Igor Sitnikov: Last Hope

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Last Hope

OK. It was a love story. We met and separated. I still loved the girl. And I still loved the music of Led Zeppelin, from 1976. I used to send her messages on her cellular phone to explain my feelings. Sometimes I used the words from Led Zeppelin’s songs for it, because Led Zeppelin is not only music and verses, but it has become the sound of my soul. Formerly she could find the words to answer, and her words sounded like the Plant’s high voice!
When we separated I tried to draw my messages. It was the mystical way in which I could be with her soul for some hours during the work. When I finished a drawing I sent her the verse from it… These drawings were my last hope… There was no answer…

Graphic series

Last Hope
6 sheets-messages
Paper, Indian ink, pen.
27x19 cm
19x27 cm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7910873@N05/

Message #1
Houses of the Holy
We can watch the white doves go
From the door comes Satan’s daughter
And it only goes to show
Ah, you know
There’s an angel on my shoulder
In my hand a sword of gold
Let me wander in your garden
And the seeds of love I’ll sow

Message #2
No Quarter
The snow falls hard and don’t you know?
The winds of Thor are blowing cold.
They’re wearing steel that’s bright and true
They carry news that must get through, oooh
They choose the path where no-one goes.
They hold no quarter, they hold no quarter.
Walking side by side with death
The devil mocks their every step
The snow drives back the foot that’s slow
The dogs of doom are howling more

Message #3
Kashmir
I am a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been
T’ sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
Th’ talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed
Oooh, oh baby, I been flyin’

Message #4
Kashmir
Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails Across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face ‘Long the straits of fear
Whaoh, whaoh Whaoh-oh, oh Ohhhh

Message #5
AchillesLast Stand
It was an April morning, When they told us we should go
The devil in his hole Hides inside and never seen, yeah
The shackles of commitment fell, In pieces on the ground Oh to ride the wind

Message #6
Ten Years Gone
Then as it was, then again it will be
An’ though the course may change sometimes
Rivers always reach the sea
We are eagles of one nest
The nest is in our soul
Vixen in my dreams, with great surprise to me
Never thought I’d see your face the way it used to be

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Igor Sitnikov and Miklukho-Maklai

I was born in Ryazan city (Russia, 3 hours from Moscow) in 1961. 30 years I lived in the Soviet Union on the bank of Oka-river, which is a border between a huge forest and a wide steppe. Then 12 years I spend in the Russia on the same bank, under the same sky. I like Oka, and the steppe with multitude of small slow rivers, and the forest, that carries the name of vanished people “Meshchera”. When I was a schoolboy I had read a book about the famous Russian anthropologist Miklukho-Maklai, who studied peoples of Papua New Guinea. His life was amazing for my childish imagination. I dreamed about long voyages in vast waters of the Pacific Ocean. I was envious of Tur Heyerdal, who could travel along the Pacific islands and to Charles Gogin, who could draw beautiful Tahiti women.If I could imagine that I will become an artist and will live in Pacific?

Saisiyat (賽夏)

The Saisiyat believe that a long time ago, a tribe of three-foot tall, dark-skinned dwarfs once taught them to farm, sing, and dance, but also harassed and threatened the women.
Long ago, a tribe of dark-skinned pygmies arrived in the area inhabited by the Saisiyat. They were skilled in the arts of magic. The Taai (known as the Short People) gave the Saisiyat seeds and taught them the knowledge of agriculture, how to hold ceremonies and offer sacrifices to gods or ancestors.
Therefore the Saisiyat regarded the Taai as their benefactors. Whenever rituals and ceremonies were held, the Saisiyat always invited the Taai to be their guests, and they enjoyed drinking and having fun together.
The Taai, however, gradually began to encroach upon the Saisiyat women. To avoid disrupting harmonious relations between the tribes, those women who were violated remained silent. The Saisiyat tribal elders urged patience for the good of the whole tribe. The Taai, however, stepped up their encroachments on the Saisiyat. When the Saisiyat had had enough, they swore to avenge the insult on the Taai.
The Saisiyat knew that the Taai were particularly fond of climbing on a loquat tree that overhung a precipice. Two Saisiyat youths thereupon took it upon themselves to saw the tree halfway through. That evening, the Taai, not suspecting a thing, climbed one-by-one up into the tree. As more and more Taai scaled the tree, it could no longer take the weight and the trunk snapped. All of the Taai who had been sitting in the tree went over the edge. Those that weren't killed in the initial fall were drowned.
However two Taais, who had escaped the ambush, placed a curse on the Saisiyat tribe, leading to a succession of disasters and poor harvests. In an effort to lift the curse, the Saisiyat sang Taai songs and performed Taai dances to plead for forgiveness while also appealing for fair weather and a bountiful harvest. That is the origin of the Saisiyat tribe's pygmy spirit ritual.

The pygmy spirit ritual gives raise a hypothesis by a Japanese archeologist, Kano Tadao, that the prehistoric peoples living in Taiwan included Negritoes.