Some of the people from the far north are ghost like as they roam the streets of St Petersburg. This young woman is from Siberia.
Portrait of Young Siberian Woman
Art
Portrait of Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza, Russian journalist
Twice poisoned journalist and opposition leader Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza. Story below.
He is a well known opposition activist who has faced life threatening conditions twice over the past several years resulting from apparent attempts to assassinate him by poisoning. Close friend Boris Nemtsov, also an opposition leader, was shot and killed near the Kremlin in 2015.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called on the Trump administration and new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to “make Kara-Murza’s cause America’s cause,” to question Russian authorities on the incident and to “ultimately hold Putin accountable if he was targeted by the regime.” Trump has not announced any action and given his unwilling to criticize Putin for anything at all he probably won’t do anything in response.
Portrait of Russian Man with Hat
Portrait of Eastern Russian Woman
Russian faces: Siberian girl
I’m always fascinated by the countless variations of the human face.
Robert Mueller — The Look
Robert Mueller is the Special Prosecutor in charge of investigating the Russian interference in the 2016 election. He’s pursuing Flint, Manafort, probably going after Trump and others close to Trump. I ran across the photo I used for this graphite drawing and was intrigued by Mueller’s expression. I would not want to be on the other end of that gaze. It’s analytical, piercing, no hatred but if he figures out you’ve violated the law and he can meet the relevant standards of proof, you are dead meat.
Several portraits
St Agnes at the Track – Piazza Navona, with pen and ink drawings of Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Chiesa Sant’Agnese is a small domed church designed by Boromini, a contemporary of Bernini and a rival who never made it to his competitor’s stature. In my book he had nothing to be ashamed of, he just had a competitor that was outstanding and well connected. The work he was assigned was smaller in scale but he did a magnificent job of making the interiors zoom in space.
Chiesa Sant’Agnese is often termed “St. Agnes in Agony’ but this gives an incorrect translation of ‘Agone.” Agone means ‘games’ and also refers to the stadium built by Diocletian starting in 80 AD, with a circle track. So perhaps we should say “St Agnes at the Track,” as irreverent as that may seem.
The church sits on what we now call Piazza Navona, originally called “Circus Agonalis” (circus is a circle, just like Circo Massimo, Circus Maximus). Apparently the name Agonoalis morphed into Navona. Aside from the track shape of the plaza and the buildings facing it, the main feature of the plaza is Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers).
Seated boxer and other drawings from Rome
Doing Time: Hillary Made Me Do It
