With nature as her muse, Asya explores human vulnerability, fragility, unease, and resilience. Drawing from her Russian roots, and her experiences as an immigrant, A Part Together is a narrative journey. It is an exploration of ceramic material through hand-building and slip-casting. It is a weaving together of nature with human form, of clay with metal, of thoughts drifting, asking, seeking and exploring. Peek inside, peek behind, wander, find.

Growing up in St. Petersburg, Russia, Asya Palatova was surrounded by a historically and architecturally rich world of Imperial Russia. St. Petersburg, once the capital built by Peter the great, boasts many palaces, each enveloped in its own myth, mystery, and hidden secrets. On many a school trip, or weekend, Asya explored their vast rooms and art collections. Asya’s summers were spent outside the city, at a family dachya, not far from tsars’ summer marble and stone residences. In direct contrast, her family’s rustic dachya was built by her great-grandfather, Simon, with wood found on the property.  

Family legends describe Simon’s soft spoken demeanor and the healing power of being in his presence. It was told that on his way back home after serving an exile sentence in Siberia, he showed up in his undergarments. All of his clothes were stolen while he slept on his journey. Great-grandpa Simon built the dachya after his return from Siberia. Surrounded by a large garden in the front, a deep pine forest in the back, he found solace in working with his hands. Immersed in nature, it was an escape from busy city life, perhaps an escape from his past. His serene presence is still felt there. The magical house held many adventures for Asya and her childhood friends. Each time she visited dachya for the summer, a new world of fantasy and exploration awaited in the garden and forest.

Amid the mythical setting and family lore, Asya was drawn to fairy tales. Fairy tales explore human wants, fears, desires, vulnerabilities, and dreams. The forest is one of the most common fairy tale settings. It is a place beyond the safety and familiarity of the home, our inner circle, town or village. It represents the unknown where anything can happen. Like any new journey, opportunity, or relationship, it is outside our normal experience, and is both a magical, transformational realm, and perhaps a place of danger.

As one explores a new path, or a new work of art, hidden parts of self are revealed, old habits are discarded, new ideas and thoughts form. Fears of being lost, of isolation, of rejection, of not having our needs met, arise. Layers of identity are stripped away, perhaps embraced and comforted, set aside. When is it safe to discard all the shells of protection we carry with us? When are we able to voice what we need? Do we come out of the woods stronger and more resilient, more content?