Katerina Vorontsov
March 20, 2020 3:56 PM
Art Club (Room Four) by Katerina Vorontsov
The first time, Katya thought, she had been too ambitious in her ideas for the art club. She had imagined it as something like a salon, with her coordinating but everyone contributing knowledge and skill to the whole group. That, however, had been something of an overreach, at least for most people - and, to an extent, for her as well. She had been a first year, only modestly talented, with only moderately good English and no experience trying to lead things. It had been a mess, especially since she had only done it for spite.This time, she had decided, she was going to take another approach. She had decided to divide meetings into two parts: a first part, with light refreshments, where anyone was welcome to either share a piece of art they had been working on - in any medium; drawing, the different kinds of painting, the different kinds of needlework, photography, ceramics, whatever - or just enjoy refreshments and look at other people's pieces. Then, in the second part of the meeting, Katya would offer a short presentation to offer inspiration to anyone who wanted it, and then they all just...worked on art until the end of the meeting or until they felt ready to leave.
It was a bit of a challenge for her to run it this way for two reasons. One was that it felt odd to just...let a bunch of people do what they wanted in the same space, and call it an activity. Not having a carefully controlled and planned program felt unnatural to her, but it was easier to work with and more likely to get an audience, which increased her chances of being named prefect. The other reason, though, involved doing more work, rather than feeling she wasn't doing enough: she always had to make sure she had enough new pieces, or at least pieces with noticeable progress on them, to ensure there was something for people to look at during the first part of the meeting if no-one else brought anything. Meetings were only once a fortnight, but this was still, as it turned out, a lot of work. Katya enjoyed art, and believed she had reasonable skill in a few kinds of it, but producing substantial amounts of quality work that fast, while also keeping up with the degree of studying she needed to do for her English classes and keeping up with her other languages, would, she thought, have been a challenge even for a professional. For the last meeting before Christmas, when she had been so nervous about the need to do some higher-level options on her midterms that she had started feeling ill at random times for no clear reason, she had taken the Russian rough draft of one of her essays, copied part of it, many sizes larger than the original, in Cyrillic script with paintbrushes and shimmering peacock-overtoned blue-green paint, glued bits of feathers onto the large parchment, and called that art. Tatya - probably the only person at Sonora who could read handwritten, cursive Russian well enough to realize what it was - had laughed, thinking it was a joke, and had then apologized on and off for the entirety of the midterm break after Katya had blown up at her for it after that meeting.
This time, however, she had no need to resort to anything as outlandish as that. She had completed two small paintings over the holidays - a pastel study of the stark beauty of the park around her house in the snow, and a watercolor of the village with all the lights and garlands of Rozhdestvo - and had finished an embroidery project she had started several months later, a complicated representation of the Sun Chariot all in red - a copy of a traditional pattern from the north of Russia. She had the small staff of elves assisting her display these spaced well apart, with empty easels between them for anyone else who wished to use. She fussed over the exact placement of furniture in the art room and refreshments on the tables, and then the elves were gone and she was in place just in time to start welcoming people to the first part of the meeting with a smile.
"I hope all were able to do art during the holiday," she said to the room in general, her grammar rising significantly in quality in a rehearsed speech, once it was time to start. "I had time - I made these paintings, this sewing," she told them. She tried not to start meetings with comments on her own work, but at first meetings like this, it seemed important - especially after the bizarre thing she had put up, though not discussed at all unless directly questioned, last time. "These are all things from my home - that was our tree for - you say Christmas. We say Rozhdestvo. That is my village - it is a watercolor. And this is sewing in a way that is done in Russia. Red is the color of beauty," she added helpfully. "Anyone else wish to show art?"
Once she thought everyone who wanted to show something had, she took the floor again. "Thank you all - now we can make art until time to leave. If anyone needs inspirations - maybe try to make the same picture with watercolor, but one time, use wet-on-dry, and on another, use wet-on-wet," she suggested. "See how they look. I will help if you want to try but do not know how," she added, and then moved over to the work area to start working on her own next project until someone asked her about watercolor techniques.
Subthreads: What did I miss? [Katerina] by Alexander Pierce-Beales with Katerina Vorontsov
Came for the Roommate, Stayed for the Art by Lyssa Fitzgerald with Katerina Vorontsov, Jessica Hayles
Supporting a friend by Allegra Brockert with Nathaniel Mordue
Bettering my chances by Topaz Brockert
Living the dream. by Tatiana Vorontsova
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Katerina Vorontsov
Art Club (Room Four)
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
April 08, 2020 6:40 PM
Came for the Roommate, Stayed for the Art by Lyssa Fitzgerald
Lyssa hadn’t gone to Katya’s first Art Club, but she’d heard about it and decided when she saw Katya was going to do it again to support her. Lyssa enjoyed art and knew how to draw, but felt more at home in the garden and using her words. Still, branching out and having all kinds of hobbies was important. Perhaps Lyssa could find an art form that she could do that didn't involve words. Lyssa did enjoy writing though, so she brought some of her non-prose with her as Katya had made clear that people would show their art.Lyssa had knocked and stuck her head into the room to see Katay there already set up with refreshments. Lyssa walked in amazed by what she saw. Katya had planned everything. Not that Lyssa was completely surprised. Katya was actually pretty amazing and that was just doubly shown when she presented her art work. Lyssa wasn’t an art connoisseur, but the water painting of her village in the snow was something Lyssa couldn’t stop staring at. It was, no pun intended, magical. There was something about it that captivated her.
As other students stood up to present their art Lyssa kept looking over at Katya’s painting. In her mind something sparked and she started writing on the back of one of her poems.
She stood up, and started.
“Umm I don’t have art in the sense that our Club president has displayed. My art is usually in my words, and her art inspired me so…umm I guess, here we go.”
She could feel herself tremble a bit and took a deep breath pulling the piece of paper out for her to read. She’d never actually read any of her poetry out loud before. Prose, yes. Poetry no, and for some reason this felt more vulnerable.
“Perhaps this is where the world began.
Around this familial hearth.
A place to melt the accumulated ice,
To hang up clothes and sit down
While grandfather tells one of his stories
And uncle acts the clown.
We lie to each other and cry with each other,
Celebrate with cheers and make the dead known.
We can always find space for one more,
But still have somewhere to call your own.
Feasts are held, brothers laugh and sisters drink
As the children run between legs.
Books are opened wide and others slammed shut,
All while cups sit warming their last dregs.
Perhaps this is where the world began,
Around this familiar hearth.
And perhaps it is where it will end,
As we toast and sing and dance
Together.
Lyssa looked up from her paper. Somehow this felt more… personal and difficult for her to control as she read. She didn’t like the feeling.
“Next time, I’ll bring a painting,” she said with a slight laugh trying to push this vulnerability away and sat down.
Once she had a moment Lyssa walked up to Katya.
"Hey Katya, can we put that painting up in our room?"
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
Came for the Roommate, Stayed for the Art
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Katerina Vorontsov
April 15, 2020 10:43 AM
I am pleased with both of those rationales. by Katerina Vorontsov
Things seemed to be going well!Katya could never decide if she should be a little surprised when that happened or not. On one hand, she was a perfectly competent organizer. She had always loved order, which was one of the things which could make it difficult sharing a room with Tatiana at home - her sister was a cyclone, and this often put Katya in the position of deciding whether to stand for the principle of tidiness or stand for the principle of not picking up after other people. On the other, though...well, she still thought of herself sometimes as that little foreigner who Julius Astley had made fun of on their first day at school. To have a good number of people here, with different projects, working and talking, all very civilized and exciting, all because of her...
Her thoughts, running in the back of her head as she kept an eye out for anyone else who looked like they might want a word or do better for a visit, were interrupted when she was approached by her roommate. She smiled at Lyssa, first automatically, then with surprise and pleasure as she understood the question being put to her.
"Mine?" she asked. "You may have one, if you like it." Her cheeks flushed slightly, more from enjoyment than embarrassment at the idea of someone liking her art that well. She had always supposed she would sell work in her life, but at bazaars at home, where work - sewn items, paintings, whatever - by wealthy women was sold to raise galleons for various causes in the community. Someone who purchased one of Katya's paintings might like it, true - but might also wish to ingratiate themselves with the Vorontsovs over another family whose daughter had something, or with both the Vorontsovs and the organization involved, or with just the organization. Plus, there was always the chance one's stuff was just bought to avoid being rude or seeming disinterested in the community, which was frowned upon. There was every chance that Lyssa simply wished to be nice to her, or else to flatter someone of a higher social standing to gain a patroness - but if those were her motives, they were working. "Your poem also is very beautiful," she added. "May I read later? To understand better?"
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Katerina Vorontsov
I am pleased with both of those rationales.
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Jessica Hayles
April 16, 2020 1:23 PM
Rationality is a desirable quality. by Jessica Hayles
The visual arts had never held any particular appeal for Jessica. She had gone to art class three times a week with the rest of her classes in school, and she had been to exhibitions at the High and the like with her family, but none of these experiences had ever made visual art make sense to her as art. Pictures and photographs could be pretty and decorative, but she couldn't tell the difference between what was supposed to be good and what was supposed to be bad half the time, and none of it made much of an impression on her. She supposed she had spent too much of her life looking over her father's shoulder at advertising campaigns, or else sitting for parts in them.Despite this, she showed up at Katerina Vorontsov's art club and tried her hand at the exercises the fourth year suggested. For one thing, it was pleasant getting to see what other people were able to produce - better, at least, than sitting alone - and for another, this was the closest thing to cultural life this dump seemed to get, so she felt something of an obligation to show up. Let no-one say she hadn't given them a fair chance to impress her.
Katerina, she thought, was a genuinely impressive person, her somewhat stilted and accented English aside. Either visual arts did make sense to Katerina, or the Teppenpaw was good at faking it. She could not tell if the paintings and stitching had artistic value, but they were pretty, which was a fair bit more than most people (including some people whose work was, usually completely inexplicably, credited with having artistic value) could say for their pieces, and that was in two or three different mediums. More evidence, she thought, for her Elizabeth Barrett Browning idea about the wizarding world - some people were exquisitely educated, really in more depth in many areas than could be done in a real school, but everyone else was...not. Which also explained a lot about the social structure, she thought. She had written several poems on the nineteenth century socio-political protest models about that idea, in her journals, though she had yet to give into the impulse to scatter copies around the school. She was, after all, as far as she knew, the only poet at Sonora - at least until a girl she recognized from classes but did not know stood up during the sharing portion of the meeting.
She leaned forward, listening closely, word by word, as the other girl read her work to them all. It felt old, in the structure and to an extent the wording, but there were modern archetypes there - foolish uncles and whatnot; she thought that in really old stuff, uncles were generally evil or something - and plus it was just, well, good.
We lie to each other and cry with each other,
Celebrate with cheers and make the dead known.
How many family events had Jessica attended which almost followed that prescription exactly? More than she could count, minus the crying. Crying was not attractive, and definitely not something to do with the other members of her family. It was not dignified, and it made everyone else uncomfortable. She had learned to hide it from others when she needed to cry before she could even remember consciously knowing she should. The rest, though...
Perhaps this is where the world began,
Around this familiar hearth.
And perhaps it is where it will end,
As we toast and sing and dance...
Would that, Jessica wondered, constitute ending with a bang or a whimper? Or something else altogether? Dancing and toasting at the end of the world - or even the end of one's own life - seemed counter-intuitive, but - well - what else would one have to do, really? Nothing more pressing in any event.
More seriously, it was a curious thought, considering one's family one's whole world. Jessica couldn't decide if her family was like that or not. On one hand, they had always stuck together, because they were family, and because it was simpler when they were by themselves, without outsiders getting involved. On the other, though, they lived in the public space far more than the private one. Arvale was like a sixth member of the family, and one which spread out into the whole world. Most of it, anyway. It was an interesting question.
More interesting than questions, however, was the thought of making the acquaintance of another of her own kind. That the other girl was speaking with Katerina was just icing on the cake - another chance to expand her social circle, with someone definitely rich, cultured, and accomplished, and probably tipped for power next year with the prefect system. Not in Crotalus, but still. Really, if Jessica had known how well she would do socially these days without Felipe, she might have thrown him over, rather than sticking around until he'd done it to her...the Deutschtent, Sadie, Leonor, possibly these two, if she played her cards right. It was the most non-functional social contact she'd ever had with other children in her life.
Waiting until she spotted what looked like a natural break in their conversation, she approached them with a smile. "Hi," she said, sharing the smile between them. "I'm Jessica. I just wanted to say, both of you did gorgeous work." She looked specifically at Lyssa then. "I especially liked yours - I'm a poet, too," she added. "I didn't know there were any others at Sonora."
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Jessica Hayles
Rationality is a desirable quality.
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
April 16, 2020 3:36 PM
Rationality implies the conformity... so I'm a bit irrational by Lyssa Fitzgerald
Lyssa was positively ecstatic, a big smile blossoming onto her face.“I can have one? Really? Thank you Katia, that is so nice of you. I really do like your painting of your town,” Lyssa stopped herself, that wasn’t what Katia had said, “no your village. Your painting feels so… welcoming. Maybe one day I will get to see your village and compare.” Lyssa smiled imagining the ice and snow crunching underfoot as she ran from house to house with all the lovely decorations. Lyssa didn’t want to seem like she was inviting herself though. They were roommates, but not exactly friends, but not enemies either. Better than most roommates as they both had a focus on tidiness and not bothering each other. “If you want, you could come to my house. Only so long as my older brother wasn’t there.”
Lyssa didn’t think Katia should meet John Jr. She didn’t think anyone at school should really. Though she loved her family and her older brother, who was getting better, JR was still the person who haunted her nightmares when she had them.
Lyssa’s smile became even bigger at Katia’s request for her poem. She restrained herself from showing too much excitement knowing that her words might get lost with too much movement and intensity. But it was nice to be complimented by someone she knew as well as her roommate. There was something comforting in being seen by her.
“Thank you Katia. That is very nice to say. I’ll rewrite the poem so it is easier to read though. I wrote it fast. See?” Lyssa held up the piece of paper she’d the poem written on. It had things crossed off and pieces written in with arrows pointing to where new sentences and phrases should go. There was also a list of things that rhymed with down and legs off to the side. “I’ll make it tidy and then you can read it. Ok?”
Just then another girl walked up.
Lyssa recognized her immediately, though didn’t know her. It was hard to forget redheads, even in a school of magical people redheads stood out and it felt like the girl had been a heat seeking missile coming straight towards the pair causing Lyssa to momentarily put up her inner defenses. Then she received her second compliment for her poem and they lowered a bit. Lyssa was used to writing things and getting them put in magazines or the newspapers in the Wizarding world. People would respond to them, some positive others negative, but never in person. She always felt like her journalistic letter writing was similar to the social media posts her friends were always talking about when she was home.
Poems, though, were different. Those she’d kept those to herself, but maybe she shouldn’t.
“Oh. Thanks Jessica. That’s very nice of you to say,” she said sticking out her hand. “My name’s Lyssa. Just Lyssa. No Wizarding family name attached that pushes others around and denegrades diversity. Just Muggle born Lyssa,” she said with a smile. “It’s so nice to meet a fellow poet and writer!”
She was used to these Wizarding introductions at this point. She had begun making it a point to get the fact that she wasn’t from a Wizarding family and was in fact Muggle-born. That way, if they wanted to stop talking with her it would be over with quickly and she could move on to people who didn’t care as much.
Lyssa was honestly excited to meet another writer though. Someone who wanted to speak her own truth. It sparked something in Lyssa. Katia had gotten the Art Club off the ground. Maybe Lyssa should try her hand at starting something. She’d thrown around the idea of starting a speech and debate club before. Maybe Jessica would want to take part. Or maybe something else.
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
Rationality implies the conformity... so I'm a bit irrational
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Katerina Vorontsov
April 16, 2020 4:32 PM
Everything in moderation, I suppose. by Katerina Vorontsov
Katya was surprised by Lyssa's specification that her older brother needed to be absent before Katya could visit wherever it was the Fitzgeralds were from, but decided not to ask in such a public venue. Perhaps Lyssa and her brother did not get along. Perhaps it was some odd American social custom - rude for a woman to have guests while the men of the house were in the house. Either way, it seemed like something to discuss in private rather than public, if at all."Home is very pretty," she agreed with earlier, less controversial statements. "I hope you can see it someday. You might have to see my old brother too, though, and the little one - they know English. Maybe some in the village do also." As much as she loved to look at it from the windows of her house, Katya knew relatively little about the people in the village, but it seemed reasonable to think they might have to deal with outsiders far more than a cloistered youngest daughter of one of the founding families of the village would. "At my house - mostly talk Russian, or French, but Papa and Grigori and Alexei know English, and Tatiana."
She hated to admit it would be easier to understand Lyssa's poem if she saw a neater copy, but she suspected this was true to some extent of everyone, interesting as it was to see some of the process of composition. "I think this would be easier to understand," she said gently. "If it does not cause you trouble to copy it." She did not want anyone going out of their way on her account.
Another girl approached - one of the third years, the red-haired Crotalus girl. Katya had noted her name in class roll calls, but it was one of those dreadful unpronounceable American ones...Jessica, she called herself. Katya could think it clearly enough, but when she tried to say it, she was fairly sure she would mess it up.
She smiled when she heard that both her work and Lyssa's had earned Jessica's approval. Her smile faded, however, as Lyssa introduced herself and rapidly stopped being quite comprehensible. Lyssa was not just Lyssa; she was Lyssa Fitzgerald. She had a family name. Plus, what did denigrates diversity mean? Did not grade...maths? What did that have to do with family names? Except - no, the math was division....
"I am Katerina Vorontsov," she said instead of thinking about it more. "Thank you for coming to this club tonight. You must show us your poem sometime also." She smiled at both girls. "I must go round and round, so everyone is ok," she said. "Lyssa, you may have painting when we go out tonight, ok? Nice to meet you - " concentrate. Con. cen. trate. "Dzhezika."
Close enough, she supposed.
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Katerina Vorontsov
Everything in moderation, I suppose.
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Jessica Hayles
April 16, 2020 4:43 PM
Does that mean I can practice just a few Dark Arts? by Jessica Hayles
"“My name’s Lyssa. Just Lyssa. No Wizarding family name attached that pushes others around and denegrades diversity."Oh God. She was one of those poets - or even just one of those people in general.
Jessica understood very little about wizard politics, but she had gathered enough to know that she had just walked up to someone who was the sort of person to throw her politics into the very way she introduced herself, which was a bad sign. Religion and politics were discussions that inevitably came into play with art, but they still weren't really appropriate for one's introduction even in that context. Especially if Just Lyssa was a dedicated poet. If she was one, then Jessica had probably just blundered her way into having to listen to a very dull tirade.
Katerina's expression was hard to interpret - was she offended, or just confused? She recovered before Jessica could decide - and then extricated herself. Jessica wanted to ask her to stay but figured she'd just make things worse if she did.
"I'll bring something along next time," she promised. "Have a good evening."
She smiled at Lyssa, hoping she could steer the conversation to pleasant topics. "So, how long have you been writing?" she asked. If they could talk about writing itself, that would be pleasant enough of a topic, not to mention one Jessica could follow. Wizard politics were a different matter on both fronts.
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Jessica Hayles
Does that mean I can practice just a few Dark Arts?
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