FREE Standard Shipping on Orders $69+ with code: FREESHIPPING
×
Scrapbook.com
Inspiration ⁄ Nkaigle's Gallery
   Previous Next  

Cheers

Give a Cheer
Profile photo
Nkaigle
October 23, 2013

Melancholy - (Tesknota)

Give cheer Give a Cheer
Favorite

A layout done for the September SATW challenge.

The photo is of my Grandmother, and it shows her usually sad face. She seldom smiled, and always had a handkerchief in her hand to wipe away the tears that seemed to fall constantly. She exuded a certain melancholy- "tesknota" - a specific kind of Polish melancholy which for an outsider is hard to understand. It roughly translates as a nostalgic yearning or longing with tonalities of sadness, precipitated by a "forever parting", in which life figures as a river of pain and suffering.

My Grandmother was an immigrant from Poland, and she was never really "happy" here in America. Her life was difficult, and she never overcame the social, cultural and language barriers.

I hoped to create a layout which presented this particular feeling of sadness. I wanted the page to be "moody" in feeling with a monochromatic palette of "sad" purple/blue colors. I added some personal objects in the form of 2 discs from old Polish rosary beads. One is of "Our Lady of Cestochowa", a special image beloved by Poles. A picture of the Lady hung in my Grandmother's bedroom. I also used 2 vintage keys, and 2 vintage jet buttons. Torn bits of paper placed in a downward pattern (signifying sadness), mists, inks, and molding paste were also used on this page.

Thank you to all who look at this page, I surely do appreciate it.

I


layouts scrapbooking Heritage heirloom family history stories
Report

Cheer sent!

Thanks for spreading positivity!

SavedRemovedChanged