Artist Marie Brozova's recollections of her public drawing event in Kutna Hora.
They say that you cannot stay for long time in mythical Kutna Hora, undermined with the famous and forgotten silver shafts, if you are afraid to look into your own depths. Who knows, but I was attracted to Kutna Hora from the first time we met. I say it because "she" is like a magnet. In the beginning I saw only her magical beautiful loneliness, the empty streets and gothic architecture woven from the wind and stone; her mysterious back corners, where you can spot an angel, when he doesn’t notice. But once I turned my gaze down, and I saw "The Light Deep Down in the Earth".
The Underworld, the home of our forgotten memories, our ancestors and the roots of our dreams, has become a dangerous place, feared and inhabited by legends about Hades, and later the hell with all those horned devils. But I saw Hades, as the loneliest of all Olympian Gods, not loved by anyone, guiding the most mysterious secrets, all people long to find out. And I saw the fairies of water and dwarfs and the treasure-seekers, and also those, who protect these treasures.
It was the first drawing in the sequence of my public drawing that aroused fear, because Hades is dreaded worldwide. But for me, this drawing is like a prayer for a strange kind of friendship that had been heard.
The Corpus Christi Chapel is one of the most powerful places in Kutna Hora, it is not over the ground, nor under it, it lies somewhere between where one world melts into the other. Drawing on this spot I could expect very strange meetings and blending very different people and cultures together. My easel was standing right on the tourist crossroad, near the famous St. Barbara Cathedral. I watched the underworld below, surrounded by the happy chatter of visitors, sometimes ignored by the listless crowds of guided tourists on their city-tours.
I was visited by a notorious local chimney-sweep, properly sooty, and he brought me luck everyday with his optimistic nature. (There is a superstition in our country saying that when you meet a chimney-sweep, you must hold all your buttons, and than he will bring you luck). He told me he had always wanted to become a chimney-sweep. His wish came true and that’s why he can spread his happiness all around. A student visited me regularly to read to me of old Kutna Hora legends; I listened to her for long hours.
Groups of Japanese tourists encouraged by Czech beer often asked me to take a photo with me, cried: beautifool, beautifool in their funny accents. It was a very happy surprise for me, when they found a Chinese sign in my drawing titled The West Sanctuary. My husband noticed them pointing at the characters and asked them in English if they understood. "Oh yes" they nodded, "That is a Chinese Carrot." "Beg your pardon?" My husband asked and pitied me: "Poor Marie, she doesn’t know what she had created" But they discussed their English in Japanese and after a while they said: "No, not a carrot, a parrot!" Oh, even better, thought my husband. But another discussion in Japanese was going on. At the end they agreed: "Not a parrot, a POET, a Chinese poet of course, Wang Wei!" As if everyone should know.
But in fact, it is clear only to those who can read in characters in shapes of bird’s footprints.
VISIT MARIE BROZOVA’S VIRTUAL GALLERY
www.angels-fairies-unicorns.com,
where you’ll find both the drawings created during public events and in the studio.
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signed author prints ready for framing, postcards and more.