The metal lead got accidentally strongly connected for me with the notion of ideal.
The recipe of amulets made from melted lead gun-shots using the forms cut in potatoes.
Ingredients: 1 kg of lead gun-shots, 1 kg of fresh potatoes, the concept of an ideal, the concept of love.
Take a small portion of the shotgun. Melt in a small saucepan over high heat until smooth. While the lead is melting, cut the potatoes in half, cut out the shape you need with a spoon and knife. It can be any symbol that binds you and your ideal. Carefully pour the liquid lead into the resulting shape.
Wait for complete cooling and remove the amulet.
Wear it with joy, the amulet will protect you from imperfect love! But wear it carefully: lead is poisonous!
Installation view at NEZHEN. Series 2. Promgrafica Gallery, Moscow 2019.
The visitor could take any of the amulets he/she/they liked.
The first time you encounter the ideal, it seems so far, unreachable, unique and very complex.
The first time I got interested in lead when I learned about the lead-shot casting towers. They look like fairytale towers in which a princess is imprisoned. But they are constructed with a great engineering idea: while falling from the height of the tower, drops of liquid lead become perfect spheres. It makes them more effective while shooting.
When you get to know your ideal better, you encounter the routine side.
For example, that the ideal is not really so important, as far as some qualities are present. Thus, the lead shots can also be produced using a colander or a tincan, on a bonfire in the neighbourhood yard. So easy, no high towers and ambitious conquests.
They say that ideals are different for different people, and each of them contains its own happiness.
For example, in Europe there is a Christmas tradition to melt horseshoes made of lead, then pour the liquid into water and see it creating shapes which is then read as a prediction. One of the articles on this says that “they literary melt their happiness”.
If you don’t trust accidents, you can take a potato, cut the form in it and cast melted lead into this form. But don’t expect the perfect result. This method is popular among Russian children.
In ancient times people believed that lead has magic powers. It protects you from witchcraft, and especially from the devil’s love spells.
Installation view at NOX DEARUM. APXIV, Moscow, 2018.