Acadia National Park in Maine | Prints

Prints available for purchase here

Souvenirs from the vacation in Acadia National Park, Maine, a few months back. It was so beautiful there in late August! I made a couple of collages/drawings and thanks to Dana, there is now a timelapse of me sitting on a mountain & cutting paper on a windy day! 

 

Prints available for purchase here

Quarantine Art

It's been a very long pandemic. And it's far from being over, now that the Delta variant is on the rise, 17 months since the initial lockdown began on March 20th of 2020 in NY. The time spent in quarantine offered opportunities for new kinds of drawing: from the screen, over Zoom. I didn't love it at first (and I'm not sure I would ever truly "love" drawing from a monitor or a TV, because a monitor is inherently flat, while the entire point of drawing from life is its dimensionality.) However, one can argue that art arises from taking advantage of limitations and constraints. So I took advantage of being home and having access to internet. I'm also including some landscape collages I've done during vacations with my partner, when we'd rent Airbnb cottages and spend a week here or there. I started to play with cut paper more. I love what it does visually! And I should mention that prints are available for sale. You can order them here and email me with image requests if you don't see the one you want. The sizes and prices apply to all art I've already created (but it doesn't apply to new commissions.)
All art in this post is copyright Julia Sverchuk ©2021 and cannot be used or repurposed without my written permission. 

Day 4 of the 5 Day Art Challenge: illustrations for Alan Lightman's book "Einstein's Dreams"

I accepted the Facebook 5 Day Art Challenge nomination from my friend and artist Audrey Hawkins. Day 4 is a personal project I haven't shared before, as I work on it intermittently: illustrations for Alan Lightman's book "Einstein's Dreams". The book is a meditation on the nature of time, and every chapter asks a "what if..." question.

• 26 APRIL 1905
“At some time in the past, scientists discovered that time flows more slowly the farther from the center of earth.”
-Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams"

• 8 MAY 905
“The world will end on 26 September 1907. Everyone knows it.”
-Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams"

• 3 MAY 1905
“Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Most people have learned to live in the moment. It is a world of impulse.”
-Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams"

• 20 MAY 1905
“People have no memories. For it’s only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. A world without memory is a world of the present..”-Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams"

Project In Progress

In the middle of a personal project. Cut paper found me.

Cupid and Psyche: The Ultimate Love Story

In light of approaching Valentines Day...

Cupid and Psyche (after Antonio Canova's statue Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss)

There is an epic tale from antiquity of Cupid and Psyche. 


The story begins with Venus (aka Aphrodite) being so jealous of the beauty that mortal Psyche possesses, that she asks her son Cupid to pierce Psyche with a golden arrow to make her fall in love with some vile creature. Cupid (aka Eros & Amour) messes up his task and instead scratches himself with the arrow upon Psyche's awakening. He falls deeply in love with her. Venus, enraged, places a curse on Psyche that keeps her from meeting any suitable husband. Cupid, upset, takes revenge on his mother Venus: as long as the curse lasts, he won't shoot any arrows. People and all living creatures stop falling in love and mating, the Earth quickly grows old and Venus's temple falls, for no one is worshipping LOVE any longer. That shakes up Venus enough to cut a deal with Cupid: if he goes back to work of shooting his golden arrows, he could have Psyche. 


What happens next? A whole lot. The long tale is filled with treacherous relatives, jealousies, curses and revenges, a plunge into the Underworld. But... not without a happy ending! Cupid and Psyche get married and give birth to daughter Hedone, the goddess of "sensual pleasures" in Greek Mythology. Here's the full tale by Apuleius >


So, if you find your love life is difficult, just look at what the Greek Gods had to go through!  As William Shakespeare wrote, "A course of true love never did run smooth." 


Happy Love Day. It's worth celebrating. Any day, any time, anywhere...