would push children to look for information about great people, discoveries, journeys.”
Another project, a competition dedicated to Pushkin’s anniversary, had the same cumulative effect. How can one illustrate if one knows little and has read little? And so it began: young artists looked intently at Pushkin, invariably reading with absorption.
Incidentally, it seems that before our eyes a very special phenomenon is maturing — the youth festival named after Ilya Mashkov. Elena Vladimirovna has also invested deep meaning in it: “Mashkov comes from here, and we must be proud of that.” The fifth festival has already opened within the gallery walls; in this way young professional artists make themselves known here. But something else is important: their works stand next to those who are only just discovering the world of art. And this “next to” is worth a great deal — if one understands that a soldier in a clumsy helmet is still a soldier. The main thing is that someone worries about him: a small hand draws a wounded soldier as sad. Or another picture: a lonely dog in the cold. It stops the heart with something burning. With what? Clearly not with artistic technique — with feeling.
Fine art is individual; it moves from the opposite direction: creativity grows out of a passion for self-realisation. Elena Vladimirovna laments that this value is given too little importance. In today’s school, true, children no longer sing in chorus “We shall destroy the whole world of violence to its foundations...,” yet art must become closer to children — it is needed for life. “Growth goes inward,” Orlova sincerely sees the results in her own way. In the circle gathered by the gallery and the studio, she sees that an entirely new generation is growing — children and their young parents are ready for anything, if only they can drink and drink from this spring, so much does it give to the soul and the heart.
Elena Vladimirovna admits that she herself sometimes tests students with curiosity — she teaches at the Institute of Artistic Development at the Pedagogical University and at the Institute of Culture and Art. She proposes, for example, themes from the past, from Turgenev’s century. It turns out that today’s young people are just as responsive to feelings, just as subtle and deep, and able to express this in art. The object of attention remains the same: the soul and the hands — develop them, develop them...
“I will probably say a heretical thing,” Elena Vladimirovna says shyly, “but children’s creativity comes from the teacher. And when parents begin to worry that something ‘does not work out,’ I advise them not to criticise the child, but to change the teacher. Children are fragile material; one must not harm them.”
That is what everyone who is loyal to her and to the cause believes. The very first comrades-in-arms of the idea remain Alla Nikolayevna Skorova and Larisa Yuryevna Samarina. Others sometimes find it very hard...
One more word about the idea: the state of creativity is what must be cultivated; every person should have a need for it.
And how is it with herself? Exactly as it should be with a creative person. All her life she has loved jazz, studied choreography, cannot live without literature and poetry, and at one time even wrote a great deal herself. Her own experience of “taking root” serves her today as well. Once her grandmother’s dislike of Mayakovsky, set up as a kind of instruction, turned her away from his poetry: rough, no rhyme... Until by chance a teacher devoted a free lesson to the subject. What a shock it was! But the main thing she realised was that one must taste everything oneself. It is a pity, Orlova continues, that poetry has fewer and fewer admirers today. It demands an effort of the soul, emotional immersion — detective stories, of course, are easier to read. And that is sad...
Her understanding of life has also “taken root” in her sons. The elder, Sergey, left painting, explaining: “I do not like how it turns out for me.” She believes that this is already no small thing. And the younger, Anton, having immersed himself in art, went into another kind of creativity. “It seems a true hacker was born with a floppy disk in his hand,” she says. A joke. Yet this is generally characteristic of Elena Orlova. Yes, she realises that as a leader she is quite a tough person — I repent, she says, but otherwise nothing would have happened. What saves her and those around her is humor. With it she brings her state of soul into balance: failures happen often. Even now, while preparing for the gallery’s anniversary, there was so much to overcome! But everything worked out, and the gallery will look like an even more joyful house. Its walls have been transformed in a wonderful way, and new light has appeared. The gallery windows still catch the sun, and the doors are open to everyone.
Thus, imperceptibly, pedagogy became her second profession. Is it a cross? At times a heavy one — one’s legs will not carry one. But explaining this burden, she spoke not of duty, but of love. She admits that she has begun to notice more and more young artists who draw, young musicians who play. This means that her love for art is taking root...
Nina SAVELYEVA, INTER-press, No. 42 (662), October 27, 2005
