evilstrawberry chronicles

am i neglecting my blog? noooo-hoooo!! please bear with me. Bas had his exams this week. but thank Wotan, it is OVER! phew! what a stressful week was it. I managed to draw daily in my diary tho and i had a bit of catching up to do on mail art :x i love making and sharing mailart, however lately i have been slacking. hopefully my mailart friends will forgive me! and meantime i have just finished mailart for a tiny mailart exchange! :) it was FUUNN!! you had to make tiny artworks for this exchange, 1 inch squares or cubes :) well here is a peek to what i did ;p i illustrated some famous turkish women artists. here is one for you, at the end of the blog. cahide sonku, a turkish actress and first female film director in turkey. p.s: meantime, anyone for mailart? :) mail me your snailmail address then! :)

My book arrived! Yay! Unfortunately this is only the second part of the diaries (of Alya Rachmanova), the part about her marriage in Russia, ending with her exile. Anyways, i am looking forward to reading this interesting diary I came across in such an adventurous way :) It is a lovely book as far as the binding goes as well. Old school leather binding. The book was probably in some library once and was at some point discharged. It is classified under "romance" but i am hoping to find more than romance in these diary pages ;p and something  in me says i won't be disappointed. we will see... This was my dream you see... When I was a kid, due to some local dynamics I was in, I had so much trouble finding the books and albums I wanted. And by then I used to dream of heaven as a place where all information was accessible to everyone. In times like this I feel like I am in heaven :) Yaaay I found a rare book! or so it feels... By the way, to all my friends bugging me with

In the last edition of flow there was an article about Alja Rachmanowa (or Alia Rachmanova, spelling changes). Born as a Russian noble, she was first sent to Siberia along with her family where she met her future husband, an Austrian. Later on they were exiled and she had to move to Austria where she opened a milkshop. She kept a diary apparently, all through these years in turmoil and later on published them. Since I read the article I have been after her books which are really HARD to find for they are not in publishing anymore! I found one copy in a second hand bookshop in London and some other second hand copies in Dutch closerby, here in Antwerp. I ordered the Dutch translations since I guess the translation then would be closer to the original language (German), and hopefully i will receive it in a couple days. I cannot wait :) Meantime any information about this mysterious lady is appreciated :) P.S.: Her real name was Galina Djuragin, Alia was her psedonym