That’s the view of master stonemason Oleksa Alioshkin
Oleksa Alioshkin, who is known among Ukrainian stonemasons for his skill, cuts a peculiar figure in Bukatynka, a village in Chernivtsi district, Vinnytsia oblast, where he and his family moved from Kyiv. The man gave up urban amenities, good earnings, even recognition in the capital’s beau monde. Now he lives amidst museums of his own creation, wandering among stone statues, now and then risking trips down the caves he has dug on the premises. He says that visiting his underground caves cleanses him of inner filth and charges him with positive energy.
He is convinced that such positive energy can be created through art. He cites the shadow theater as an example, one that he organized at the village with help from the local youth. True, the local audience did not accept it. In the classroom where he teaches crafts the walls are covered with newspaper and magazine clippings, portraits of renowned Ukrainians, and masterpieces of world art, charts, and quotations.
“If a child is interested, he will ask who is portrayed there or what that chart is all about. Kids like that can be taught things, they are inspired by what they see; they accumulate knowledge without being pushed and then share it with others,” says Alioshkin. He came to the village to create sculptures, with no intentions of becoming a schoolteacher.
“Woodcarving, embroidery, and pottery are quite popular crafts, but there are very few stonemasonry works. And this is a whole stratum of our culture that has been practically destroyed. Stonemasonry has to do with grave monuments, crosses, and religious views. So, little if anything has survived. In Bukatynka you can find rare rock deposits that provide unique materials, as well as tradition. And so we hold open-air workshop seminars for beginners. Working with professional stonemasons in a quarry for a month or two can teach a student something he will never learn in five or six years spent in classrooms.”
Several works on his patio look extraordinary at first glance, as does the master of the house. Coils of rope, swings, seesaws, and horizontal bars — all this constitutes an open-air museum of Podillian energy. Its philosophy is simple. A man hanging off a cliff will fall and die, if any of the ropes snap, or if he cuts the rope linking him to the sky— in other words, to God. More pragmatic guests, who are often brought to his place by the district culture department, are eager to explore something new and unusual. They are fascinated by his realities museums: vytynanky , or cutouts, household utensils, pottery. There have been several burglary attempts, but the malefactors apparently found the items on display of no real value. These are mostly works of art done by children, things made and molded in keeping with modern traditions, rather than old ones. “The main thing is to instill spirit rather than form in children. They will seek out forms and will gradually discover them. But you cannot permit kitsch, imposing something that was topical when people lived in thatch-roofed houses. But if you succeed in conveying that spirit, modern art in all its manifestations will transmit our national genesis, so that the national will no longer look ridiculous and rustic, but modern and fashionable.”
