Potters Spin Not Brightly But With Talent

The village of Bubnivka in Vinnytsia oblast is one of Ukraine’s oldest and most reputed pottery venues. Here the craft dates from the sixteenth century and reached its apex in the 1920s-1930s, begetting the brothers Yukhym and Yakiv Herasymenko whose works are known far beyond Ukraine. Their house-museum — so far Ukraine’s only folk potter’s memorial — is in the neighboring village of Novoselivka. Its collection boasts the best creations of the brothers and their pupils and followers. Recently Bubnivka hosted a second Ukrainian folk pottery workshop seminar. In seven days 22 potters from Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherkasy, Volyn, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, as well as from the Crimea produced 425 works: vases, plates, jugs, candelabrums, etc., meant for artistic exhibition and as practical household appliances. Mykhailo Vdovtsov, head of Bubnivka Ceramics art-and-production association, told The Day’s Nina Hnatiuk that another museum was organized to feature modern ceramic pieces, based on seminar participants’ works. A third workshop seminar is scheduled for the year 2000.