Our Featured Artists:
Summer 2015 Art Edition
H
ow was your summer? I hope it was filled with family, friends and lots of fun! Now that we are all slowly getting back into our routines, I am pleased to present you with the Art Edition of The Wayfarer. It was a joy to receive
all the beautiful contributions from members around the world. Thanks for sharing your amazing works of art. If you didn’t have a chance to send it this time, don’t worry… you can send them any time and I will be delighted to publish them.
As you can imagine, it was hard to choose just ONE picture to be on the cover, so I put them ALL =) I wish you all a great end of summer and I hope you enjoy this edition. See you next time! - Elsa
Muhammad Ehan
3
Anna Burova
4
Paulina Cortés
11
Brenda & María Echeveste
12
Diana Méndez
16
Diana Ortiz & Mabel Flores
18
Neil Kaler
19
Alfiya Nikolenko
20
Piedad González
26
Julia Levenhagen
28
Patricio Scheffler
29
Isabel Scheffler
30
What about our next edition, you ask? Well, dear Asia/Australia Area, get ready, because we will be asking you to submit articles showcasing your amazing Chapters very shortly!
Thank you for sharing your amazing works of art with us!
IMPORTANT NOTICE: All the works of art appearing in this Magazine belong to each artist and cannot be reproduced or copied without their permission.
Artist: Muhammad Ehan Son of Maheen Marghub From SSA Muscat Age: 7 Nationality: Pakistani Title: “Falcon in it’s habitat”
Artist: Anna Burova
“I
SSA Coordinator, Atyrau, Kazakhstan
started to paint during our first IM assignment in Balikpapan, Indonesia. I think it was a very common situation for the SLB wives in the beginning small kids, not speaking the language, far from home, relatives and friends. However, I was very lucky. The SSA coordinator of Balikpapan was passionate about fine arts and
gave free painting lessons for the ladies who were lost in the new life as I was. She (Siryel Vishnevsky - if I spell the name correctly) gave us an opportunity to realize ourselves, which is very mportant. Painting gave me a chance not to be depressed and understand that I can do many things wherever I'll go. Then I started to participate in exhibitions in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Moscow, and
“Zebra” by Anna Burova. Oil. Canvas
Kazakhstan; wherever my husband had a new assignment. In Saudi Arabia I gave an interview to one of the biggest newspapers, Al Sharq, and they wrote an article about my paintings. The culture, history and traditions of different countries became very interesting to me and now I am planning one more internet project about it. That is my brief story”.
Anna Burova
“Memories, Havana” by Anna Burova. Oil, acrylic. Canvas
Anna Burova
“Golden fish” by Anna Burova. Acrylic
Anna Burova
By Anna Burova
Anna Burova
“Old Omani” by Anna Burova. Oil, acrylic. Canvas
Anna Burova
By Anna Burova
Anna Burova
“Russian winter” by Anna Burova. Oil, acrylic. Canvas
Artist: Paulina Cortés Daughter of Erika Romero From SSA Villahermosa Age: 5 Nationality: Mexican “Nest of Woody Woodpeckers” “I used chalk, crayons and colors to draw a family of woodpeckers. There is a mom, a dad, one brother, one sister, one baby and many white eggs. Everyone eats pink worms. I used wood dust to make the nest”.
Artists: Brenda and María Echeveste In the following pages you will find a few pictures by Brenda Echeveste, our dear SSA Africa Area Coordinator, and her daughter María. They have been painting for a long time, as you can tell by the picture below, which was taken more than 10 years ago. María is now a successful Neuroscience and Psychology student in Boston.
Brenda and MarĂa Echeveste
Brenda and MarĂa Echeveste
Brenda and MarĂa Echeveste
Artist: Diana MĂŠndez From SSA Quito, Ecuador
Fact sheet Title: Bouquet Technique: Acrylic over canvas
Date: June 4th, 2015 Impressionism
Diana Méndez
“I
am from Colombia, I’m 35 years old, and since I was little I’ve been interested in painting. I started off with watercolors, with children’s artistic expressions, but my paintings already had innate technical content. The artistic branch has always been a part of my family: my father and several uncles and cousins have been artists and exhibited diverse techniques. My inspiration comes from pictures or how I’m feeling in that moment. It all depends! Because my carreer is Telecommunications and Systems Engineer, I didn’t practice art for a long time, but now that I have time and space I have been able to study different artistic movements. My favorite is impressionism. It is the technique I applied in the work I’ve submitted for the Newsletter, as a representation of what I like most. The use of light in pure colors, the inexact shapes and dark backgrounds are a fascinating contrast for me.
I would love to continue painting and advance in the technical studies of the impressionist movement, to which I identify and love”.
Artists: Diana Ortiz and Mabel Flores From SSA Moscow
Artist: Neil Kaler Son of Sunil and Preeti C. Kaler From SSA Songkhla Age: 5 years and 8 months Nationality: Indian
Artist: Alfiya Nikolenko From SSA Yunzo-Sakhalinsk Age: 25 Nationality: Russian Technique: Watercolor
“I have started to paint recently, I hope you would like some of my works :)�
Alfiya Nikolenko “I don't have any real education in this field, I studied online with an amateur's course in May 2015 and now I really enjoy what I'm doing.�
Alfiya Nikolenko
“With our lifestyle, learning online is a really good choice!�
Alfiya Nikolenko
Alfiya Nikolenko
“I tend to believe, that finding time for our self development is very important, never stop to explore.�
Alfiya Nikolenko
Artist: Piedad González Mother of María Alexandra González From SSA Quito, Ecuador Age: 57 Nationality: Venezuelan
Piedad Gonzรกlez
Artist: Julia Levenhagen Daughter of Joao Pereira and Paola Levenhagen From SSA Quito, Ecuador Title: “Sunflowers” Age at the time she painted “Sunflowers”: 5 Current age: 12 Nationality: Brazilian
Artist: Patricio Scheffler Son of Alejandro and Elsa Scheffler From SSA Al Khobar Age: 8 Nationality: Mexican Title: Reproduction of the painting by Vincent Van Gogh “Still life: Blue Enamel, Coffee Pot, Earthware and Fruit� Technique: Acrylic over canvas
Patricio loves drawing and painting, especially Minecraft-inspired artwork, but for his first painting with acrylic over canvas, he chose Van Gogh as inspiration. His painting was chosen as the cover of an art magazine in Tequisquiapan, Mexico, which he was really excited about!
Artist: Isabel Scheffler Daughter of Alejandro and Elsa Scheffler From SSA Al Khobar Age: 11 Nationality: Mexican
Reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” Technique: Acrylic over canvas
Isabel Scheffler
Flower tryptic Technique: Acrylic over wood
Isabel loves ALL things art. Besides painting, she is into all kinds of crafts. Right now she is enjoying using decorative Duct Tape to personalize her school supplies. We just moved and we’re excited about having an extra room in our new house that will be dedicated entirely for arts and crafts. Isabel is already thinking about chalkboard paint for the walls and many other cool ideas for our new Art Room!
A
s you know, the SSA works primarily to welcome new families when they are transferred to a new location. For that purpose, Local Boards organize events where SSA members can get to know each other. Each location has different ideas of what could be fun to do with other SSA members, so they plan activities like book clubs, baby groups, museum outings, etc. The Global Board, on the other hand, is the liaison between our sponsor, Schlumberger, and all SSA Local Boards. We help prepare the budgets for each Chapter and work closely with SLB HR if there are any issues about that. We are always looking for ways to make our SSA mission of creating and maintaining a welcoming and supporting environment for all SSA members and their families easier to achieve. So what have we been up to lately? Last June, and after much debate, we launched an official SSA Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SSAGlobalCommunity/) with the objective of being closer to our members around the world. The Facebook Group has been picking up in activity in recent weeks, and though we still have a few membership requests to go through, we hope that this will be a great source of information and of finding new and old friendships. So if you’d like to be a part of the group, look for it on Facebook. Don’t forget that we also have a website provided to us by SLB (www.ssafara.net) where Chapters are encouraged to update their local information so we can all access it when transferred to a new location.
This summer we are also preparing a report with the SSA Survey results with many of your Chapter Coordinators input. The report will be shared with SLB
Management, and hopefully it will help them understand our needs and goals better.
Also, we are working on a long overdue update to our Guidelines and Mission Statement, so it can be a better resource for SSA Boards. The Global Board wishes to be very close to all our SSA members, to answer questions or to lend a friendly ear if you ever need to talk. In every issue of The Wayfarer you will find our emails, and we hope you know that you can contact us at any time. We will be happy to help in any way we can!
The SSA Global Board Lorraine Albelto
SSA Global Coordinator
ssa-global-coord@slb.com
Anisa Haddad
SSA Ex-Officio Coordinator
ex-officio@slb.com
Nikita Goel
SSA Global Webmaster
ssa-webmaster@slb.com
Sandra Showalter
SSA Global Secretary
ssa-secretary@slb.com
Elsa Scheffler
SSA Global Communications
ssa-communications@slb.com
Brenda Echeveste
SSA Africa Area Coordinator
ssa-africa-coord@slb.com
Fay Hennings
SSA Asia/Australia Area Coord.
ssa-asia-coord@slb.com
Diana Sguerra
SSA Europe/Russia Area Coord.
ssa-eur-slr-coord@slb.com
Petite Orteg贸n
SSA Latin America Area Coord.
ssa-lam-coord@slb.com
Maha Sousak
SSA Middle East Area Coord.
ssa-mideast-coord@slb.com
Lasairiona McMaster
SSA North America Area Coord. ssa-nam-coord@slb.com
The Wayfarer Summer 2015 Art Edition A publication for the SSA Global Community
If you’d like to submit an article for our next edition, send it to ssa-communications@slb.com
Asia/Australia Chapters, get ready!
We want to know all about you! All Asia/Australia Chapters are invited to start preparing your contributions. Remember you can send us articles, pictures, artwork by your members… and if your children would like to participate, we’d love to hear what they have to say!