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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 2015 WWW.UNWLA.ORG 5 JOURNEYS IN ABSTRACT ART: An Interview with Pat Zalisko by Olesia Wallo Could you please briefly describe your journey in art: did it begin at an early age or was creating art something that you dis- covered for yourself later on? I had always painted or drawn. As a child, my earliest art form, like it was for many of us, was creating pysanky . As soon as my mother and grandmother saw that I could hold a pencil or crayon, I had a stylus in my hand, and they gave me a raw egg. My mother was a member of UN- WLA Branch 72 in New York City, and the branch members had their meetings at the Ukrainian In- stitute on East 79th Street and 5th Avenue. Dur- ing Lent, she would take me to their workshops, and I would make pysanky there. My father would drive my mother to the meetings and often take me across the street to nearby museums, so I was always exposed to art. I do not have a formal art education, how- ever. I wanted to go to an art university and was admitted to a good one, but my mother was in- sistent that I have a practical career—one that would earn money. She was a NYC girl and be- lieved that all artists lived in lofts in Greenwich Village. However, she was very supportive that I was creating art. She would visit art supply stores and buy supplies for me. She and my father were constantly exposing me to the visual and perform- ing arts, taking me to galleries, art centers, bal- lets, operas, museums, etc. They just would not let me pursue the arts as a profession. Instead, I became an attorney and practiced law for about twenty-five years. I was licensed in New York and New Jersey but practiced mostly in New Jersey. For ten years, I was a prosecutor, primarily in homicide, child abuse, and major crimes; and served as New Jersey’s Public Guardian for Elder- ly Adults. I retired as a government attorney from the Office of Administrative Law where I mediat- ed cases. When I moved to Florida in 2004, my passion for creating art was renewed. We moved to a small community, which has a very good res- idency program and art centers. Many famous contemporary American artists have studied or taught there as master artists. I started studying with some of the artists who had retired or moved to this area, or who would visit the compound at the Atlantic Center for the Arts to teach. I had many terrific instructors, and I just rekindled my interest in art. Before I retired from government service, I also started taking art classes. One could say that I was reintroduced to studio art in mid- life, and I have not looked back since then. Yet I have been looking at and studying art all my life. You work primarily with abstraction. What attracts you in this style of art? Actually, when I started painting and drawing, my style was representational but it be- came easy and not enough of a challenge for me. As I mentioned, I also love art history and studied it. The contemporary masters have long fascinat- ed me. I never really understood abstraction— this non-representational and, to me, spiritual language—so I decided to pursue and try to un- derstand it. I am not convinced that I do com- pletely even now, but I know that it speaks to me and communicates what I want to say. It is very emotional: what I am putting into my art is felt rather than seen with the eye. There was a famous artist in the twentieth century—Paul Klee—who once commented, “One eye sees, the other [eye] feels.” I believe that this is true. Lately, my refer- ences have been something external: my art rep- resents a timeline. It captures those flashes or glimpses of things that I have experienced through my eyes and senses. That is what my work is communicating. Some of your art responds to key political and historical events that occurred in our historic homeland, Ukraine. I know that you have a series of paintings that com- memorate the Holodomor, and more re- cently, you have done work on the Euro- maidan protests in Kyiv and the downing of the Malaysian airliner over Eastern Ukraine. What has it meant to you to have created these pieces? Ukraine is part of my heritage and soul. My grandparents were born in Ukraine and came to the United States around the turn of the twen- tieth century. My grandfather was one of the orig- inal members of the UCCA—Ukrainian Congres- sional Committee of America. My maternal grandmother, who lived with us, was one of my primary influences in childhood. Both she and my family ensured that I did not speak a word of Eng- lish until I was about to start kindergarten. I also
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