CHAPTER 7
CELEBRATION OF LIFE
A GIFT MADE WITH HIS OWN HANDS
We rarely celebrated any official holidays – New Year, Christmas, Easter, and birthdays. I sit all the time with my sketchbook and work, Fomin explained to a journalist. But sometimes there are celebrations in my life. He received an invitation to such a celebration from Florida – one of the most desirable locations in the United States of America.
This happened in connection with one man show in January-February 2006 at the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens, listed in the National Registry of Cultural and Historic Places in the USA. A Czech by nationality, an artist and sculptor, Albin Polasek bequeathed his land, his house, and its contents to the city of Winter Park, when Fomin was just two years old. The exhibition was to be held in a room called the Hall of Florida Artists. The majority of the sculptures in the beautiful garden on the lake shore were arranged by Polasek during his life. Among the sculptures was the pagan god, Sviatovid, who was worshipped by the ancient Slavs. The presence of this pagan deity in a place so far untouched by a Russian foot did not bother anyone. The Americans understood that the arrival of the “rising star on the artistic horizon of Russia” (as the press beyond the ocean wrote) can be turned into pretty good fireworks.
In accordance with Russian character, out of the two paths to this paradise, we chose the longest.
THE DISTANT AMERICA
You understand what chance you were given, I said, paging through an old Soviet encyclopedia. The population of Florida is larger than that of Finland and Norway taken together. You conquered Scandinavia and now it is America’s turn.
I read everything I could find about Florida: about Cape Canaveral, the Kennedy Space Center, the huge Everglades Marsh, the entertainment parks, the Gulf of Mexico… Armed with this knowledge, I asked at work for a permit to go to the American Consulate, a necessary step to get a visa. I was categorically refused the permit and a leave of absence (vacation). Then, I went directly to the Government of Karelia and fifteen minutes before a meeting of all the head officials I described to the meeting’s chairman what kind of an international scandal would await us all if I, as the author of the monographs about Fomin’s paintings, don’t get a permit to travel to America to give a talk at the museum. So, the first fifteen minutes of the meeting were devoted to the solving of an international problem. Before I made it back to my office, the permit was waiting on my desk.
During a conversation in the US Consulate in St. Petersburg, the red-faced and angry consul standing in front of me almost tore my visa into pieces. I tried to convince him that Disneyland is in Florida and that we were planning to celebrate my husband’s birthday there. He categorically insisted that Disneyland is in California and that Walt Disney World is in Florida. We would have argued much longer, but I promised to visit California for sure and somehow the consul immediately calmed down.
Fomin had no problems. The consul opened his web site, turned the screen in my husband’s direction and said that he knew his art very well from the exhibitions at the consulate in Moscow. He complimented Fomin’s works, but refused to accept postcards featuring Fomin’s pictures on the front. When we discovered that every other visitor that day did not get a visa, we realized how lucky we were.
There were three of us going to America: I, my husband, and a man who considered himself our sponsor, Mikhail Skripkin. (We decided to take him also as a translator for the opening of the exhibition, but at the opening we lost him from our sight). Mikhail’s friend took us in her car to Finland, to Parikkala. There, we celebrated Matti Vehviläinen’s birthday for two days. Then, the four of us set out by car to Helsinki. We stopped on our way at the famous Fazer’s Café, where we met the Trade Representative of Russia in Finland, V. Shliamin. He got very scared, when, affected by the sickly-sweet chocolate aromas, Fomin lost consciousness. What’s good for a Finn is lethal for a Russian. With curses and vodka I brought him back to life, and persuaded everyone not to call an ambulance. No one knew that three days before our departure Fomin had literally been unable to get up from his bed, even to deal with personal needs. I brought him to his feet with injections, pills, and ointments, but from time to time I practically had to carry him and all our things on my shoulders, more precisely, on my high heels, which I exchanged for sneakers only in the United States.
We rested for two hours in the airport hotel and, after saying good-bye to our driver, flew to London, where we were supposed to change planes for Washington. The strong turbulence during our flight could not dampen our feelings, since according to Russian time the Russian Christmas was starting in the English sky. While we continued to celebrate it at the Heathrow airport, I was desperately trying to find on Skripkin a red button with the word “safety” or something like that. To all my anxious inquiries Misha answered, We’re OK.
When we were told that our plane had left without us, Misha somehow turned on that damn button. He checked all the carriers at the airport and convinced one of them that the plane had taken off prematurely and that it wasn’t our fault. We were given tickets for another flight to Washington. As soon as we prepared to celebrate Christmas in Washington according to American time, the button stopped working again. We were late for our flight to Orlando. If I were Boguslawski, who was supposed to meet us at the airport in Orlando, I would have probably become a master of meditation, counting airplanes in the sky.
Thanks to Misha, I understood how invaluable it is to feel as if you were in a desperate and, more precisely, “idiotic” situation… for a day. The closest flight was in 24 hours and it went almost around the world with changes of planes in two cities before landing finally in Orlando. Before that, however, we were taken in a free limo to Kings Lodge (it fully corresponded to its name). We spent a wonderful evening around a decorated Christmas tree and because our supplies had run out, we were very happy to discover a bottle of champagne, a holiday gift given to the guests. In the morning, we decided to have a good time in Washington. We hired a cab and drove around all the sightseeing destinations of the capital. From the Capitol building we walked to the Washington Monument, dropping in to all of the museums. In the National Gallery, which for some reason included Fomin among the subscribers of its Internet news, I took his picture next to the best portrait of Napoleon. He posed for me in front of Van Gogh and Gauguin. We visited the Andy Warhol Museum and across the street bought baseball caps with the inscription Washington. We walked around the White House grounds supervised by an elegant police woman. After being late for two flights, we promptly boarded the third and, after a week of traveling, we made it to Orlando.
THE HOUSE UNDER ORANGE TREES
When we arrived at the house of Boguslawski and his wife, Kay Davidson-Bond, we learned that the pictures sent by Matti Vehviläinen were already hanging in the museum. The exhibition was to open the next day. There was a misunderstanding caused by correspondence with the museum and with Matti – I promised our Finnish friend that the museum would partially cover the costs of the paintings’ transfer from Finland. For some reason this did not happen and Matti decided it was not worth it to get involved in unraveling the red tape.
We quickly got used to our separate rooms and private facilities and discovered a garden with oranges and grapefruits. They were falling on the ground and nobody but us was picking them up. The habits of our hosts, who tried not to bother us (we cannot say the same about us) astonished us by their inherent refinement. Kay, like a true English lady, which was also apparent from the gifts she gave me, every morning went to the garden and, having her cup of coffee, listened to the singing of the birds in paradise.
By the way, almost every house in the neighborhood, except the Boguslawskis, featured a large American flag and doors which were never locked. It was one of the prestigious parts of the city, not affected by break-ins and thefts. In Maitland, where our benefactor lived, the signs restricted the cars’ speed to 25 miles per hour. The peace of the citizens depended on their wealth. One day, we decided to walk to the closest store with bags in our hands, but Boguslawski immediately decided to drive us there lest we be spotted by the police. The guardians of order there might have seen for the first time two “bums” walking with bags.
In the house of our hosts lived a dog and a cat who had trouble moving from old age and various diseases. The cat, Mickey, occasionally would miss the counter when he tried to jump on it to have his breakfast. At the same time, he was famous for being the terror of the squirrels so abundant in the neighborhood. Apparently, they must have been as lazy as the garden snake somehow perched on Boguslawski’s fence. One day, Misha asked Alexander why his cat was walking on the table on which people eat. He received a gentleman’s answer: Try to negotiate with him… Lucky, as the dog was called, understood everything better than any human and was eager to be good. It was the last year of her life, and Mickey’s too.
Having developed the habit of walking at night, holding hands and looking at myriads of stars in the sky, we became acquainted with all the well-fed domestic animals in the neighborhood who wanted to be petted. Welcoming us, the dogs and cats came out to the street from houses nearby.
Sasha and Kay have the most unpresentable pets; others would have put them in a shelter, but they take such good care of their nurslings, I said. Yes, Volodia agreed and quickly added, but if Boguslawski were a different man, he wouldn’t have found me, we wouldn’t have been living in his house, and we wouldn’t be having an exhibition here.
For Fomin, Boguslawski was the same as Thorvaldsen was for Hans Christian Andersen. One day, after becoming famous in Rome, the great architect told the writer that their meeting was “a gulp of divine support, without which it would be impossible to survive.”
A HERALD OF RUSSIAN CULTURE
Rollins College in Winter Park, where our modest professor taught, turned out to be a true College town, larger in size than the center of Petrozavodsk and its closest environs. Its grounds, studded with numerous beautiful edifices in the Spanish architectural style, including administrative buildings, classrooms, a stadium, a large museum, and a chapel with a tall bell tower, were surrounded by verdure. In the chapel, I prayed for the second show of Fomin’s works in Florida, even though the first one had not opened yet. The words etched at the entrance to the chapel – Fiat Lux – filled my soul with assurance that it would happen. Rollins College is situated on the shore of the Lake Virginia, where from time to time one could see alligators, rowing students, and boats sailing by prestigious villas. Since there were warnings about snakes in the grass, I looked with gratitude, but from a distance at the walls of the institution within which the name of the artist Fomin had resounded since 1999.
According to Boguslawski, a narrow circle of Florida elite in education, culture, art, and business was invited to the first opening, on the 10th of January. These 400 people received gold name plates upon entering because they were either well-known cultural activists and gallery owners or business people financially supporting cultural affairs, museum sponsors, and leaders in education. The others, lesser contributors, were given blue name plates.
On the patio of the museum overlooking the lake shore, among the sculptures, an exquisite banquet was organized, with drinks and exotic dishes, which allowed the visitors to avoid long lines to view the paintings. After tasting the wine, Fomin and I found shelter in a shady alley, where we had a remarkable encounter. The first person who appeared in front of us, fortunately with an interpreter, was Robert Raddock, one of the directors of the Walt Disney Company, the president of the Florida Arts Association, and a member of the organization which patronized cultural projects and included among its members President Bush’s wife, Laura. How Fomin got invited to celebrate his birthday in Disney Parks remains a mystery, but on the 14th of January Robert greeted us at the entrance to Epcot under the message of its founder to the world: “To all who come to this place of joy, hope and friendship, welcome.”
In the years of the parks’ existence, Raddock had personally brought almost two hundred groups from various countries of the world to work in the park and told me very seriously that I qualify in all respects to be his potential employee. We were grateful to him for being given the opportunity to spend several days in the parks, where Americans go on family vacations for two or three weeks and spend four or five thousand dollars. Interestingly, the first thing we saw at Epcot (where stores and restaurants represent in miniature various countries of the world) was a film about France, done in impressionist style, without words, only with a musical score. Later, in 2008, we would walk around Paris like that, not saying anything, as if we were mute. I did not buy any souvenirs at Epcot except a t-shirt with Mona Lisa.
The opening on the 10th of January, following the program, was accompanied by Latin-American music, passionately performed by two guitarists, while at the banquet on the 12th of February, after our departure, the music professor Ayako Yonetani performed arrangements for violin of Dvorak’s and Paganini’s works.
When the opening on the 10th ended, I had a Russian-style argument with Skripkin at a gas station, where we stopped on our way home, for forcing us to deal without a translator with a huge number of people who wanted to meet us, have their pictures taken with the painter, or just have a talk. For example, we parted with an enchanting creature who used to drive the singer Sasha Rosenbaum around only after I let her know that all the singer’s songs were dedicated to me. A conversation with another woman confirmed the old adage that the world is small. She had seen Fomin’s works at an exhibition in Finland. The Financial Director of the Museum’s Board, business-woman Lanie Shower, presented us with two silver angels. We remembered the face of one businessman with a gold name plate, a well-known collector of icons, crosses, and other antiquities, a member of various prestigious professional organizations and councils. He wanted to tell us something. And he was not the only one. That’s how we met some of the most influential people in Central Florida.
On the morning of the 11th of January, Boguslawski asked for my help. After giving me an outline of his speech for the second opening of the show, which was supposed to feature a lengthy lecture about Fomin’s art and a press-conference, he asked, How would you quickly define the main idea of ‘Peer Gynt’? Is the ending of the story optimistic? Doesn’t it describe a life journey of every man who is struggling with fate?
I was more exact, A journey to oneself. Every man is searching for himself in this life.
But do you think that life destroyed Peer Gynt?
Responding to the ringing of the church bells, he feels and understands the wisdom of his mother.
So he finds salvation in his memories?
And he returns to Solweig because he returns to love. He finds what he has been looking for.
I think, the professor wrapped up our conversation, that the audience will like this conclusion most.
I suggested that to reveal the mythology of the Tales of the North series, it may be worth mentioning Tolkien, who wrote the epic about the Fellowship of the Ring and who drew ideas from Kalevala.
I had to interrupt Volodia who, in the garden, was painting a picture for Kay based on the motifs from Kandinskii’s works. I asked him what he wanted to say about the Mandalas series. I recorded his words and let Boguslawski listen to them.
Mandalas are coded formulas of transmission of information. Using geometric images, I render in my language my ideas about the world, which is born by linking of certain images. These images render philosophical ideas through geometric forms. For instance, a circle can be either God or earth, a square – a man, a triangle – an ascent to heaven, but also a cunning man.
Boguslawski warned us that at the lecture only ten percent of the public would be prepared and the rest would require explanations for how the Finno-Ugric ornaments and petroglyphs as old as Egyptian pyramids are related, who was Malevich, and how Fomin put Malevich’s symbolic meaning into his own Black Square in the Snow.
Fomin formulated a hypothesis about the connection between the Karelian petroglyphs and the drawings in the Egyptian tombs. He did it not only because from the world of the pyramids across the Mediterranean Sea one can get to Italy and Greece and from there, by foot, to Karelia. After all, the Moors from Africa left in today’s Spain traces of their culture, which became assimilated and European. If one gathered together the collections of all ancient objects kept in all museums of the world, there would be many things seemingly created according to the same formula of beauty or according to the laws of Mandala.
I summarized, Good for Fomin, if thanks to him today we will acquaint somebody with famous Russian artists, for instance, with Malevich.
In the evening, the museum hall could not accommodate all the visitors. And we understood one very important thing distinguishing Americans from the Russians. Even though we were told about it before, for some reason we did not consider it important until that day. The Americans wanted to know everything about the artist whose pictures they liked. They even wanted to know why they liked the pictures, why they should buy them, and how much they would be worth in a few years. They were interested in every detail and Boguslawski, patiently, moving from one canvas to another, explained every fragment of each composition. All the paintings were purchased long before the press-conference. And Volodia whispered in my ear, God blessed me to sell my paintings to those who want them.
The press conference lasted until late and nobody wanted to leave. When Fomin recalled his past jewelry training and mentioned that the students were forbidden to work with gold and silver, somebody in the audience joked, Gold for the tanks!
Everyone was astonished by Fomin’s painstaking technique, and the artist, to confirm the audience’s feelings, admitted that he loves order in everything that surrounds him, not only on his canvasses. In the last 10 years of work, the paint dripped on the floor only three times. It is absolutely spotless around me.
There were many questions about how, without knowing languages, Fomin absorbs foreign literature and paints whole series of pictures based on it, and how he manages to travel so extensively around the world.
Boguslawski had to translate my answer that thanks to translators (like Boguslawski himself), the entire world speaks one language. He was rewarded by a thunderous applause.
We returned to Alexander’s home late after midnight with a family friend, David Sutton, a professor at Valencia Community College, where Kay used to teach. David is a serious musician and we spoke about music until morning.
The next day, the Florida papers called Fomin the herald of high Russian culture who asserts the rights of intellectual and spiritual art. The papers Winter Park Observer and the Orlando Sentinel wrote that “the exhibition of his canvasses completely hypnotizes, astonishes with the use of precise, mosaic-like technique, harmonious color combinations and shapes, astounding compositions, clarity and the refinement of the imagery characteristic of his unique style, which is an artistic synthesis of the traditional and the popular currents in painting. It is a combination of several elements: Russian popular print – lubok – which is distinguished by bright and elegant composition, the traditions of the Russian avant-garde, the Northern ornaments and, in addition, colors and stylistic concepts of famous painters, such as Gauguin, Monet, Kandinskii, Malevich, Filonov, Dali, and many others. The conscious combination, development, and organization of all these elements lead to consistent and unique personal style.”
It should be mentioned that the Orlando Museum of Art at the time featured an exhibition of motorcycles, many manufactured by hand. The show was not very successful, in contrast to the “lively” paintings of Fomin.
FROM MINUS 30 TO PLUS 30 DEGREES
We ignored acclimatization. While in Russia it was freezing, on the 12th of January we were bathing in the Gulf of Mexico, and enjoying one of the best beaches in Clearwater. At Frenchy’s Café we ate the best west-coast grouper sandwiches, recommended by Krystyna Tomczak, director of a consulting firm who received us in her home in Tampa. Krystyna used to arrange meetings between high-level officials from many countries. She was simply curious about us.
On our way to Tampa, we stopped at the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg. After we met the museum workers, we left them a gift of a postcard with Fomin’s painting Gift to Salvador Dali, published by Scandinavia.
The museum’s collection was arranged chronologically, which made it possible to follow the stages in the development of the great mystificator’s art. Later, we were able to compare the collection to the collections of the museums in Barcelona, Cadaqués, and Figueres. The museum, constructed and filled with Dali’s works thanks to a generous donation of an American couple (one a Rollins College alumna) who had supported the painter financially, was located in a picturesque little bay where grand yachts anchored. The collection started with the works from 1917, which showed the influences of Cezanne, Vermeer, Ernst, and Chirico. Among the early works I discovered pure lubok. Beginning in 1926, Dali started working in his own style. When we reached the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, I looked for a long time at the Santa Maria – Columbus’ ship with the features of Dali; at the naked boys – symbols of purity of the idea, which brought them to life; at the crucified Christ; at the flies-crosses on the robes of the bishop; and at the flag in Columbus’ hands, on which Gala’s face could be recognized.
He’s discovering America for her. The work is beautiful and the idea even more beautiful, I said. I have always thought that everything should have meaning. This painting contained enormous meaning. And suddenly I asked, What are the measurements of this painting in meters?
Nobody, from the guards on duty to the public in the museum and later, the museum workers called to solve the problem, expected such a tricky question. As we learned, no one ever asked such paradoxical questions in the museum.
To calm me down, Boguslawski suggested from the top of his head, Perhaps three meters by four meters and a bit?
Just like our kitchen, I said. We could spread a reproduction of this size on our floor.
Then we moved on to other works.
I had to be dragged away from the room which displayed ten watercolors and thirty six illustrations to Cervantes’ Don Quixote of La Mancha, painted in 1946. I wanted to look and look. But we had to keep going. The entire way, Fomin tried to convince me that he would paint Don Quixote better.
We celebrated the Old Russian New Year and simultaneously Fomin’s birthday on two consecutive days – according to American and Russian time, starting on the night from the 13th to the 14th of January.
During a storm and heavy downpour, we found ourselves at the elegant home of Paul Licata and his wife Elena, where on an improvised stage a rock concert was staged. But first, Boguslawski played on guitar a medley of Russian melodies. Then Kay, on her knees, sang in Greek a heart-rending song about endangered Greece. It was in danger because of a woman who was the subject of the song. When the woman spoke, the world crumbled and the bombs kept falling. It was easy to understand that it was a song about great passion. At that moment, I fell in love with Kay, with all my heart.
While I was devouring the fondue, I could not take my eyes off one of my husband’s paintings hanging over the fireplace of this refined abode.
On the 14th of January we sent Skripkin home and the same day we were visited by the famous writer Sasha Sokolov and his wife, Marlene Royle, the trainer of many American rowing champions. In the museum they animatedly discussed which of the sportswomen or writers’ wives they knew I resembled not only physically, but also by character and behavior. In that half an hour of serving as a blank canvass, I learned so much about myself that I felt I might be no less interesting than the main object of celebrations. After the Disney parks, we were taken to the real palace, the Clubhouse at Lake Forest, leased for the night from the 14th to the 15th of January by Evgraf Andreyev (Nick to the Americans), a first-generation Russian immigrant to the U.S., Boguslawski’s friend, a great cook, and a formidable balalaika player. For his Russian ball he had flown in well-known tango dancers from Argentina. Accidentally, I went to their make-up room, where the dancers were getting ready for their performance and, despite their obvious astonishment, fixed my own make up. If I had known beforehand what they were going to do on stage, I would not have dared peek into the room without a bouquet of roses. After getting acquainted with a former Russian hockey player from the NHL who now made money by playing balalaika in a group, Fomin could not resist and deftly performed Brightly Shines the Moon on the man’s instrument.
The rest of the night we spent in Boguslawski’s kitchen and the next day with the Sokolovs. At that time, one of Moscow’s theatres was staging a play based on one of Sokolov’s novels. Even though we were sitting together at a small table, we understood the importance of the writer. Boguslawski mentioned that the most difficult of Sokolov’s novels, Between Dog and Wolf (which we read, too) took him more than ten years to translate into Polish. Fomin promised to paint a picture based on the novel for the next show in Florida and Sokolov suggested the title of the next exhibition – Florida Animals.
All the remaining days, together with Natasha Maynard, whom we met at the opening, we made sightseeing trips. She was a daredevil driver, apparently able to drive even against the traffic and holding her baby under her arm. We visited Bush Gardens and several parks operated by famous film companies. But the most spectacular visit was Sea World, where we saw the show with killer whales, dolphins, and manatees and where we were able to pet the free-swimming sharks and mantas.
THE YEAR OF THREE EXHIBITIONS
To the second exhibition at the Albin Polasek Museum in March 2008, Fomin traveled without me. Earlier, the Finns had become acquainted with the new series, Florida Animals. In December 2008, at the request of Matti Vehviläinen, Fomin opened his one man show during the celebrations of the Stemma Corporation in the Culture and Recreation Center in Sarkisalmi, where several works from the Kalevala series were permanently displayed.
In March, having chosen the route from Helsinki through Frankfurt am Main to Orlando, Fomin was almost late for his flight because the driver of the hired “taxi” did not have the necessary customs documents permitting him to travel through Finland. Hitchhiking to get to the airport, he miraculously made his flight. On the 3rd of March, late in the evening, he landed in Orlando, awaited by Boguslawski. The professor immediately informed the painter that the museum workers would be hanging the pictures this night, since the opening was announced in all the papers, but up until the 3rd the Orlando customs office did not release the paintings, which had arrived from Finland, to the museum. Finally, an important customs’ officer summoned from Boston, personally inspected the paintings, and approved them for release.
This sleepless night would be long-remembered not only by the museum workers but also by the florists who adorned each of the paintings with a flower sculpture inspired by its content.
Again, there were two openings: on the 12th of March, with a lecture and a press conference, and on the 14th of March, restricted to the sponsors and the friends of the museum wearing golden name plates. The banquet was no less refined. On the tables were dry wines from a dozen countries accompanied by the cheeses from the corresponding regions. Fomin immediately recalled Dali who used to say that Jesus liked red wine and cheese and ate a lot of it.
Every buyer of a painting for some reason wanted to have a photo taken with Fomin next to his work. One of the popular TV channels made a half-an-hour-long film about the series devoted to fauna and flora of Florida. The film was later streamed for a year over the Internet. The hero of the film was invited by the Museum’s director to celebrate the event in an Italian restaurant.
Alexander Migunov, known in literary circles as Victor Brook, and his wife, Elena, owner of a music and ballet school in Boca Raton, Florida, came to meet the artist. A few days later, Boguslawski took Fomin for a visit to the Sokolovs in Wellington. By that time, we had become good friends with the Sokolovs after spending a month together in the Ukrainian town of Koktebel in the summer of 2007. In Wellington, Sokolov took the painter for a ride in a scully on a lake inhabited by alligators, which was a horrifying secret kept from all the Sokolovs’ trainees.
Fomin remembers fishing and relaxing at Evgraf’s dacha in the Ocala forest. Drinking Polish vodka, the men sang Russian songs and grilled meat and fish on the open fire. They spent two days surrounded by nature, in exclusively male company. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the next day, on the 17th of March, during his departure from Orlando, Fomin forgot to register, did not pass through customs, gave his passport to the passport control officer who looked at him as if he were made of glass and did not stamp his passport. The crazy passenger was not allowed to board the plane. Everybody wondered for a long time how such a thing could happen in America.
The ticket was reissued for the flight departing the next day, and Fomin was put up in a hotel. The next day his plane, just minutes after the take-off, had to land unexpectedly. Someone on board had died. The plane was two hours late and in Frankfurt am Main the tickets had to be reissued for another flight to Helsinki. From the Helsinki airport, the exhausted Fomin called his friends, the Kuzmins, who arrived the same day from Italy. Equally tired, they provided the traveler with a place to stay and with food and drink. On his way to Petrozavodsk, Fomin spent a night with Vehviläinen and, finally, the prodigal son arrived home. And the exhibition in the USA continued for another month and a half.
At that time we traveled to Bangkok and Pattaya, where we celebrated the Thai New Year, visiting all the temples and bungie-jumping from the tallest tower in Asia. And we dreamed about Paris, where in September 2008 Fomin was going to participate in an exhibition in a prestigious gallery ART Présent. By the way, while Fomin was making sketches of the other “Parisian” paintings in the USA, one of the works had been already purchased through the gallery.
