DATELINE NEW YORK: Springtime at the institute (05/16/99)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Springtime at the institute

by Helen Smindak

"Flowers as Muse"

Following recent events that featured First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and opera luminaries Paul Plishka and Oksana Krovytska, spring made a grand entrance at the Ukrainian Institute of America on May 1 with a bouquet of floral still-lifes by six gifted artists.

The exhibition "Flowers as Muse," dedicated to the memory of the late Daria Hoydysh, who was both a lover of flowers and dedicated in her efforts to showcase art at the institute, was organized by artist Ilona Sochynsky to show "the exuberance, forcefulness and beauty of flowers when they are the primary source of inspiration to artistic expression." The exhibit runs until May 29.

Late-afternoon sunshine spilled into the galleries on opening day, illuminating the daffodils, irises, daylilies and sunflowers that bloomed on the walls. Through open windows came the sounds of Fifth Avenue traffic and Central Park strollers reveling in the return of spring as Prof. Jaroslaw Leshko, art historian at Smith College, delivered an appraisal of the art work which, he said, revealed "a variety of approaches and mediums in addressing the floral motif."

The bold strokes in Nina Klymowska's "Amaryllis" series of India ink drawings highlight the flower in gray-black tones and remove the "enticing component of color," which, according to Prof. Leshko, reminds viewers that a flower's beauty may be found in its various aspects. The enticing component of color, however, is very evident in two large folding screens decorated on both sides by Ms. Klymowska in acrylic and dominated by a bold image of the iris with rich decorations and undulating lines.

Olga Maryschuk's hand-colored block prints, inspired by mosaics seen on a recent trip to Italy, were made using a technique that combines a reductive method of block printing and painting. The artist's program notes state that only one plate was used, but the materials according to their own properties and the accidental blending of colors creates an iridescent play of light.

Prof. Leshko pointed out that the process - the intricate arrangement of small, colorful segments that animate the surface, like tesserae in a mosaic from the Byzantine town of Ravenna - was as compelling as the beauty of Ms. Maryschuk's "Bird and Flower" series and her "Ravenna" series.

Rust-colored, dramatic flower sculptures from the estate of Natalia Pohrebinska in Lexington, N.Y., were composed by the artist, who is primarily a painter, from discarded pieces of iron and transformed into flowers by arranging, welding and molding. The three compelling works on display - "Mother Rose," "Facing the Sun" and "Grace" - range in height from 5 1/2 feet to 7 feet.

Daffodils, the pride and joy of Nantucket Island, are abloom in most of the richly colored watercolors exhibited by Romana Rainey. According to Prof. Leshko, Ms. Rainey creates "a symbiotic correspondence" between the lyrical grace and beauty of the flower and the liquid fluidity of the watercolor medium, the perfect component to the flower's delicacy.

The exuberant pastels of Ms. Sochynsky reveal a seasonal preoccupation with flowers which, the artist confesses, provides "instant gratification in a frenzied, nectar-laden environment." That frenzy can be seen in her "Wild Flowers" pastel, which resembles an explosive burst of fireworks. In Prof. Leshko's view, Ms. Sochynsky "expertly and with flair orchestrates the pastel medium to maximum effect."

Martha Hirniak Voyevidka's series of delicate watercolors brings to life amaryllis, iris and orchid blossoms - each, according to the artist, a unique portrait in which the flower's own personality becomes the essence of each work. Prof. Leshko noted a strong link between Ms. Voyevidka's "unerring, exclusive focus on the lone flower, devoid of background arrangements" and the art of Pierre-Joseph Redoute, whom he called the sublime practitioner of the historical tradition of floral watercolors.

The work of these six artists has been exhibited in scores of one-woman and group shows and is represented in private and corporate collections in several countries, including Austria, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.

Ms. Klymowska, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, taught art and did stage sets for the Welsh National Opera Company while studying on a scholarship at the Cardiff College of Art in Wales. She teaches at Mother Cabrini High School in New York City.

Another New Yorker, Ms. Maryschuk, is a graduate of The Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture and the Pratt Graphic Center, and held a one-year scholarship at the Kyiv State Art Institute.

Ms. Pohrebinska, an art curator, teacher and judge who owns the Stone House Gallery in Lexington, N.Y., holds a master of fine arts degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her home, with its art and antique collections, has been featured in several publications, including Country Living magazine.

Nantucket resident Ms. Rainey holds a master of fine arts degree from Hunter College in New York. Ms. Voyevidka, who lives in Reno, Nevada, received an MFA degree from Kent State University and studied at the Angewandte Kunst Akademie in Vienna.

Ms. Sochynsky, an MFA graduate of Yale University, is an adjunct professor of arts and humanities at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and has her own design firm, Ilona Sochynsky Associates, which specializes in corporate communications, advertising campaigns and corporate identity programs.

Music and Me

Fine achievements sometimes evolve, quite unexpectedly, from modest beginnings.

Twenty-six years ago, piano teacher Marta Sawycky started a music program for pre-schoolers in Irvington, N.J. soon after her own children (then 2 1/2 and 5) began to ask if they could bring friends home to participate in the music hour that was such an enjoyable part of the family's daily routine.

The project has been thriving year after year and last fall, thanks to a fictitious frog who charmed a flock of youngsters at the Ukrainian Institute of America the year before, Mrs. Sawycky opened a branch of her Music and Me pre-school program in New York.

The frog, "Zhaba," was the featured performer during an afternoon of audience-participation musical games for children, organized and directed by Mrs. Sawycky as a special UIA presentation. Zhaba not only enchanted the children, also captivated UIA administrators, who invited the New Jersey piano teacher to conduct a pre-school program at the institute.

Under Mrs. Sawycky's pleasant and firm direction, twice a week 13 youngsters age 2 1/2 to 5 are learning to listen to music, to understand it and love it, and to react to the music with their bodies. Each two-hour class, patterned after the teaching methods of the famous musicologist Jacques Emile Dal Croze, concentrates on rhythmic movements, story-telling and role-playing to the accompaniment of piano music.

When I dropped by last November to watch a class in action in a third-floor rehearsal room at the institute, all was quiet: the children were resting on floor mats after a noontime snack. Soon they were up, and there were squeals of delight: it was time for instrument study.

Bright-eyed and eager, the little girls and boys sat in little chairs and played their "violins" - a short red stick held up to the chin, another red stick serving as a bow. Following their teacher's example, they kept time with recorded violin music. Switching to longer sticks, the children played their "cellos," then stood to play their "contrabasses."

Each student has taken a turn at playing a real violin, viola and cello brought to class by their teacher and each received a picture of the instrument being studied and a picture of a person playing that instrument.

"String instruments are on yellow paper. Next week, when we start on woodwinds, the pictures will be on brown paper, so they can see the different families of musical instruments," Mrs. Sawycky explained to me later.

"I make everything very simple, and I make a game out of it - the children don't realize that they are really learning all the time, " she noted.

According to Mrs. Sawycky, "I had to re-train [the children], slowly, to listen to music, because music is a language. Even though children hear music everywhere - in stores, on TV, on the radio - to them it's just background noise. First of all, they had to be trained to sit still in a chair. For a lot of them, it was also the first experience in group play or in a group situation."

Classes, conducted in Ukrainian, begin in the same way, with actions to which children can relate. They pretend they are sleeping (as Mrs. Sawycky plays a soft lullaby), then they pray (to devotional music) joined in their activities by Kermit the Frog, who came over from Sesame Street to learn the Ukrainian alphabet. They wash their faces and brush their teeth, comb their hair, eat breakfast, get dressed and climb stairs to their classroom, each move accompanied by music that fits the mood and tempo of the action.

The children perform little steps choreographed by Mrs. Saywcky to the music of "The Nutcracker." After that, there's usually story-telling; this morning it's about the leaves falling down, with thunderous piano chords mimicking thunder, pizzicato notes simulating raindrops, long drawn-out tones for the wind, placid sounds for clouds and a cascade of tinkling notes for tumbling leaves. Each child has chosen a role and learns to listen to the music for his/her turn to stand up and perform that role, to stomp as thunder or to take itsy-bitsy steps as rain.

Mrs. Sawycky loves working with young children "because they are great at this age - they learn and respond so marvelously." She directs a Music and Me class at Irvington's Ukrainian community center (two of her three grandchildren are enrolled there) as well as a pre-school class at the Ukrainian Youth Center in Yonkers, N.Y. She's very interested in starting up an English-speaking pre-school program in New York, open to the public, like the one she directed for two summers at the Cranford, N.J., library.

Parents of New York class members have been expressing amazement at what their offspring have accomplished in just a few months. They're expecting more surprises when the children and their mentor present an interactive story for children "Ripka" (The Turnip) at the institute on May 23. The playlet, with narrative by Mrs. Sawycky, is scheduled for 3 p.m. and is open to the public. The New York youngsters will also perform in Irvington on June 13, at 3 p.m., joining their Yonkers and Irvington schoolmates in the annual "kazka" (storytelling) presentation. The feature this year: "Chervona Shapochka" (Little Red Riding Hood).

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