Some wacky illustrations for a short dissertation I wrote for my Masters, exploring the relationship between medieval illuminations, marginalia, and online ads.

Hair Appointment

Embroideries by women in the labor camps. For Ukrainian inmates embroidery became one of the ways to pass the time and leave something behind, often embroideries were addressed to their children and had religious themes like asking the guardian angel to look after their family. Embroideries were also used as gifts between prisoned women. But they had to be resourceful and inventive due to the lack of materials: old fabrics, pieces of prison clothes, even the insides of cables were used as threads, needles were made from fish bones, matches and pins.

Translation of the embroidered writings:

1) "My heart yearns for freedom"

2) "Oh Mother of God, free us from the prison"

3) "Guardian angel, I beg of you, guard my daughter Myrosia. Prison memory, 1949"

4) "Oh Mary, Mother of God, full of mercy, take my family under your mighty protection"

5) "Save Nusia from this prison! To keep the memory, from Olha'

moon shinin’ on the river come along, my liza breeze singin’ through the treetops come along, my liza

The Vibrant Life of Harlem in the Summer of 1970