The uniqueness of the solo exhibition, is that Regina Averbukh is a poet as well. Just like her artworks, her poems are about the nature, about love, about what we see, and what makes us happy. Usually the presentation runs in such a fashion that, first people gather, look on pictures, stroll around, welcome each other, then the presenters start to share their biography, to present their works. Regina did it all, but mostly she did it in poetry.
Another thing, which make this presentation unique, is that it was Regina’s Jubelee. One of her poems ends with line “but the spirit – remains young, neither time nor age has a power on it”
Then she read a poem in Russian, which translates in English word to word like this:
“Here I resign from any apathy,
I want see – how world is fine,
I heal my spirit with a beauty.
Here I create, and I express myself.”
I believe this is a point of what all her works:
Another can be roughly translated as
“Here I brought my works,
I am worryingly waiting for your judgement.
My works makes my days fine,
And making them I join handworks, fantasy, and my artistic soul
And it’s your time to judge…”
Meanwhile Regina explained her techniques of making so artistic so living and spirited collages.
She collages from seashells, from tree branches, from everyday stuff like potato, cloth, unneeded kitchen stuff. Like many guild members, she does it without any education in arts. In order to do it, it’s just enough to see the world, to understand the nature, and be human.
Other guild member congratulated Regina both in prose and in poetry. Another uniqueness of this event, is that it was organized jointly with Odessa Community of New York, so here we’ve met their creative members and leaders, like Igor Kazatsker, Leonid Nor, and Natalia Neyzhmakova. Regina is native to Odessa Ukraine, where she lived before immigration.
The pearl of this presentation was a performance a virtuoso accordionist Roman Katz, who came as a surprise – since Odessa community members found that Regina loves accordion music. Roman played both Odessan songs, and international music. Regina, danced along with this lovely music along with other guild members. The atmosphere, I’d say made us pretend that we ran into Odessa, for a short while. But I would not say, geographically to Odessa, Ukraine of nowadays, I’d say spiritually to Odessa which we just left in yearly 1990ies. I mean the people, I mean Jewish immigrants, which are both from Odessa and other cities, all of them are intelligent. If they cannot create something creative, they come and listen to Guild’s presentations with pleasure. They walk around and watch pictures – and namely this keeps artist’s spirit living and awake.