Anya's Back-to-Wizard-School Move
Donation protected
Dear Friends,
With your support I was accepted into 6 out of 7 schools I applied to! I accepted an offer from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and will be moving from Boston to Chicago late Summer.
And there are still expenses ahead in moving my life and studio and to catch up on application expenses, and I reach out to my friends and family for help during this important time!
With your help, I aim to reach my goal of $6,000 by August 1st, 2018. The collected funds will allow me to cover and recover the essential expenses of this undertaking:
The remaining $4350 I aim to raise, will help cover:
$2500 - apartment rental first, last, security
$1500 - truck rental, gas, road trip accomodations
$1000 - first month living expenses prior to receiving stipend
A gift of art will be mailed to donors who give $100 or more. *
Links to My Work:
asmolnikova.wordpress.com
instagram.com/anyasmolnikovastudio
Photo Gallery:
"Sea Face" at the Piano Craft Gallery, MUSA Collective
In my studio
Cutting a beet during RAINBOW COLLAPSE | Run of the Mills performance and installation art residency at the Boston Center for the Arts
Rainbow People as embodied by Layla Farahbakhsh and Bruce Hooke
Full article with more photos by Greg Cook here
Giving an artist talk at MUSA Collective Boston 2017
Mexico 2017
Photos from <=( )=, a video collaboration with Jared Williams, watch entire piece here
In the woods
Personal Statement:
*selection from application essay
Since my future is inextricably linked to my life story, I will start with the story. I was born in Minsk, Belarus, spending my childhood in the post-Soviet 90’s art circles of my parents, in a social landscape dominated by corrupt bureaucrats and more traditional gangsters. I built forts in the courtyard under social-realist murals, playing among broken bottles and lilacs. My summers I spent in another world: picking wild mushrooms, digging potatoes and carrying water in metal buckets from a well-pump. I was fully immersed in the last decade of the old Slavic village life, where pagan celebrations of nature and fertility intersected with Russian Orthodox Christianity, resulting in a culture of iconography rich in gold, elaborate rituals, stories, magic, superstitions, and a sense of the sacred bred in the bone. Starting at the age of four, I attended several art schools and two years of music academy. This instilled in me an early devotion to practice, technique and lineage, which has been of incalculable value in all my endeavors since. Being born near the hinge of East and West could have prepared me for inhabiting frontier spaces, and that is where I live, as an artist and as a person.
I am already engaged in the body of work that I wish to continue at the graduate level. I wish to create images that offer psychic relief, contemplation, and connection to the divine and the wild. My interest in an MFA program came from a realization that in order to follow this work I need dedicated time and space, peer feedback and mentorship.
Since 2016, I’ve had a studio space at Dorchester Art Project, where I served as Curator and Director Interim. I have an established studio practice and valuable first-hand insight into the balancing act required to integrate creative, professional and social lives. I cultivate discernment through the discipline of my studio practice. Reverence for artistic lineage and my multicultural identity allow me to move fluidly between traditions, taking what is most useful to me from each. For these reasons my influences are constant and multidirectional, however I can identify some of my current influences to be Van Gogh, my first introduction to the power of mark-making and connecting paint to flesh; Milton Avery, for his ability to represent the elemental in space; David Lynch, for his images that enter directly through the subconscious; and devotional art, especially the Sienese School and Tibetan Thangka, for presenting painting as a spiritual practice.
It will have been eight years this Spring since I completed my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree at Boston University. My work germinated, developed independence and confidence in the surprisingly isolated environment of Boston. It’s is ready to be seen and supported in a wider context. It’s ready to be questioned, to pull its weight in the world. I’m ready to talk about it. The 2-3 years of graduate level studies would provide me with a stimulating intellectual environment, multimedia resources and critical guidance necessary to expand my practice as a painter and interdisciplinary artist.
Essential people who raised me as an artist:
My mama, grandmother and great grandmother.
Jack and Debra Highberger of Acorn Gallery and School of Art.
Boston University College of Fine Arts staff and faculty.
Fellow artists and friends who shine their light.
Thank you.
Yours,
Anya
* Donors who gave prior to 2/1, your gift arrangement remains the same as at time of donation.
With your support I was accepted into 6 out of 7 schools I applied to! I accepted an offer from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and will be moving from Boston to Chicago late Summer.
And there are still expenses ahead in moving my life and studio and to catch up on application expenses, and I reach out to my friends and family for help during this important time!
With your help, I aim to reach my goal of $6,000 by August 1st, 2018. The collected funds will allow me to cover and recover the essential expenses of this undertaking:
The remaining $4350 I aim to raise, will help cover:
$2500 - apartment rental first, last, security
$1500 - truck rental, gas, road trip accomodations
$1000 - first month living expenses prior to receiving stipend
A gift of art will be mailed to donors who give $100 or more. *
Links to My Work:
asmolnikova.wordpress.com
instagram.com/anyasmolnikovastudio
Photo Gallery:
"Sea Face" at the Piano Craft Gallery, MUSA Collective In my studioCutting a beet during RAINBOW COLLAPSE | Run of the Mills performance and installation art residency at the Boston Center for the ArtsRainbow People as embodied by Layla Farahbakhsh and Bruce HookeFull article with more photos by Greg Cook here
Giving an artist talk at MUSA Collective Boston 2017Mexico 2017 Photos from <=( )=, a video collaboration with Jared Williams, watch entire piece here In the woodsPersonal Statement:
*selection from application essay
Since my future is inextricably linked to my life story, I will start with the story. I was born in Minsk, Belarus, spending my childhood in the post-Soviet 90’s art circles of my parents, in a social landscape dominated by corrupt bureaucrats and more traditional gangsters. I built forts in the courtyard under social-realist murals, playing among broken bottles and lilacs. My summers I spent in another world: picking wild mushrooms, digging potatoes and carrying water in metal buckets from a well-pump. I was fully immersed in the last decade of the old Slavic village life, where pagan celebrations of nature and fertility intersected with Russian Orthodox Christianity, resulting in a culture of iconography rich in gold, elaborate rituals, stories, magic, superstitions, and a sense of the sacred bred in the bone. Starting at the age of four, I attended several art schools and two years of music academy. This instilled in me an early devotion to practice, technique and lineage, which has been of incalculable value in all my endeavors since. Being born near the hinge of East and West could have prepared me for inhabiting frontier spaces, and that is where I live, as an artist and as a person.
I am already engaged in the body of work that I wish to continue at the graduate level. I wish to create images that offer psychic relief, contemplation, and connection to the divine and the wild. My interest in an MFA program came from a realization that in order to follow this work I need dedicated time and space, peer feedback and mentorship.
Since 2016, I’ve had a studio space at Dorchester Art Project, where I served as Curator and Director Interim. I have an established studio practice and valuable first-hand insight into the balancing act required to integrate creative, professional and social lives. I cultivate discernment through the discipline of my studio practice. Reverence for artistic lineage and my multicultural identity allow me to move fluidly between traditions, taking what is most useful to me from each. For these reasons my influences are constant and multidirectional, however I can identify some of my current influences to be Van Gogh, my first introduction to the power of mark-making and connecting paint to flesh; Milton Avery, for his ability to represent the elemental in space; David Lynch, for his images that enter directly through the subconscious; and devotional art, especially the Sienese School and Tibetan Thangka, for presenting painting as a spiritual practice.
It will have been eight years this Spring since I completed my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree at Boston University. My work germinated, developed independence and confidence in the surprisingly isolated environment of Boston. It’s is ready to be seen and supported in a wider context. It’s ready to be questioned, to pull its weight in the world. I’m ready to talk about it. The 2-3 years of graduate level studies would provide me with a stimulating intellectual environment, multimedia resources and critical guidance necessary to expand my practice as a painter and interdisciplinary artist.
Essential people who raised me as an artist:
My mama, grandmother and great grandmother.
Jack and Debra Highberger of Acorn Gallery and School of Art.
Boston University College of Fine Arts staff and faculty.
Fellow artists and friends who shine their light.
Thank you.
Yours,
Anya
* Donors who gave prior to 2/1, your gift arrangement remains the same as at time of donation.
Organizer
Anya Smolnikova
Organizer
Boston, MA
