"Northern Dvina" mask

The design is inspired by decorative and applied art of the Northern Dvina river. The plots are taken from Severodvinsk spinning wheels. The restrained graphic palette is taken from the Russian North, from Arkhangelsk Territory.

Every person there knows how to make the most of the sun and the short northern summer. They lovingly create these little sketches of life – people travelling in a carriage, woman waiting for a shepherd at her door, young lovers agreeing on a date while the girl’s father is coming up, three maidens singing a gentle song, a hunter waiting for a fox that has fallen into the habit of visiting the hen house. In winter, they drink tea from a samovar and go sledding. This is life, love and beauty, this is cranberries in sugar, this is "eternal cranberry fields".

The spinning wheel was one of the most sacred things in the whole house. The Spinner was the Goddess of Fate, she wove her threads into the very fabric of life. Weaving was part of the mystique, it possessed protective power, was equivalent to divine creation – sacred symbolism was laid into these patterns alongside with many beliefs and rituals. Some of them still remain in the language nowadays.