The Year 2019. Part 2

Continuing my story about the long and eventful 2019. Part one is here.

August. I returned to France, this time to Brittany, to Fougères, where the international pastel exhibition was being held, and where my paintings had been selected for display. On the opening day of the exhibition, I participated in a group demo with three French artists. The hall was silent, the audience polite, as if they weren’t even there.

I was painting Brittany’s hydrangeas, inspired by those I had seen in gardens while walking with Anne Courtine. Meanwhile, behind me, Richard McKinley—the invited guest of honor for this season—walked around observing.

International festivals are a wonderful opportunity to meet fascinating people. A special thanks to Patrice Bourdin for organizing this event.

The timing of the exhibition in Fougères coincided with my plein air outings, and I waited for the end date of the event traveling through various cities in Brittany with a group of students. It was lively—filled with conversations, visual exploration, and lots of hands-on practice.

Afterward, there was a brief pause during the dismantling (демонтаж) of the exhibition. Under the pines in a French park, artist Sergei Pietilä and I made tea on a small burner and talked about Kostroma and why teaching is so challenging for an artist. "Because you’ve painted everything with your own words and hands of the students and left nothing for yourself," he said.

An hour later, I was already driving a rental car to Orly Airport, preparing for the autumn ahead.

The next two months held four more events for me.

I taught lessons in Rome, spending three days with the pastel school La Muse. I barely saw the city, but by the third day, I started to understand Italian and managed to try nearly every traditional Roman pasta dish, prepared from old recipes by chef Luigi.

A week later, the ArtLife festival began in Moscow. Four of my large pastel works were displayed in the mixed exhibition, and I conducted a demo session on the festival grounds.

A couple of weeks later, I flew to the festival in Rosa Khutor, where I fell seriously ill and almost had to cancel my entire program. But somehow, I managed to get through everything: the plein air session, the lecture, and the demo. The people around me were warm and kind, which made it easier,but I spent most of the time resting in my room, catching up on sleep, and selecting paintings by artists for an exhibition that would take place later in December.

This was the final international and highly significant journey planned for the year— "100 Years of Pastel Art in China". The event was organized by the prestigious Ming Gallery and the Chinese Pastel Society.

One of my paintings was featured in the exhibition. I gave a lecture at the forum about pastel art in Russia and our society, and the following day, I painted live on stage. My work is well-known among pastelists in China, and the demo was accompanied by lively questions and discussions.

During this highly significant trip, I surprisingly didn’t feel exhausted at all. I had no issues with the time zone change, food, or anything else. Despite the physical and emotional demands of the official program, it felt much easier to handle than many other challenges I faced this year.

At 5 a.m., just before my flight back to Moscow, Mr. Yan handed me the exhibition catalog published for the event. I sighed with relief—it was a chance to take home all the intricate names of the artists and an entire layer of China’s national culture.

As December approached, I’d like to mention the exhibition by the National Pastel Society in Moscow. We had to organize it from scratch in just two months, without an established reputation for the society or prior experience in hosting large-scale events.

The exhibition was successfully held in mid-December, transforming from a simple show into a festival.

This was the most challenging endeavor of the year. It’s one thing to be responsible for your own work—paintings you’ve been creating for years—and quite another to take on an event involving 65 artists, attracting 800 visitors, and being observed by numerous countries with whom I had the chance to discuss the development of pastel art in Russia and much more.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the efforts of a dedicated team. Without their support, organizing such an event would have been impossible. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of them!

If we managed to make even one artist happier and more recognized, and pastel more accessible and appreciated by the public, then the exhibition’s mission was fully accomplished.

You can read more about the exhibition on our society’s website.

What I Didn’t Finish This Year? I didn’t manage to publish the book with Eksmo, even though it’s almost entirely written. For one reason or another, the process keeps stalling—sometimes it’s the text, sometimes the illustrations, or one of the parties gets tied up in a new project.

But this year has truly been one that reshuffles everything and changes the usual rhythm of life. I feel it like a river—its current has become turbulent, and the turns are sharper, but somehow the boat remains manageable. In some places, it requires extreme effort; in others, the river carries me along, though it rocks the boat intensely. It’s an amazing feeling when you know you’re not rowing alone, that someone’s got your back.

I sat down to write this to ensure I don’t lose these memories in the rush. I want to capture the energy of this period, reflect on its dynamism, recognize the discoveries of my strengths and weaknesses, and celebrate them.

If you’d like to hear more about any of the points above, feel free to ask in the comments.

Oh, and just a little about the paintings.

Throughout this year, I painted whenever I could—in the gaps between flights or on days when there was almost no time for painting, only for organizing. Even then, I still painted. I do feel sad that it wasn’t as much as usual, but I sincerely hope that things will improve and I’ll once again have those perfect days when I get enough sleep, spend the day painting, and spend the evening reading or writing. Today is one of those days, and I’m deeply grateful for this pause.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

P. S. The plein air session in Sedona will take place from April 27−29 and May 1−3.