в“L-6
“Snark”
L-6
keelboat “Snark” SR-642 was built in Leninrgad shipyard in 1970. It sails until
now in Odessa, artist’s hometown, winning cups year after year. Andrew
Molchanovsky was sailing with the team in 1987-1992, while studying sculpture
in Grekov Odessa Art School.
First
introduction was, however, a bucket and a task to wash a deck. Then the experience went on with buffing,
filling, painting the surface before launching the yacht – all the common
practices for a sculptor or… a sailor. Those years were Soviet era still, the
boat was supervised by Odessa heavy machinery factory “Krayan”, and the team
shared all the related works and maintenance.
Moreover,
they shared fun, sea, laughter and their youth – something uncapturable,
dizzying, sparkling and elusive over the years.
As we know, Lewis Carrol, whose poem “The Hunting of the Snark” first
inspired Jack London to name his ketch “Snark”, and many years after Leningrad
shipbuilders to do the same, has agreed with just one interpretation of the
poem – “as an allegory of the search of happiness”.
Indeed, it
is a happy coincidence to capture sparkles of light in a solid piece of an
optical glass, being able to share the impression of sailing on a sunny day
years and years ago.
The whole
thing is routine sculptor’s work of cutting down a shape, polishing,
assembling; a personal memory; an urge to share a dear image of one team in the
very process of catching that “Snark”. A real boat, a real feeling. That of
real love and happiness.
