DATELINE NEW YORK: Christmas offerings in the city (12/22/96)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Christmas offerings in the city

by Helen Smindak

Little Ukraine, the portion of Manhattan's East Village that is the traditional center of Ukrainian community life in the Big Apple, becomes very vibrant and spirited at this time of year. There are bazaars, workshops and art exhibits, an abundance of enchanting folkware gifts in the stores and wonderful treats in the restaurants and meat markets.

A trip to the Village on a recent Saturday morning rewarded me with so many ethnic delights and tastes that I stayed on until late evening. For starters, from mid-morning until almost four in the afternoon I accompanied the annual Ukrainian Christmas walking tour led by author and culinary anthropologist Iris Friedlander for the past 10 years.

This year's tour group, 15 persons in all, assembled at New York University for a briefing on Ukrainian Christmas customs by Ms. Friedlander, an ethnic specialist, and a description of the tour itinerary - stops at St. George Church and the Surma book shop, lunch in the church rectory building, and a visit to The Ukrainian Museum.

When the rest of the Christian world ends its Christmas festivities and after the new year is fully hatched, Ms. Friedlander told tour members, Ukrainians in New York begin "solemn religious rituals and culinary traditions, some of which date from pagan times." She was referring to the celebration of Ukrainian Christmas by the Julian calendar, on January 7.

At St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, whose domes and large central cupola, the group was met by a beaming Father Lawrence, the Argentine-born Ukrainian priest who has been serving the parish for many years. Escorting visitors through the church nave with its exquisite murals, mosaics and stained glass windows, Father Lawrence explained the order of service, pointed out the fine wood carving on the iconostas and identified the saints portrayed in the icons. In a room used by the clergy during services, he held up hand-embroidered vestments and jeweled chalices and Bibles to admiring "ohs" and "ahs" from the sightseers.

Myron and Magda Surmach, who run the Surma book and gift store across the street from St. George's, welcomed the visitors into their 100-year-old fairy-tale shop, where they examined embroidered blouses, hand-painted Easter eggs, icons, jewelry, patterned ribbons and an array of books and periodicals. While Ukrainian Christmas carols filled the air, the excited customers made gift selections and toured the office in the back of the shop that is like a tiny museum - it duplicates the interior of a Hustul wood home, complete with a ceiling beam artfully decorated by a master woodcarver, a replica of a clay oven, and a stunning collection of carved wood plates, embroidered cloths and ceramic ware.

Luncheon in the parish restaurant a few doors away began with "kutia," defined by Ms. Friedlander as "a sweet wheat porridge which comprises the first and most important course of the 12-course meatless, dairyless Sviata Vecheria," the holy supper served on January 6. Other traditional dishes followed: hot borshch, potato and sauerkraut-filled varenyky, and rice-stuffed cabbage rolls, with squares of honey cake and apple cake teaming up with coffee or tea for dessert, all prepared by the senior ladies who make up the restaurant staff.

At The Ukrainian Museum, preparations were under way for the next day's Christmas bazaar as the tour group entered 203 Second Ave. A Christmas workshop was in progress, with youngsters and adults using beads, walnut shells, colored ribbons and paper to create spiders, cradles, stars, mobiles and garlands.

Here, Luba Wolynetz, curator of the museum's folk art collection, shared her expertise in Ukrainian folklore, explaining Christmas Eve rituals and the 12 vegetarian dishes of the holy supper. Describing the decoration of the supper table, she noted that the centerpiece is composed of three round braided breads, placed one atop the other. In pagan times, the breads symbolized the sun, but now stand for the Trinity or the three stages of life.

The tour concluded with a viewing of the folk costume exhibit and the museum's newest exhibition, a collection of richly hued kylyms. The attractive, tapestry-like rugs, which were used by Ukrainians primarily as hangings and floor and furniture coverings, received the unanimous approbation of the tour group.

Little Ukraine treasures

As the company of sightseers dispersed in the gathering dusk, I strolled south on Second Avenue to the block between Ninth Street and St. Mark's Place that accommodates the Ukrainian National Home, the Ukrainian Restaurant and the Veselka Coffee Shop (newly modernized and touting a street sign that reads "The best borscht in town!"). A sign on the door of the Plast Domivka announced that St. Nicholas was due to visit the premises on December 14, and "all children in New York and vicinity" were invited. Through the windows of the East Village Meat Market, one could see rows of plump rosy Ukrainian sausages hanging from ceiling racks, and shelves filled with braided breads and boxes of crisp khrustyky.

Outside the Ukrainian Liberation Front Home, at 136 Second Ave., Mayana Gallery posters notified everyone that a pre-Christmas exhibit by 10 artists from Ukraine was taking place inside. An elevator ride to the fourth floor brought me into the gallery, where curator Slava Gerulak was discussing the show with a couple of visitors.

On display were several dozen oil paintings with Hutsul landscapes and folkloric themes, wood carvings with pearl inlay, leather articles inlaid with metal, and musical instruments, all imported from Ukraine by Roman Miklashchuk of Gallery Ukraine in Montreal.

Ms. Gerulak reported that the Mayana Gallery would host St. Andrew's Eve festivities (Andriyivskii Vechir) on December 13 that would include village-style fortune-telling, bandura music by Lavrentiya Turkewycz, and Hutsul folk music by Mr. Miklashchuk and Andrij Milyavsky.

At 5 p.m., I headed for Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street to the Shevchenko Scientific Society, where author/editor Yevhen Misylo of Warsaw was to give a report on Akcja Visla, the 1947 Polish policy that resulted in the forcible deportation of hundreds of thousands of Lemko Ukrainians from southeast Poland. Not a Christmasy subject, to be sure, but one that many considered important, for the Shevchenko center was filled. Mr. Misylo, who has spent years researching military archives and collecting documents pertaining to the Visla action, reported that preparatory work is being done on a collection of Lemko songs and an encyclopedia of Ukrainians in Poland.

Traditional images

Appropriately for Christmas, an art exhibit with Biblical subjects - the Virgin Mary and Christ, angels, archangels, saints and prophets - opened on December 2 at the Interchurch Center of Riverside Church, Claremont Avenue and 120th Street in Manhattan. It features the work of five women artists who have been meeting together for the past six years, painting icons in the traditional method of this discipline.

"A Celebration of Icons: Traditional Images by Contemporary Women" includes the work of two Ukrainians, Yaroslava Surmach Mills, the instructor, and Stella Baker, a former real estate agent who is now a decorative painter, and three others: Susan Gewirtz, who began to illustrate children's books after she retired as a New York City school teacher, Eileen McCabe, principal of St. John's Academy in Hillsdale, N.J., and Joan Monastero, a collage artist.

Meeting weekly at Mrs. Mills' home in West Nyack, N.Y., the women worked with materials that are required of a true icon. They studied and worked from existing icons, trying to remain true to the spirit and appearance of the subject. By working together, they feel they are able to support each other's efforts.

Reaching back into Eastern Christian traditions, icons are considered a form of sacred art and have been used through the centuries as an aid to contemplation and prayer, Mrs. Baker told visitors at the opening reception on December 9.

Mrs. Mills, who studied the ancient method of icon painting in the early 1980s with Vladislav Andreyev, a Russian icon expert, said she became interested in icon images as a teenager, after receiving a small primitive Ukrainian triptych (a three-panel icon) from her parish priest at St. George Church.

Teaching the Andreyev method, Mrs. Mills shows her students how to prepare a wood board with many coats of gesso made with rabbit skin glue and whiting; to gild the halos with 23-carat gold leaf, and to mix the powdered pigments with distilled water and egg yolk to make egg tempera.

To achieve rich color, many layers of egg tempera are "floated" on the gessoed panel. Details are redrawn and highlights are repainted as each new layer dries. In the final stage, as hot linseed oil is poured onto the hardened egg tempera and spread across the panel by the artist's fingers.

Because no step in icon painting can be rushed (an icon can take up to a year to complete), the process becomes absorbing and meditative, Mrs. Mills said. The others concurred, calling it "a good discipline," "a spiritual journey" and "an artistic experience."

Mrs. Mills is famed for her reverse glass paintings depicting Ukrainian folk customs, and is now becoming known as an icon specialist as well. Her Christmas glass painting, "Christmas is Here!" which has been printed as a greeting card, was used to illustrate a story by Robb Walsh on "A Ruthenian Christmas" in the Christmas issue of the Museum of Natural History's official publication. She is currently working on an extended project for St. Demetrius Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto, designing stained glass windows with Ukrainian themes.

The icon exhibit runs through December. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, and admission is free. For further information, call the Interchurch Center, (212) 870-2933.

"The Forest of Love"

Jack Palance is known for his laconic character. He's a man of few words, both on screen and in person; his comments are usually terse and concise. He doesn't have to say much; his eyes, face and actions speak volumes - unless he's got something mighty important to say. Then he speaks up volubly, as he did a few years ago when he was asked to speak before the U.S. Senate Special Committee of Aging.

His discourse on the theme "aging artfully" included this statement: "One of the most important reasons for living is to do something - live outside of yourself and put together an idea, an idea that you want to explore and then complete. ... Awaken your creative sensitivities!"

Following this credo, he has been painting and writing poetry and prose for years. Back in 1970 he read a poem about his father and the rigors of coal mining work when he appeared at Harvard University during a convention of the Ukrainian Studies Fund. He says he wrote "a bunch of poems in Kyiv last spring," when he was there to participate in the Chornobyl commemoration.

His first published literary work, a story in blank verse, was launched several weeks ago and the first printing is completely sold out in New York book stores.

"The Forest of Love," published by Summerhouse Press of South Carolina, is a slender volume with a dark green cover and a lilac-and-green dust jacket. It tells "the story of a man, a woman and a forest." That's how Mr. Palance described it in a telephone conversation from his farm in Latimer, Pa., where he recently spent a few days resting up from numerous appearances on New York television talk shows - "Geraldo," "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee," the "Charles Grodin Show" and the "Gordon Elliott Show," with more appearances coming up on "Fox After Breakfast" and Conan O'Brien's "Late, Late Show."

Because I received a copy of the book just before my deadline, a review will have to wait for a later Dateline. However, I can quote what the publisher says about "The Forest of Love:"

"Palance takes us on an intimate and emotional ride through a love affair - the love of a woman and the love of nature - brilliantly intertwining his art and text in a journey filled with exhilaration, passion, ecstasy, disappointment, remorse and, ultimately, rebirth."

Mr. Palance wrote the story in one month in California, and has plans for other books "if I'm accepted as a writer." He would like his next work to be a novel titled "Elizabeth and the Tall Thin Man," followed by "Ballad of the Wind." His fourth published work would be the book he has been carrying in his mind for years - the story of his father's harsh life as a Pennsylvania coal miner. And maybe, later, "147 Poems By ...".

Jack Palance the author may be a startling revelation to many people, who know him only as Jack Palance the actor or Jack Palance who does one-arm push-ups during the Oscar Award presentation.

For Jack Palance the man there's no conundrum: he majored in journalism in college, worked for a newspaper and wrote short stories before becoming a prize fighter and then an actor. He's just following his natural instincts and keeping his creative sensitivities awake.

The actor, who has appeared in over 56 films, eight plays and more than 50 television programs, says he hasn't given up film acting. He is presently considering an offer to appear as the grandfather in the film "Heidi" (to be filmed in Austria next spring) and a role in a film in Crimea - "but I don't know whether I'll take it," he notes.

As an author, Mr. Palance will be appearing sometime in January on the "Charlie Rose Show" and in late January on Leeza Gibbons' show. So watch the TV listings and tune in to hear him read an excerpt from "The Forest of Love." Better yet, try your local bookstore for a copy ($22) to read the text and admire his art work first hand.