Artist Marie Brozova's recollections of the public drawing event in Industrial Palace.
Every year when Prague is attacked at the end of October by an exploding bombshell that Christmas is near I am astonished at the fireworks of the stars of Bethehem mixing together with Santa Claus and autumn leaves. The streets and shops are washed by a shower of Christmas carols sung in artificial angel voices that lack any true enthusiasm. At this particular time I always try to call to my mind the real magic of Christmas, the magic of the light kindled in darkness that I remember from my early childhood. In those cherished years before I went to school, Prague used to be silent and empty after dark. My recollections are coming out of the thick fog of the past, and I would like to know for sure, that I did not spend my childhood in a completely different city, in a different dimension. Because the mystic and majestic, though shabby Prague of those days has so little in common with today's garish circus for tourists, cosmopolitan metropolis promising to fulfill all wishes, even those most eccentric, to satisfy all the passive bored visitors.
In spite of all this I always try to spot at least the smallest hope of Christmas light in the middle of the darkness which is in the city like Prague too richly illuminated. Very often I find it in the eyes of people who may have the same memories of miraculous Advent time. Especially for these people I created the drawing titled "Passing on the light" in Prague Showground of Industrial Planet during the Christmas Fair. This drawing resembles the children's chocolate Advent calendar. It is full of closed windows that give out their sweet treasures day by day until the Christmas Eve. I dedicated this picture to all those perceptive visitors, who appreciated the nutrition for the soul more than the nutrition for the body. I was rewarded with their smiles and sometimes even with tears of emotion.
At first sight you can see in the drawing gloomy winter street at night under the city sky which is not blue or black, but chocolate brown in the lamplight. There are white horses of the first snow running across the roofs of old grey houses turning everything into silver. The sky is full of shooting stars falling down on Earth, some people lit their candles joyously, others only frown and hide themselves under their umbrellas. And behind the 24 windows of the Advent calendar you will find 24 ways to pass on the light instead of candies. Some windows are open, some are still waiting to be opened.
I could relate every meeting with the visitors to one of the small windows. I remember an agile granny, who was very happy to go into retirement. At last she would have enough time for all her hobbies, especially drawing with colored pencils. She was very eager to learn all the tricks of my technique. She was delighted to have something new and exciting for her grandchildren. I also remember a middle aged lady who was very disappointed from the atmosphere at her workplace. She hated the competitive fight among co-workers that was not soothed by Christmas. She told me with a sad smile that she had got drunk sipping the eggnog while cooking the Christmas candies. She wanted to warm herself a little, because the work conditions seemed to be growing colder each year. And her husband was laughing at her, when he got home because she never touches alcohol.
All the people had their sad or funny Christmas stories. We passed on the light among one another as if we were lighting the candles. We all recollected our miraculous and unique Christmas of our childhood. The marvel of waiting for the relish. We had been waiting for the Christmas tree since the St. Nicholas Day in December 5th, when the streets were full of people in costumes of St. Nicholas accompanied by the angel and the devil. I always wanted to find the real ones; I believed that they must have been somewhere hidden in the procession of masks. And once at back streets of old Prague I succeeded for sure. The joy of Christmas was enlivened by every sight of Christmas decorations in the shop windows, by every Bethlehem star in the window. Our family was not religious at all, but the Christmas time was full of mystery and holy waiting for the light, older that all the religions. When I was about four years old, I asked my beloved grandpa who seemed to know everything, if there was God. He smiled at me and answered: "That nobody knows. Nobody in the whole wide world." Until now I haven't got any wiser reply for this question. I also stopped asking, because I have learned from my grandpa that I can live my life fully regardless of the useless thinking about the finality of human life. No matter if my life is an abscissa between the birth and death, or a straight line bowed in infinity; I know that I can live in a meaningful way.
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