Rusyn creativity

Remember when I wrote about how my great Grandma and Grandma loved to embroider? How my mom used to sew and my auntie make the best-looking pies and cakes and desserts? Well, I am convinced that we Rusyn women are drawn to creating something just as well as other wonderful women around the world. We want to express what's inside. Well, here comes my thing. Drawing. I'm not a professional, far from it, and I do not spend as much time doing it as I'd want to, but I've been dabbing in making portraits of the people I know in order to catch their essence. I've only made several portraits, and this is the first one I've made of my Grandma on her wedding day, looking at an old, full-length photograph of her in her wedding dress, with a bouquet, standing in a photo studio near some props - the only surviving photo from her wedding, to be sure. When my son saw this portrait, he asked whether this was some queen. Funny he should have worded it like that because my Grandma truly had that royal aura around here when she walked, and talked to people, this grace that you don't usually associate with life in villages where people worked hard from the moment they could contribute to the household, and where they bend under the weight of years. My Grandma worked hard all her life, at home and at her job, she never stopped moving around. I want to reflect that in my life, too. That ceaseless energy, that meaningful work for others.