Day 3 - Третий день - 06.08.2007

So many people are making roses. We arrive each day at 3pm for our four hour stint to find someone happily sitting at our table making roses in their own way. We have found we don't necessarily need to demonstrate how to make the roses, although some folk want help.



It was much quiter today. One of the attendants had the time to make a rose and a drawing. Susan had time to visit one of the attendants upstairs who has taken great delight in the project. She gave each of these ladies one of the cyclone pegs she brought from Shetland.



Nina wanted to make a very particular kind of rose and was not satisfied with her first one. Roxane cut a big, wide piece of felt for her so she could make a big rose. After she'd made it she wanted to take it home and immediately put it in her handbag. We're finding this is not unusual and have spotted a number of roses floating around the gallery on lapels and complementing hairstyles. Roxane figured out another way to arrange a swap with Nina so that she could keep her rose and we have one to bring back to Shetland.



The tag in the middle was written by a woman whose response to our work was incredibly touching. We've decided to display the Shetland roses until the last three days so that more visitors can read their messages. Therefore we are asking everyone to return to collect their gift. When Roxane asked her if she could come back because we wanted to give her the gift, she said, "No, I don't need to come back, you've already given me a gift. Thank you so much."



Some of our visitors are tourists themselves in St Petesburg. One couple who are university lecturers in the Ural Mountains spent nearly an hour with us. They spent one and a half days non-stop driving to St Petesburg. We showed them the map of Shetland and they asked how many days it took to drive from the top to bottom. You can imagine their surprise when we told them just a few hours! They asked us what we do in our spare time as they are musicians. They downloaded some of their folk songs onto Roxane's laptop.



Anya, Masha and Olya, a physicist, a journalist and a sociologist, approached us shyly but were soon very animated. We bumped into them later in the evening on Nevsky Prospekt while we were trying to find more floral tape - but that's another story!

Day 2 - Второй день - 05.08.2007

The second day was as busy as the first. Again we were so taken by surprise at the large numbers flocking to our table.



Pink shirt - pink rose! Susan was busy cutting more felt to keep up with the rose making. He was insistent that she cut a piece of light pink to colour co-ordinate with his shirt!



We're noticing that some folk return a number of times to look at our work. They are enjoying leisurely looks at the clothes pegs, reading the tags from Shetland and browsing among the photographs of washing lines.



Nina wanted to buy this photograph of Susan's. It reminded her of her time in the mountains. She was such a lovely woman. It meant a lot to us when she said she found our work was "fascinating" and "gentle".



We love the way some people are having real fun making the roses and hanging them up on the wall. This couple had a kiss after they finally got their roses attached to the wall.



It is indeed a small world. An American woman made a point of telling Susan how much she liked the project. She felt our acknowledgement of the the importance of doing and drying laundry was wonderful. It transpired that she was from Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, a town very near where Roxane's mother lives.

The Opening - Открытие - 04.08.2007

We arrived for the public opening of the exhibition and almost immediately we were swamped - Roxane was asked for a TV interview and people started to gather round wanting to make roses. Susan zoomed up to the office to store our bags and when she came down there was a large crowd around our table. Roxane was just visible in the middle. Any fears we had about how our installation would be received were quickly put to rest. We were literally overwhelmed!



It seems we have been speaking endlessly about our project. There were two television interviews at the opening and then we were asked to be one of the artists who introduced their work during the opening speeches. Everyone is asking "Why laundry?!"



This group of design students from Siberia took great delight in making roses and photographing the installation. Luckily for Susan two of the students spoke English so she could explain the project as well as get a sense of their lives.



We met lots of lovely people who were so enthusiastic about what we were doing. Susan met a potential pen pal for her daughter and Roxane was consulted about one grandmother's outfit. We were really delighted to meet up with some of Roxane's old friends. Igor Baskin is also taking part in the exhibition, and Vera Svetlova and Lyuda Belova worked with her in the emplacements project here in the early 2000s. Lyuda was our Angel of Mercy when she brought us coffee, cheese sandwiches and chocolate at a point when we were completely shattered and didn't know if we could carry on.

Press Day, 3 August

We arrived at 9 am in order to finish installing our work. After lunch Olga interviewed us for Delovoy Peterburg, and we invited her to make a rose and write a message. Then other journalists came round and made roses and looked at what we were doing. Our work came to life once the dialogues began.



We met Alex and Jennifer, who work for the magazine 'St Petersburg: In Your Pocket'. They made roses and chatted with us for ages. They said they really liked our project. We were delighted that they could see what we were trying to do and wanted to take part. Alex told us about his project, 'The Positive Project'. He is collecting stories about positive, happy moments in your life. You can contact him at positive.project@gmail.com or positive.project@mail.ru

It's Too Hot!

Getting Adjusted

It’s hot here in St Petersburg for people coming from the nice, cool, breezes of Shetland. We have mosquitos in our flat at night because we need to keep the windows open for some air. Our flat is a little bit dark so we bought candles to cheer it up a bit. Unfortunately they couldn’t stand the heat either and just keel over into an arc shape. So now they live in the fridge and we’ll bring them home to use in the cool breezes.

Our First Arrangement