GIFT FAIR NOTES: Desperately seeking Ukrainian artisans (04/02/00)

GIFT FAIR NOTES: Desperately seeking Ukrainian artisans

by Irene Jarosewich

I belong to a peculiar club of people known as the "If Onlys." Our main requirement for membership is pretty basic: the ability to sigh followed by a lament that begins with the phrase "If only Ukraine would ..."

One of my personal favorite laments is: "If only Ukraine would market its talented artists and craftspeople and promote its creative heritage, then ..." (Then, I don't know what, exactly, but I suspect we'd all be a lot happier.) So, with the hope of finding something - anything - from Ukraine's artisans on display among thousands of exhibitors, I attended the New York International Gift Fair last summer.

Held twice a year at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, the gift fair of the largest trade show in the United States for the gift market. From all over the world, more than 2,600 exhibitors displayed the wares of thousands of artisans, craftspeople and designers.

Owners of small boutiques as well as buyers for large retail chains come to this show to find new items to carry in their stores. Beautiful, yet functional gifts such as hand-painted bowls from California and embroidered bed linens from Italy compete for every buyer's eye with luxurious indulgences such as Waterford crystal ornaments from Ireland and unique platinum and gold necklaces crafted by New York jewelers. The German government sponsored a dramatic display of very sophisticated handcrafts, while exhibitors from Great Britain were more practical, displaying teapots and carved toys of English "bobbies."

Site map in hand, among a crush of people that filled tens of thousands of square feet of exhibit space displaying millions of gifts, I began my search for my "something" Ukrainian.

The inch-thick catalogue had nothing. Ukraine was not listed among the countries with exhibits in the International Hall (although Poland was), and there were no exhibitors with names that sounded even remotely Ukrainian (no Kalyna, Tryzub or Dnipro imports) or even Slavic (though there was an exhibitor called Russian Connection, whose booth I made a note to visit).

There was no obvious connection to anything Ukrainian. If something Ukrainian or from Ukraine was to be found it would be only indirectly - through an exhibitor that was representing a Ukrainian artist or a Western vendor that receives finished goods from Ukraine.

I would have to walk miles of aisles to find my "something."

I wasn't sure for what exactly I was looking. Maybe classic Ukrainian handcrafts such as elaborate pysanky, wooden inlaid plates and boxes, heavy woolen kylyms or beautiful embroideries, but also maybe the less obvious - such as jewelry or linens, ceramics or glasswork. My intuition told me that I should simply look for things that looked Eastern European and take my search from there.

As I began to walk the aisles filled with exhibitors' booths, within minutes I stopped by a display of decorative bed linens - I noticed the color and texture of the fabric immediately. For the more than four years that I had lived in Ukraine, I had slept on linens that looked and felt like those on display.

I began to probe: The linens are the product line of a Finnish company, I was told.

I probed further: Actually, I was told, they are made in Lithuania, in a former Soviet textile factory that had been privatized.

Ah ha! Getting closer!

East European bed linens have a very distinctive look and feel. High-end, and very expensive, bed linens such as those from France and Italy, are 100 percent linen - just as are the famed "Irish linen" tablecloths. Decorative bed "linens" from China are actually 100 percent cotton. Most Eastern European linens are about 50 percent linen and 50 percent cotton; the Finnish company's product line was 52 percent linen/48 percent cotton.

Much of the flax used in Eastern European linens is grown in Poland and Ukraine, the sales rep explained, but the vast flax fields are actually in Russia. The raw fibers, however, are often processed, woven and decorated in textile mills in Ukraine, the Baltic countries and other countries of Eastern Europe.

I was impressed. Textile production in the former Soviet Union is not something about which I expected a sales rep at a gift show to know much.

He noted that the owners of the Finnish company, a husband-and-wife team, are both very familiar with Eastern Europe, having lived and traveled throughout it. In fact, their bed linen designs are named after Eastern European capitals. On display were two collections: a group of blue-and-white striped linens titled "Riga" and a collection of creamy white-and-sage striped linens called ... "Kiev."

This, my first stop, as it would turn out, would be one of the highlights of my search. But I moved on.

The next booth I noticed contained a collection of pottery - the familiar intricate cobalt-blue-cream-brown scalloped "sea-sponge" design of a particular line of Polish ceramics. The factory that produces this line lost its state subsidy during the 1980s and survived by becoming an artist-owned co-op and focusing on markets in the West.

Later I noticed a display of "art" glass, also from a factory in Poland, with some examples of ugly lava-lamp-shaped vases in avocado green and harvest gold - all of which reminded me of the 1970s, the Decade of Dreadful Design. Among this exhibitor's prettier items, however, were delicately stemmed opaque ivory-colored candy dishes for which, the sales rep explained, an order for 3,000 had just been placed. The restaurant owner who placed the order claimed he plans to use the candy dishes to serve Margaritas instead.

Another linen exhibitor who deals with a Czech distributor told me he knows his partner has contacts with suppliers in Lviv, but waved his hand and said: "I don't know anything more about it - it's much too complicated - all I care about is that he gets a high-quality product delivered on time. We tried once to do it on our own from Ukraine, it was a mess. I'll never do it again."

Vendors exhibiting crystal from Hungary and Poland knew of crystal factories in Ukraine. Several claimed to occasionally see vases, candy dishes and bowls from there, but noted that most Ukrainian crystal is "too old-fashioned in design and shape, and too heavy for modern use."

I was beginning to despair of ever finding anything from Ukraine. As I neared the end of the displays I noticed a group of double-handled thick clay mugs in a plump, rounded shape, glazed in earthtone colors. The design was descended from a time when family members and their guests shared plates and cups and bowls while seated at a long, narrow table. The double handles made the passing of the mugs easier. Wider in the middle and sloped to a narrower opening at the top, the mug design kept liquids warmer for longer, kept things from falling in and contained the splashing of liquids when mugs were being passed. Though now archaic in function, such mug designs are still familiar in Ukraine.

Indeed, it turned out that the potter who made the mugs is from Ternopil, in western Ukraine. He had traveled to Moscow to sell his pottery at an open market, where the exhibitor's representative noticed the pottery and placed an order. For several years now the exhibitor has been getting ceramics from the Ternopil artisan, but now the Ternopil regional authorities have stepped in. It seems that old habits die hard.

Under the Soviet system, artists received housing, studio space and supplies from the state. In turn, the Soviet government lay claim to the artist's product and any monetary value it may have had. Art work was routinely sold abroad, but the artists never saw a penny. The Soviets believed that the subsidies were compensation enough for artists' time, skill, experience and talent. Any value that came from sale of artwork belonged to the state, even if it exceeded the value of the state's subsidy to the artist. This belief by state authorities that artists' work belongs to the state and that the state has the right to control its price, export and sale still exists, even though artists no longer receive state subsidies. The Ternopil authorities are attempting to block export of the potter's work, so he is smuggling his wares out through Moscow.

At the back end of show were the "tsatske" vendors, among whom I found one selling nesting matrioshky dolls and toy-size balalaikas. Also on display were a classic Ukrainian tourist item: black lacquer-covered wooden plates painted with bright red poppies. When I asked the vendor where the plates were from, he replied "Russia." It was the final hour of a four-day show, and the guy probably wanted very badly to get out of there - but, hey, I'd been on my feet all day and I, too, was tired. So what? I decided to wade in.

"Mmm ... are you sure?" I inquired. "This is a pretty typical example of Petrykivka design from south-central Ukraine." He shrugged.

I turned over a plate, hoping to see a "Made in Ukraine" label. Nothing. Sadly, I put the plate back on display. I looked at the exhibitor. He was slumped in his chair, head back, eyes closed. It's pretty tough to pick a fight with a man who has his eyes shut.

Tired, I slipped out of the convention center into the August heat of Manhattan. The skill of Ukraine's artisans, their designs, their colors would easily find a niche in this world. If only ...

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