Hi! I'm Anna. Here I collected some milestones. Sometimes just one sentence that hits you can change the way you perceive art. It took a while to accept and to own it, and Sint Lucas school of art is my catalyst in this process.

During my first coaching meeting with Felisitas Rohden I was reporting my plan to conduct my master project. I chose quite a personal theme: processing, reworking, and transforming my traumatic experience. I was sure this project could help other people who are going through similar issues. I was excited, and as I thought I covered everything: I knew all the steps, the size, medium, even the approximate time for each drawing. I tried to do my best. Felisitas replied that it's very generous of me to work on this, but it seems I would do exactly the same if I were alone with no coach. In my plan was no room for growth, no space left free.

Since I've got the studio space at the School of Art I started to arrange space in accordance with my aesthetic views. Organic forms and minerals are my main source of inspiration, so the collection of seashore creatures and minerals took place at my desk. For some reason, I also kept used pencils. I sharpened a pencil for the last time and put it near the horseshoe crab. Pencils built a crown, and the more pencils I used the bigger the crown became. I never paid attention to that ritual. Felisitas pointed out that the way I arrange a space could be also part of my project. This perspective made me look closer to the things I considered as not important, and more aware of my own intentions and hidden meanings of things.

Tsultrim Allione’s practice of feeding the demons is in fact shadow work. Demons are unintegrated shadows such as fear, pain, anxiety. The observer’s perspective provides an opportunity to dis-identify your symptoms. Do not panic «my world is crumbling», but watch «how captivating my world is collapsing» and after a while, I can realize
that this world is nothing more than a glass ball with snowflakes, which I can carefully examine or put on a shelf and walk away. I converted this practice into small drawings and I've been doing it for years to remember that I can observe the processes, find beauty in them, find these lines extraordinary, despite the fact that the experience itself could be painful, I draw a small sketch. The collection of my demons is growing, as is my inner witness. I spend 2-10 minutes on each. I feel not obliged to perform well. I'm not putting much time or energy into this. But I noticed that some of my "well-drawn" pieces look faded in comparison with these matchbox-sized sketches.

My education at the Academy of Art and Design in Saint Petersburg, Russia, gave me an excellent academic background. I was trained to perform figurative compositions in a way the soviet artists did. The criteria for good artwork were excellent composition, correct proportions of the body, accurate detailed drawing. During this training, I learned that to create something valuable I need to spend many hours on my work and suffer. For my diploma, I choose a quite unusual theme, and I had to work with no supervision: nobody wanted to be responsible for the failure. However, the jury found my graphic series outstanding. After graduation, I had been working as a designer for 9 years, and I struggle to combine my job with my artistic practice. I felt an urgency to perform well, to prove I'm an artist. That boiled down to a demonstration of skills, the focus of my attention became more spectator-oriented. Is it good enough? Does it have an objective value? Each time before I start working I had to go through turbulence of tension and resistance. Turned out a better way to break through the turbulence is to write down a list of all the disturbing thoughts. It's working as a grocery store list. I can stop constantly juggling these thoughts since all of them are listed, right here on paper. I can go back to it later. I can let it go for a while. Even though I'm aware of the process and I know how to deal with it, it still hunting me.

According to my plan, my goal was to guide myself, and further, the viewer, through processing a traumatic experience, to live them through and transcend. After several months of intense work, I couldn't say I was any closer to becoming healed or something like this. I kept drawing all my images and my physical experience imprinted in my body, but I felt that it was meaningless. Probably it could make some use in a psychotherapeutic session, but it doesn't make sense. Being here at Sint Lucas, being an art student is a privilege, and I'm a cheater who considered her art as a powerful tool, but it's nothing. This thought paralyzed me. I shared my doubts with Hugo Puttaert during my coaching session. He agreed on the uselessness of art, and from his perspective, it turned out to be the greatest gift. There is a space with no settled aim, direction, limits. It's like a divine playground where I'm allowed to be.

10 meters drawing is some sort of diagram, constantly unfolding images. To manage drawing I have to include all my body in the process and the drawing becoming a dance. I started to dance before even touching a paper. Swinging slowly or mowing only my finder tips I'm staying to imagine if these lines became alife how would they flow.

I considered myself a graphic artist, and I'm more confident in drawing. Color is a new unknown dimension for me. If like I had no sense of smell and suddenly I started to feel in a new way. Right now it's a bit overwhelming for me, so I restricted my pallet by using 5 colors.