A LIVING MUSEUM OF CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY, OR THE LIFE’S WORK OF ELENA ORLOVA, FOUNDER AND PERMANENT DIRECTOR OF THE CHILDREN’S ART GALLERY, IS THE MANY YEARS OF DAILY WORK WITH YOUNG ARTISTS CARRIED OUT BY A SMALL TEAM. ELENA VLADIMIROVNA NOW ALMOST NO LONGER REMEMBERS THE DIFFICULTIES SHE FACED WHEN CREATING THE FIRST CHILDREN’S ART MUSEUM IN RUSSIA. ONE FACT ALONE SAYS WHAT A MOUNTAIN SHE AND HER TEAM OF LIKE-MINDED FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES HAD TO MOVE: THE CREATION OF A FUNDAMENTALLY NEW MUSEUM TOOK ALMOST TEN YEARS! “THE EPIC OF THE SEVENTIES” — THAT IS HOW THOSE YEARS ARE REMEMBERED.
Today the museum, or children’s art gallery, is known without exaggeration throughout the world. At the initiative of the Regional Children’s Art Gallery, the international competitive festival “All Together into the 21st Century” was held on such themes as “States of the Century,” “The Road to the Temple,” “Inventions of the Century,” “Great People of the Century,” and others.
International conferences on problems of artistic creativity have been held here, and more than one international project has been realised. Over the last ten years pupils of the studio have become laureates and prizewinners of international competitions in Japan, France, the USA, Germany, China, India, Macedonia, the Czech Republic and Denmark. Exhibitions of their works have taken place in France, Belgium and Finland.
Over its many-year history, enormous experience has been accumulated, hundreds of exhibitions have been created, and the museum itself stores and displays twenty-two thousand children’s works from 36 countries of the world.
Statistics and the list of what has been created are very significant. But if everything created is related to children’s creativity, then one can certainly say that a unique cultural institution operates in the city of Volgograd. Interestingly, Elena Vladimirovna does not set herself the goal of training future artists.
“Artistic creativity is the training of feelings,” Elena Vladimirovna says, defining both creativity and ordinary daily work at the painting school. There are many talented young artists who want recognition, and many who simply want to learn to draw. Children are brought to us from the age of three, and all their works are unique.
— How did the idea of creating the museum and the children’s art gallery arise?
— Once, in distant childhood, I unexpectedly became the winner of a children’s drawing competition. And, apparently, from that time the question of where children’s works go after the results are announced lived in my soul. When I had already become an artist, the “children’s question” broke through.
The idea of creating a museum of children’s creativity came by itself. My husband and I began to realise it. What it cost us is impossible to describe, because almost ten years went into it. At that time it was the first children’s museum in the world and, of course, in Russia. Today I can thank the regional party committee of that time for its assistance and help, and separately Galina Ilyinichna Khorosheva and Svetlana Ivanovna Mishatkina. We owe a great deal to Ivan Petrovich Shabunin.
Today the gallery and the museum may be said to form a single whole. Several groups of children study here; languages and other subjects are also taught. In fact, our institution is an art school.
— How did you create the museum and how do you replenish its holdings?
— We travel to international exhibitions, study catalogues and select works. Our museum is known all over the world, and children’s works are therefore sent to us at our request — on a certain theme, timed to particular events, or specific works by children whose names have become known to us.
During our active work we ourselves have published several catalogues and collections of children’s works. There is a catalogue issued for the fifteenth anniversary of the gallery; several collections are devoted to the anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad; there is also a collection of drawings by our pupils based on A. S. Pushkin’s story “The Captain’s Daughter.” Children’s works often serve as good illustrations for books. For example, the illustrations for a collection of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales were made entirely by our children...
THE SUCCESSFUL WORK OF THE GALLERY IS SUPPORTED BY THE MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM, WHERE EXHIBITIONS, COLLECTION, AND PRESERVATION OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY ARE INSEPARABLY CONNECTED.
— Could you determine, for example, the nationality of an author from children’s works?
— The most interesting thing is that children’s drawings reveal the culture of a people as well as the author’s age. In a generalised way, one can determine a kind of genotype from drawings. Children’s consciousness is free of prejudices and dogmas; it does not depend on politics, it lives by feelings, and therefore reflects on canvas or paper what is preserved in genetic memory, what asks to emerge from the annals of the subconscious. For example, French children’s works “read” as impressionism; they show an inclination toward this direction. Armenian children are close in creativity — a combination of bright colors, literally a riot of color, is observed in their works. Americans are quite different — painting without foundations, very simple in every respect. Chinese children always have very precise painting — lines and colors in accordance with the canons of national painting — but the works are very similar to one another, and the author’s individuality is absent...
— Is time reflected in the works?
— Yes. For example, in the 1990s children were brought here simply to occupy their free time, and there was not yet such domination of video and film rentals; images were created thanks to children’s fantasy and creative imagination. Today the influence of the film industry and various “artificial heroes” is very strong, and therefore the child’s immediacy is aggressively suppressed; experiences and feelings remain deep inside, finding no “channels” for realisation.
Magazine “GALLERY of Health and Beauty,” February 2008
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| THE DECOR, INTERIOR AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE MUSEUM-GALLERY PREMISES REFLECT THE ESSENCE OF THE CONCEPT: TO HELP FORM TASTE, REALISE TALENT, AND PRESERVE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL COMFORT OF EVERYONE CONNECTED IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER WITH ITS WORK AND DEVELOPMENT. |
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| ONE DECORATIVE ELEMENT — BUTTERFLIES — SYMBOLISES THE FRAGILITY OF A CHILD’S CREATIVE STATE, ITS TREMBLING QUALITY AND OPENNESS. A CHILD’S FEELINGS REFLECTED ON CANVAS ARE LIKE THE FLUTTER OF A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS, LIKE ITS SHORT FLIGHT: GENUINE, HARD TO CATCH, AND BRIEF... |
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| THE SUCCESSFUL WORK OF THE GALLERY IS SUPPORTED BY THE MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM, WHERE EXHIBITIONS, COLLECTION, AND PRESERVATION OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY ARE INSEPARABLY CONNECTED. |
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| CHILDREN’S PICTURES SPEAK OF THEIR TENDER FEELINGS TOWARD THE OBJECT OF CREATION — WHETHER IT IS THE CLOSEST PEOPLE, FAIRY-TALE HEROES OR BELOVED PETS. |
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| ELENA VLADIMIROVNA IS CONVINCED THAT THERE ARE NO UNTALENTED CHILDREN. THEY SIMPLY “OUTGROW” A TALENT THAT ADULTS HAVE NOT MANAGED TO REVEAL. |
