Timo Teittinen, Veistoksia talon ympärillä/Sculptures around the house

this picture and the next four (2018)

courtesy of Kimmo Heikkillä

Kuosmala is a small community in the Southern Savonia region in Eastern Finland.

Life and works

It is also the place where Timo Teittinen, born in August 1964, is so active in the production of wooden sculptures, that it can be said there is an art environment in development. 

Creating wooden sculptures with the help of a chainsaw for Teittinen is an adventure that he has started only relatively recently.

Initially he worked as a farmer, especially in the livestock sector, but at a certain point this business was only profitable with further expansion of the livestock, a development Teittinen did not opt for. 

So probably around 2015 he chose another professional activity, which he found in timber construction. among other things the construction of log cabins.

On You Tube one can find a video from early 2016 that shows Teittinen active in building such as log cabin, with a lifting device, a chainsaw, a ruler, a spirit level and a hammer as the only tools.

Around the same time he also began making wooden sculptures with a chainsaw. It has been reported that especially in winter 2016/2017 he worked with a big commitment.

 

In Finland people love to decorate the garden or driveway of their house with a wooden bear and Teittinen obviously creates bears (also on order), but the remarkable thing about his creativity is that he also depicts other ("non-commercial") characters in wood. These creations have a specific expressiveness, which testifies to an expert signature, sometimes with references to old sagas and legends.

Although Teittinen is only relatively briefly active as a self-taught artist, he has already produced a relatively extensive collection, which is displayed near his house, an art environment in an early phase.

this picture (2017) from newspaper Länsi-Savo

Teittinen now already participates in an exhibition, an overview of ITE art in Southern Savonia, which can be seen in the Finnish Forest Museum in Lustå in Punkaharju (April 27, 2018 - January 6, 2019)

Documentation
* Article (July 2017) in regional newspaper Lansi-Savo
* Article (August 2018) by Minna Tuuva and Kimmo Heikkilä on ITE Kartoitukset weblog
 (This article also appears in the book ITE Samaalla, a report of the Rural Education Association about its research of outsider art (ITE art) in the Southern Savonian region, published december 1st, 2018) 

Video
* Video (2'10", August 2018, You Tube) by Maaseudun Sivistysliito (series of photos by Kimmo Heikkilä)

 

Timo Teittinen

Sculptures around the house

Penttiläntie 36

51780 Kuosmala, Southern Savonia region, Eastern Finland

visitors welcome

Vladimir Buyvol, Скульптури навколо будинку/Sculptures around the house

pictures from journal Na Pensii

In Ukraine Oleksandrivka is a popular name for populated places. Some 100 communities are named this way. The following article is about an art environment in the small community of Oleksandrivka (some 5000 inhabitants), located nearby the Black Sea, just south of Odessa (a large city with over a million inhabitants).

Life and works

Vladimir Pavlovich Buyvol was born in 1929 or 1930 in Odessa. He would live there his entire working life.

Already at primary school his talent for drawing was evident and he got the advise to take an art course. So in 1946 he enrolled in the Odessa Art School, where he probably got a training in decorative and applied art, in any case not a training in visual arts, because it has been reported that he could only realize his wish to be a sculptor and make sculptures after his retirement.

The job Vladimir Buyvol got after the Art School also indicates a training in applied arts, because he went to work at an organization in Odessa that took care of the maintenance of large public buildings in the city. In particular, Buyvol participated in the restoration of  buildings such as the Odessa Opera House, the Philharmonic Society and the train station, probably especially with regard to the decorative elements in these buildings.

He worked for 53 years at this (in the soviet time public) organization. After he retired in the early years of the 21st century, he moved to an old house in Oleksandrivka he had to renovate. 

Buyvol's always dormant desire to make sculptures got a big boost when during a walk with his grandchildren, he saw a swan carrying a weakened newly born youngster on her back. The grandchildren asked grandfather to depict that scene in a sculpture.

What Buyvol did indeed, as can be seen in the first picture where a swan sits on a balustrade with a little one on the back, followed by three other youngsters. 

Some ten years later, in 2014, at the time a regional newspaper interviewed Buyvol, the surroundings of his house were full of sculptures. Working with concrete  Buyvol had created a a large number of sculptures mainly in a classical style, which depict goddesses, mythical heroes and other classical characters, standing on water bassins or pedestals, or resting on balustrades.

At the time of the interview, Buyvol was in his mid eighties and he already had reduced the amount and pace of his sculpting. Moreover there wasn't much more room available around the house for new sculptures. so Buyvol now also had begun creating sculptures on order..

Currently there is no information on the internet about further developments of this art environment. 

Documentation

* Article (2014) in regional newspaper Na Pensii

Vladimir Pavlovich Buyvol 
Sculptures around the house
Oleksandrivka, Odessa region, Ukraine
actual situation not known, 
but if site still exists it can be seen from the street

Manuel Palomares Félix, Villa Pechina

pictures are screen prints from the video by Serflac, 

published here in agreement with the author

Tavernes de la Valldigna is a community of some 17000 inhabitants located along the Spanish Mediterranean coast, about 55 kilometers south of the regional capital Valencia. When editing this post about Villa Pechina in November 2017, the region was hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall, which is a curious coincidence with the fate that hit this art environment in 1996,

Life and works

Manuel Palomares (1924-2004), born in a modest family in Tavernes de la Valldigna, wouldn't enjoy much education because of the the Spanish civil war in the 1930's.

After World War II, in 1950 he moved to France to work there until in 1960 he returned to his birth town. Here he found a job in construction and he married in 1961. The couple would get three children.
,

In 1974, at age fifty, Palomares got a traffic accident. He was declared incapacitated for work and received an invalidity allowance.

Owning an inherited piece of land, he decided to use the free time he now had, to construct a building on this site, initially intended as storage for the garden tools.

But then he took a completely different direction. Although before he had no connection with creative activities at all, Palomares got the idea to decorate the construction with shells.

It would become a lifetime project

The house got a steel infrastructure and was bricked up with elements of reinforced concrete. Both the outer and the inner walls were covered with bivalve shells, which Palomares collected on the local beach, selecting especially the small and round ones named pechina shells. Palomares preferred to use white shells to decorate the larger parts of his art environment and maybe that's why he was nicknamed Pepe Blanco.

An outer staircase decorated with shells, flanked above and below by a couple of decorated columns, led to a rooftop that had been transformed into a terrace with various departments, each with its own capacity.

These structural parts were supplemented with a variety of shell-decorated elements standing on their own, such as a roof table sheltered with an umbrella, all kinds of lamps, flower pots, benches, a large freestanding sun dial and also a dog house with a saddle roof.

In the early 1990's Villa Pechina had become a beautiful, harmonious site, but then Palomares became ill and could not properly maintain his creation.

In September 1996, the region was hit by heavy rainfall and strong winds, which caused a catastrophe with a widespread deal of devastation. Villa Pechina was also destroyed. The site was left for what it had become after the storm, a situation that continues until the current decade

Manuel Palomares passed away in 2004.

Documentation
* Francisco Javier Pérez Rojas, “Villa Pechina en Tavernes de Valldigna (Valencia)”, in Juan Antonio Ramirez (Ed) , Escultecturas margivangentes. La arquitectura fantástica en España. (pp. 308‐318). Madrid (Siruela), 2006 (on Google books a small passage)
* The site got a scholarly review in: Jo Farb Hernández, Singular Spaces. From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments, Seattle, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-615-78565-3). A shortened version of this review is available on SPACES website
Video
* Video by Serflac (1'23", feb 2016, You Tube)

Manuel Palomares Félix

Villa Pechina

Tavernas de Valldigna

site in decay, exact location unknown

Pjotr Muzalev, Интерьер украшен резьбой по дереву/Interior decorated with woodcarvings

pictures are screen prints from 
the video included in the documentation

Stavropol is an industrial town  in the south of Russia, in the midst of the northern Caucasus mountain range. One of its around 350.000 inhabitants has transformed the interior of his house into an art environment by decorating it with a large variety of wood carving and wooden sculptures.

Pjotr Muzalev at work (2014)

Life and works

Pjotr Grigorievich Muzalev was born in Rostov, a port city in the south of Russia on the river Don, not far from where this river flows into the Sea of Azov.

Already at a very young age Muzalev showed a great talent in the field of drawing, but instead of going to an art academy, he got a technical education in the construction industry.

Muzalev would become the head of the department of technical aesthetics at the power generation plant in Stavropol (Stavropolskaya GRES), a job that included overviewing the work of professional artists and also required artistic competence because of the design of images of the production process in advertising, coins and souvenirs for visiting delegations.

In the years that Russia was still the USSR, Muzalev made wooden bas-reliefs of Lenin for the district committee of the Communist party, as he also decorated the interior of the company's management buildings with wood carvings.

In the 1990's Muzalev and his wife moved to another house with seven (in general small) rooms. So many empty rooms meant just as many challenges to provide these rooms with wood carvings and other wooden creations.

Muzalev went to work, adding all kinds of woodwork to the interior, giving every room a specific character. Once retired, he could spend even more time decorating the house.

Currently the interior is fully decorated with woodwork. One can see mirrors in carved frames, chandeliers and clocks in old style. Heads of animals, encased in carved frame, are attached to the walls, monkeys make grimaces, an animal (a dog?) as pictured below rests on a pedestal..... 

It seems that no place in the house has remained without decoration.

The location of Muzalev's house is unknown, but it has been reported that from the outside nothing indicates that its interior has been decorated so exuberantly. This may have contributed to the fact that this art environment has remained virtually unknown. It only had some publicity, just an article (2011) in a regional newspaper and a video (2014) on You Tube.

Documentation
* Article (October 2011) in local newspaper Krestianin
Video
*Video by Stavropole TV (2014, You Tube, 3'08")

Pjotr Grigorievich Muzalev

Interior decorated with woodcarvings

Stavropol, Stavropol region, Russia

location unknown

Tenth anniversary of this blog

 

Bonjour aux promeneurs, Hello walkers

picture of a sculpture by Fernand Châtelain

courtesy of Marcello 13 (Flickr)

Today, November 11, 2018, this blog exists for ten years and it meanwhile includes an inventory of over 450 art environments in a variety of countries in Europe.

As in previous years I will relate here some data (as of november 10) about numbers/origin of visitors and about most viewed art environments.

Number of visitors

On november 10, 2017 the all time number of visitors was 697.157. On november 10, 2018 it was 755.533 an increase of 58376, or on the average 160 visitors a day. Over the period 2016-2017 the average was 312

All time page views by country

As in previous years here is the all time rank of top ten countries as regards page-views:

   1. United States 259.539 (rank 2017 idem)
   2. Netherlands 75.870 (rank 2017 idem)
   3. France  68.414 (rank 2017 idem)
   4. Germany 54.874 (rank 2017 idem)
   5. United Kingdom 48.974  (rank 2017 idem)
   6. Russia 23.201 (rank 2017 was 7)
   7. Ukraine 21,718 (rank 2017 was 6)
   8. Italy 18.437 (rank 2017 was 9)
   9. Spain 14.780 (rank 2017 was 8 )
 10. Poland 6.391 (rank 2017 idem)

The top ten list includes the same countries as in 2017, almost in the same order. Once more the interest from Russia and Eastern Europe is lasting.

Most viewed sites all time

These are the sites with the most all time views (as on november 9):

    1. Bill and Elisabeth Charge, UK Shell garden 6192
    2. Robert Garcet, Belgium Tour Eben-Ezer 5300
    3. Jose Maria Garrido, Spain Shell decorated interior 4800

    4. Joseph Ferdinand Cheval, France Palais Idéal 4489
    5. Robert Tatin, France Singular architecture 4440
    6. Bodan Litnianski, France Decorated garden 4128
    7. Abbé Fouré, France Sculpted rocks 3487

    8. Chomo, France Préludian art 3877

    9. Francisco Grajera, Spain Decorated house 3594

  10. Joseph Pujiula i Vila, Spain Labyrinth 3447

The first place for Bill and Elisabeth Charge has to do with a one time event. End October 2016 the husband of a granddaughter of Bill and Elisabeth posted a message on the Watford Memories and History page on Facebook, asking -with a link to the relevant post in this blog- if anyone remembered the decorated garden. Thousands of people did remember the site and this resulted in over 5000 hits of the post in a few days time, which meanwhile has grown to over 6000.

For the rest, the top ten includes the same set of names as in previous yeas, with Robert Garcet from Belgium. Facteur Cheval, Robert Tatin, Bodan Litnianski, Abbé Fouré and Chomo from France and José  Maria Garrido, Francisco Grajera and Joseph Pujiula from Spain ¹.

On 11 - 14  the same artists as in 2017 appear: Erich Bödeker (Sculpture garden, 3366) from Germany,  Karl Junker (Decorated interior, 3359) also from Germany. Willem van Genk (Arnhem bus station, 3151) from the Netherlands and Jean-Daniel Allanche (Decorated interior, 3074) from France.

Julius Klingebiel (Decorated hospital room, 3050) from Germany is now on 15, Stephen Wright  (House of dreams, 3119, England) is on 16 and Raymond Isidore, also known as Picassiette (Mosaic Picassiette, 2958, France) on 17.

The other most viewed posts in 2017 include Robert Vasseur (Mosaic decorated house, garden, 2937,France) on 18, José García Martin (Sculpture garden, 2933, Spain) on 19 and Viktor IV (=Walter Karl Glück) (Floating structures, 2763, Netherlands) on 20.

Eastern Europe and Russia

The past three to four years I have focused my attention on searching art environments in Eastern Europe and Russia west of the Urals. which until november 2018 delivered some 65 sites, including some 35 located in Russia.

These are the sites with all time views above 1400 (as on november 9):
   
Eastern Europe
   Bogdan Ziętek, Interior with sculptures, Poland, 2320 
   Václav Levý, Sculpted rocks, Czech Republic, 2250
   František Rint, Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic, 2247
   Stanislav Sartsevich, Sculpture garden, Ukraine, 2109
   Nicolas Golovan, Decorated house, Ukraine, 2049
   Boguslawa Iwaneskiego, Sculpture garden, Poland, 1655
   Felicja Curylova, Decorated house, Poland, 1639

Russia
   Alexander Emelyanov, Architectures, sculptures, 2125
   Alexander Ladogina, Singular architecture, 2002
   Pjotr Zhurilenko, Sculpture garden, 1653
   Sergey Kirillov, Decorated house, 1651
   Yevgeny Malakhin (=Bukashkin), Frescoe decorated walls,  1512

Creating art environments is not kind of a competition of course, so above listings are just meant to give an idea of the focus of the visitors who visit this blog.

Pages

This weblog includes a number of pages (a general introduction, a time line, referrals to books, expositions and museums). In 2017 the all time most viewed pages were the index of sites by region/countries (in 2017 some 10900 views) and the index of sites by name of artist (in 2017 some 5500). Recently I have revised these two indexes, creating new pages and deleting the former ones, so the data of all time visitors got lost.  But it is obvious these pages are used a lot.

note
¹ In 2017 I added the number of visitors to posts about books, expos and other happenings with regard to Cheval and Fouré to the number of visitors of the main post about life and work of these artists. This year I only counted the number of visitors to the main post, which has affected the current order, but not the entry in the top ten. Info about books etc now is published on the Facebook page Outsider Art Environments Europe 

Egor Zolotarev, Мозаичный дом/Mosaic House

all photos courtesy of Natalya Zolotareva

France may have the Maison Picassiette, a house in Chartres fully decorated with colorful mosaics, recently, a similar structure in terms of mosaic decorations has been completed in Russia, although this structure is completely different in shape and has been produced with contemporary materials.

Life and works

The mosaic house has been created by Egor Zolotarev, who was born June 1, 1986 in Novosibirsk, a large industrial town in the south of Siberian Russia. After his primary education he went to the Novosibirsk Art School.

After Zolotarev had graduated in Novosibirsk, he moved west and enrolled at the Moscow Institute of Architecture, where he also graduated, probably in 2008.

In 2011 on a plot of land south east of Moscow in the Voskresensky district that administratively is part of Moscow, with his own hands he began constructing a house, that in the course of the years would become known as the Mosaic house.

In October 2017 the construction work could be considered completed

The house, which has a ground floor and an upper floor, has a semi-oval shape, with an exterior plastered with concrete, that rests on a wooden frame reinforced with iron arches.

The pieces of mosaic that cover the entire exterior consist of tiles of artificial stone based on granite, all covered with polymers. This way of processing has the advantage that the mosaics become durable and frost- and water-resistant.

Three similar large round windows, slightly protruding from the wall, mark a long side, while the other long side has the entrance door and two circular windows. The short wall on one side  has a window on the first floor with an outward-reaching balcony.

The windows are decorated with curved strands of wire iron in flowing forms. These wire-iron shapes can also be seen in furniture in the interior, such as side tables.

The interior as such also has other eye-catching details such as the staircase to the first floor which does not have a handrail and for the rest is formed by a slightly winding upright of sturdy wire iron, to which cup-shaped steps are attached.

There are also beautiful lamps, with hoods in a stained glass structure with translucent colored glasses encased in compartments within a structure of iron wire

The chimney on top of the house depicts an angel.

All in all, it can be concluded that this is a beautiful creation of a young Russian artist and architect. It's a singular architecture that also shows the performance of the youngest generation in the Russian field of art environments.

Documentation
* Article (October 2017) in Golos (a Russian social medium) entitled Знакомьтесь - русский Антонио Гауди! (Meet the Russian Antonio Gaudi!)\
* A series of pictures on the VK website show various phases of the building proces and details of individual parts of the house. Other pages, here and here, show details of the mosaic decorations.

Videos
* Video on Marat Nabi s timeline in Facebook (October 2018)

* A video on You Tube (2016)  in two parts shows the building proces. Here is the first part (11'42")

and here is the second part (10'57")

Egor Zolotarev
Mosaic house
Voskresensky district,  Moscow region
accurate location not available

Zenon Kosater, Ogród rzeźby/ Sculpture garden

pictures courtesy of Zenon Kosater

In the small community of Trzepowo (part of the municipality of Przywidz) in the Pomeranian area in the north of Poland, there is a garden with a variety of multicolored wooden sculptures made by self taught sculptor Zenon Kosater.

Life and works

Kosater was born in september 1955. When in 1978 he was in the second year of his conscription in military service, he felt a bit bored, so with a friend he set up a project to practice manual skills such as building small wooden constructions and other creative activities.

Kosater himself focused on woodcarving, creating his first bas reliefs.

These first steps in the field of woodworking would shape his further life. Gradually he began to make larger pieces, also with parts of a tree as material, initially at times as a birthday presents or for family celebrations, but eventually it became his full time occupation.

Currently Kosater is in his mid 60 s. He lives in Trzepowo and the garden around his house has a display of a variety of his life-size sculptures,  that are mostly painted in a multicolored way and often portray saints or other religious characters. 

But he also portrays non-religious characters such as Pegasus the winged horse, a mermaid and a rider on a horse, apart from the many smaller sculptures and reliefs he also produces.

Kosater has sold a variety of sculptures to tourists and other visitors. He also shares his artwork with young people, because he wants to stimulate them to become interested in art. 

From that perspective, Kosater also enjoys receiving school classes and other interested visitors at his site. Occasionally he will teach small groups sculpting.

Documentation

* Article by Arkadiusz Gancarz (dec 2004) on Naszemiasto website
* A series of pictures by Piotrek on polish photo-website Flog

* Mention of Kosater's work in website Zmysly Kasub about Kashubian folk art
* Referral to the site in a regional touristic folder

Zenon Kosater
Sculpture garden
Trzepowo 16 
83-047 Przywidz
visitors welcome