The Folk Craftsmen series of Kiriakides: Potter and Blacksmiths

The graphic artist Ivan Dmitrievich Kiriakidi (born in 1940) can be considered a native of many countries. For 5 years, fate connected him with Kazakhstan, where he worked as the main artist of the Puppet Theater in Taldy Kurgan. In 1968, he moved to Uzbekistan. Since 1991, he has been living and working in Greece.
 

Basically, the artist specialized in printed graphic works, paying special attention to technical perfection. Two sheets from the series Folk Craftsmen (1984) are made with the etching technique. They are lyrical short stories from the life of folk masters.
 

• The work Potter is a touching story about the daily worries of a craftsman and his small family. His microcosm is a workshop in which the owner is busy with the usual things, sitting at the potter’s wheel. Kiriakidi depicts a lot of simple details that create a cozy space. They include a bird sitting on the door, a sign with the number of the house, a column around the corner, a bunch of medicinal herbs and fish on a string are drying on the beams, finished products – vessels of various shapes and sizes – are lying at the threshold. On the second floor, there is the world of the family – a young mother nursing a child, a patterned carpet – the product of a folk craftswoman, a songbird in a cage, a fragment of a gazebo, intricately entwined with a vine with clusters of wineberries. Both worlds complement each other harmoniously.

• The composition Blacksmiths is made according to a similar scenario, but in a different intonation. It depicts strong men working, a fire burning in the furnace, the sound of hammers on metal is heard, “harsh” tools are seen all a round – the attributes of a blacksmith’s hard work. Depicting masters of different ages, the artist also talks about continuity, about the transfer of the secrets of the craft to the next generations. But even here Kiriakidi brings a number of details of ordinary life – a donkey chewing its food, a cat basking in the sun on the roof of the forge, a kind of “mast” with a wheel to which ribbons are tied, trembling in the wind, weathervanes indicating the direction of the wind. The romantic note of the composition is associated with the image of two boys (grandchildren?) who are running, flying paper airplanes into the cloudless sky. In this series, Ivan Kiriakidi acts as a subtle observer. The short strokes of the etching are woven into a light airy “cobweb”.