Artist Spotlight

Rock On

Artist Viktoriya Saltzman’s painted path to freedom

By M a r i a Johnson Viktoriya Saltzman touches

time-worn river rock with a needle-sharp brush, transferring beads of glistening color.

For ms emerge slowly, dot by tedious dot.

L ater, the stones speak w ith jeweled urgenc y to the people who pass her table at far mers’ markets and craf t fairs.

T hey lean in and smile at the cobbled path of life and ideas: flowers, anima ls, manda las, Nativ it y scenes, peace sig ns, chak ras, the ancient eye-in-hand Hamsa and others.

“I accept dif ferent cult ures,” says Vik tor iya, a native of Uk raine. “I don’t like mandator y lifest yle. I think each person deser ves respect and love. If you’re an ar tist, you have to understand, you have to accept any thing that’s coming to you.”

A few week s ago, at the Greensboro Far mers Curb Market, a woman w ith three g rade-schoolchildren stopped to admire the sugar sk ulls that paved Vik tor iya’s table w ith some 150 flat stones, rang ing in size f rom but tons to br ick s.

Vik tor iya doesn’t usua lly paint sugar sk ulls — a sy mbol of Día de los Muer tos, the Mexican holiday honor ing dead loved ones — but a bag of r iver rock s she bought at L owe’s included three tr iang ular stones, so she made them into g r inning, cra z y- eyed sk ulls.

T he woman bought a ll three, for $85, for her children’s teachers.

Vik tor iya slipped the stones into a sma ll unicor n- covered g if t bag — the k ind you st uf f w ith children’s par t y favors — then pressed a four th stone into the woman’s hand.

A but ter fly, for f ree.

“Some customers have g if ting hear ts, but they don’t think about themselves,” Vik tor iya says af ter the woman and her children wa lked away. “I want them to have a g if t, too.”

For as long as she can remember, Vik tor iya has understood what ar t can do for the ar tist and for the consumer of ar t.

Her father’s family br istled w ith painters.

Her mother’s family, singers.

In Vik tor iya, the musica l genes sur faced first. Grow ing up, she was a g if ted accordionist in her hometow n of Mar iupol near the Sea of A zov.

“My technique was enor mous. I played an average of 4 to 5 hours a day. My ar pegg io was ama zing,” she says.

She was cr ushed when she was rejected f rom a music conservator y. Plan B was to at tend a teachers’ college in the f r ig id Ura l Mountains in neighbor ing Russia.

“My pant yhose f roze to my legs,” she says. “I had to peel them w ith a lcohol.”

Outside of class, she played at academic gather ings, hauling home lef tover beef stroganof f and potatoes to her dor m mates. A f ter college, she sang for a Russian folk dance troupe that toured Europe and the United States.

“Ha lf the band stayed in A mer ica, never came back,” she says. “Cra z y.”

She followed an A mer ican husband to Nor th Carolina in 1999.

She summar izes their br ief union: “I lef t my husband. I took the accordion.”

She moved to Greensboro for jobs. Babysit ter. House cleaner. Waitress. Singer. Accordion player. Linger ie sa leswoman. Seller of makeup at a depar tment store beaut y counter.

“I love selling, but not a ll for money — for presentation,” says Vik tor iya, who wears her curly brow n hair in a spray atop her head. “I tell a stor y. You gonna buy.”

T he idea for painting rock s came in 2015, when she was planning her daughter’s 9th bir thday par t y. She needed a f un, cheap activ it y for the k ids. She bought acr ylic paints and stones and led a dem-

onstration. T he results, Vik tor iya says, blew ever yone’s minds.

“Parents said, ‘W hy you don’t tr y to do this as a job?’” she remembers.

Two years later, she unpacked a box of rock s at the Gibsonv ille far mers market. She found other venues. It was an impor tant tr ick le of income for a single parent.

“W hen I star t painting, I wasn’t, of course, fantastic. People liked it, but I’m pick y, and I k now when I’m good and when I’m not good,” she says. “Most impor tant, the hours of practice. Dance, ar t, any thing. You have to be super patient.”

Now, she’s confident enough to branch out. She paints wooden jewelr y boxes, wooden trays, wooden or naments for Chr istmas and E aster. She takes custom orders — a set of rock s for a Jew ish woman to put on her son’s g rave; a t ur tle composed of seven rock s — shell, head, legs, tail — for a co -worker (“Best t ur tle you’ve ever seen.”); an end table painted w ith A f r ican mask s. She incor porated the face of her customer and the woman’s boy f r iend into the mask s. (“He said, ‘I want to scream, it’s so pret t y.’ ”)

Vik tor iya has a steady job, in the silverbuy ing depar tment at R eplacements L td.

But she keeps painting, at night, at her dining room table.

“A r t lets me do any thing,” she explains. “It’s my f reedom. My f reedom of mind. My f reedom of time. Freedom of pick ing colors. W hen you do ar t or music, your ow n st uf f, it makes you f ree. Your soul work s dif ferent, your mind work s dif ferent.”

T he loop closes, she says, when customers delight in the f r uit of her f reedom.

“W hen people go, ‘Oh, my God! I like that!,’ I get that feeling, too.” OH

Sa lt zman’s upcoming shows include Dec. 3, T he Market at Festiva l of Lights, L eBauer Park, Greensboro; Dec. 4, Greensboro Far mers Curb Market; Dec. 5, M A DE 4 the Holidays Marketplace, Greensboro Far mers Curb Market; Dec. 11, Eno R iver Far mers Market; Dec. 18, Winston Junction Market, Winston- Sa lem. Email her at bayanistk a@ icloud.com.

Cont act contr ibuting editor Mar ia Johnson at ohenr ymar ia@gmail.com.

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