They have become part of our work which we started in 1991 and have been playing an important part in it. They are the most durable record of the activities, workshops and projects carried out by the Center and Studio. Our exhibitions and presentations are limited in time. They last only for some time and then their memory fades, the natural order of things. What remains - are the books.
The Art Studio is not a "lonely island" and the topics covered in it are part of a wider program that includes activities of other studios of the Center. It is here that we prepare the elements of stage design for our theatrical performances, posters, invitations to events held in the Sejny synagogue or at the Miłosz’s Manor in Krasnogruda. It is also here, that we read the texts of the close to us writers and try to tell about them in the language of graphics, drawing, or watercolor.
The current exhibition is a presentation of our work. It includes illustrations and hand-made books by children meeting in the Studio on a regular basis, as well as by young people who have taken part in the workshops inspired by the Center.
Our products include:
» The Fables from the Augustów Forests by Jerzy Ficowski - watercolors by Wiesław Szumiński, 1992
»The Temple - a Book of Prayers. Home-Nest-Temple. The book was created during the meetings of children from Sejny with their peers from Belarusian villages of Podlasie, on the Jesionowa Mount at Szelment - drawings, watercolors, tempera, 1998
»5 VIII 1942, In Memory of Janusz Korczak, a poem by Jerzy Ficowski from his volume A Reading of Ashes - linocuts by the children from the Art Studio, 2002
» The Book of the Mostar Bridge. The Bosnian Triptych. Record of workshops and meetings of youth from Sejny, Mostar and Birmingham in Mostar - illustrations executed with different techniques, 2005
» The Locomotive by Julian Tuwim - linocuts by children from the Art Studio, 2013
»Medea – the Witch by Jadwiga Żylińska - linocuts and ceramic reliefs by children from the elementary school in Krasnopol, 2014
» Counting-out Rhymes - drawings by Krasnopol kindergarten and elementary school children and their parents, 2015
» Mysteries of Childhood. A record of joint work of children from Sejny and Lviv during workshops at the Miłosz Manor in Krasnogruda, 2016
» A Reading of Ashes by Jerzy Ficowski - linocuts by children from the Art Studio, 2017
Wiesław Szumiński