Carving out memories: Artist Julianna Kirwin pays homage to her Polish grandmother

Homemade borscht simmered and steamed on the stove as Julianna Kirwin cooked with her Babcia.

The Albuquerque artist centered her solo show of woodcuts and monotypes at Santa Fe’s Hecho a Mano on her memories of her Polish grandmother. The show will hang through July 29.

Kirwin’s “babcia” (it means “grandmother” in Polish) spoke no English and came to this country alone in 1910 at the age of 16.

Carving out memories: Artist Julianna Kirwin pays homage to her Polish grandmother

Kirwin never learned Polish. The pair communicated with their hands while Babcia taught her granddaughter how to cook traditional Polish foods.

“I made a very large, life-sized work of her,” Kirwin said. “It took me quite a while to carve the wood. It’s almost like having her presence in the studio.”

The artist’s memories of her grandmother move from her signature aprons to her colorful table settings.

“I think I only learned from her a lot of hands-on knowledge,” Kirwin said. “She was always wearing her apron. She lived in a very Polish neighborhood” in New Britain, Connecticut.

A retired art teacher who came here to study at the University of New Mexico, Kirwin continues to research her grandmother through the University of Connecticut archives.

Kirwin can only guess at the reasons her relative left Poland.

“I have one photo taken before she left,” she said. “Also, in Poland, there were boundary issues with the Russians. The men were off defending the land. The women stayed home and did everything and became so strong.”

In the show, Kirwin tried to recreate her grandmother’s kitchen through woodblock, linotype and monotype. The everyday subjects remind her of her grandmother: her aprons, cookware, tablecloth and food, as well as her long hair, which she combed for hours every day.

The artist also will show a large woodblock print titled “Pan American Unity,” inspired by a fresco by the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

Kirwin printed 13 individual woodcut panels onto cloth depicting some of her favorite artists, poets and writers, as well as an array of female activists.

“I used (Rivera’s) composition; he had the Founding Fathers there,” she said. “I changed everybody in the picture to reflect something different.”

The line-up includes Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dolores Huerta, Joy Harjo, Deb Haaland, Isabel Allende, Helen Cordero, Maria Martinez, Angela Davis and the artist herself.

The aprons on the exhibition’s prints were not Kirwin’s grandmother’s, but they reflect her style of dress, the artist said.

Kirwin grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was thrilled by the primary colors emblazoned across her grandmother’s kitchen. “The Pink Tablecloth” features pierogies, a type of Polish dumpling, and a bowl of potatoes. The colorful arrangements resemble works by the French painter Henri Matisse.

“I use paper shapes that I cut out and I arrange them under Plexiglas,” Kirwin said. “I ink up the Plexiglas. I just feel more creative working that way than with a drawing. I cut out the shapes and I move them around.”

The linocut “What’s Important, Day-to-Day” sums up her grandmother’s favorite things.

“Her pierogies, her rolling pin, her comb, her purse, her shoes and her curling iron,” Kirwin said. “Back then, she heated her curling iron on the stove. She wore her hair in a braid.”

Kirwin traces her love of printmaking to her grandmother, as well. Stenciling, paper cutting and graphic wall decorations remain prevalent in Polish culture today.

Kirwin is also the founder of Herstory, a three-year-old printmaking collective based in Albuquerque with a mission to create portraits of women who have shaped the way we see and understand the world.

In November, Kirwin will attend an art residency in Oaxaca, Mexico.

“I think it does go all the way back to my grandmother and the colors on her table,” Kirwin said. “There are mysterious parts of ourselves that could be genetic.”