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News of the Kotlas ConnectionFall 2003 |
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Russian Artist Visits Waterville
By Gregor Smith As a coda to this summer's international art seminar in Kotlas, Stas Borodin, the Russian artist who organized the seminar, made a three-day visit to Maine to visit Milton Christianson, a Wellington artist selected by the Kotlas Connection to attend the seminar. When asked his impressions of Maine, Borodin said, "[There are] beautiful landscapes in Maine, . . . [and] very nice people, especially Milton," Borodin said. Borodin was speaking through a translator to Colby Russian students and members of the Kotlas Connection's executive committee at Colby's weekly Russian Table. Borodin especially likes to paint college and university campuses. "As soon as you enter the campuses, you understand that you have entered a whole new culture, in comparison to New York [City]," Borodin said, eliciting laughter from his listeners. Indeed, Borodin had spent much of the day painting a view of the campus from across Johnson Pond, a picture that he donated to the college. After arriving in Waterville that morning, local host John Engle took him on driving tour of the town. They got no further than Colby's pond when Borodin asked him to stop and got out a canvas, brushes, and paints. Not counting lunch and breaks, he spent four hours on the painting, which he subsequently donated to the college. Like Christianson, Borodin is a plein air painter. (From the French, "plein air" simply means "outdoors.") Generally impressionists, plein air artists prefer street scenes and rustic landscapes to indoor subjects. They often paint outdoors as well to capture the colors of nature and the changing effects of light. As Borodin likes to say, "If you're out in nature, nature inspires you." Born in 1950 in the Kotlas area, Borodin now lives in St. Petersburg. He started showing his works publicly in 1989. Since then, he has had exhibits in Kotlas, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Archangel, Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm, and in numerous cities and towns throughout Germany. His three days in Maine was part of a two-month, self-funded visit to the U.S. to paint and to exhibit his works. During the two months, he also traveled to New York City, Ann Arbor (in Michigan), and Los Angeles. He previously came to the United States in 2002 for an exhibit of his paintings in Atlanta, Ga. Before coming to Waterville on his current trip, Borodin had spent two days in Wellington with Christianson. During that time, he attended an artists' reception in his honor, executed a painting of nearby Kingsbury Pond, got his feet wet, and bought a new pair of socks in Moscow, Me. Update: Borodin has since become a regular visitor to Maine, returning, on average, once a year. In 2007, he made two visits: in March, when he gave painting demonstrations at the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, and in September, when he exhibited his works in the Bennett Katz Library at the University of Maine at Augusta.
Kotlas Connection Holds Annual Meeting
The Kotlas Connection held its annual meeting on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Waterville. Thirty-two people attended. Phil Gonyar opened the meeting with a review of the Kotlas Connection's accomplishments during the preceding year. These included holding our annual ornament sale in December and Russian Sampler in March; hosting three Kotlas visitors in March; selling Russian eats and souvenirs in the Voices of the Kennebec festival in June; sending Milton Christianson to an international art seminar in Kotlas in July; and honoring Mary Coombs at the REM Community Awards Ceremony in November. We also successfully applied to Sister Cities International for a grant to bring the mayor of Kotlas and three other local officials to Waterville for a visit in the Spring of 2004. The focus of the business meeting, however, was the election of the 2004 executive committee. Among the officers, Herb Foster was elected co-chairman, replacing Jack Mayhew who is retiring from that post but will remain on the committee. Cindy Rowe was re-elected treasurer. Co-chairman Phil Gonyar and Secretary Ellen Corey were in the middle of their two-year terms of office. Re-elected to one-year terms as at-large members of the committee were Natalia Kempers, Mary Coombs, Pauline Mayhew, John Engle, Martha Patterson, Julie Stowe, Jan Whitcomb, and Wayne Whitcomb. Mark Fisher, an Oakland town councilor who is currently hosting a Russian exchange student, was elected to the committee for the first time; and two former members of the committee, Gregor Smith and Sheila McCarthy, were re-elected after absences of several years each. Smith is the Kotlas Connection's webmaster and McCarthy, a professor of Russian at Colby College, is the co-organizer of Russian Sampler and last year's REM Award honoree. Finally, Natasha Erb was also re-elected to the committee, but resigned a few weeks later because of other obligations. The assembly also approved several minor revisions to the Kotlas Connection's bylaws. These changes included the creation of a board of directors, which is implied in the papers of incorporation; the elimination of the requirement that only three executive committee members may serve at large; the addition of Web Site to the listed committees; and a clarification on the disbursement of funds. When the half-hour business meeting concluded, Milton Christianson, a watercolor landscape painter from Wellington, Me., spoke about his three-week visit to Russia last summer, during which he attended a twelve-day painters' seminar in Kotlas. He also formally presented a painting commissioned by the Kotlas Connection to raffle or sell to raise funds. John Engle subsequently purchased the painting.
The Kotlas Connection selected Mary Coombs as it honoree at the annual REM Community Awards Ceremony, held November 23, 2003, at the Williamson Arts Center in Fairfield. Thirteen other area nonprofit organizations also honored volunteers at that event. A teacher of the gifted and talented at Winslow Junior High School, Coombs was chosen in recognition of her long involvement with the Kotlas Connection. Coombs has served on the Kotlas Connection's executive committee since the organization's incorporation in October 1993 and was also served on our predecessor organization, the Waterville Area Kotlas Committee. In April 1987, Coombs was present at the opening of the first box of artwork from Kotlas schoolchildren. In 1989, she organized a trip to Russia for nineteen students and ten. It was during this trip that Natalia Kempers, Peter Garrett, and his daughter Jessica, slipped away to become the first Americans to visit Kotlas. In April of 1991, Coombs led another group of students to Russia. This time she and the students were able to go all the way to Kotlas. Since then, Coombs has been to Kotlas three more times, with adult delegations. Her most recent trip was in the summer of 2002. She was the lead organizer of all three trips. Over the years, Mary Coombs and her husband Earl have been host parents to six foreign students, three of them from Kotlas. Along with last year's honoree, Sheila McCarthy, Mary Coombs is a co-founder of Russian Sampler, a day of lectures and workshops about Russia for middle school students. Russian Sampler has been held annually on the third Monday in March at Colby College since 1993. Thousands of area junior high school students have participated over the years. The three-hour awards ceremony was organized by REM on behalf of the REM Partners. REM is a broad-based community organization dedicated to developing a vibrant economy, improving education, promoting art and culture, beautifying the environment, and expanding recreational opportunities in Central Maine. The REM Partners are a coalition of two dozen local nonprofit organizations convened by REM to promote volunteerism and share resources. The partnership was founded in the summer of 2001. For more information about the REM Community Awards, including biographies of Mary Coombs and the Kotlas Connection's previous honorees, please visit REM Awards section of our web site. Briefly Noted:
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