Joseph Brodsky’s poem The Ballad of the Little Tugboat, with illustrations by Kasya Denisevich, is a book about the life of a port city, everyday labor, and the search for a miracle within the ordinary. It is a book about St. Petersburg, a blue-gray, foggy, hazy, and crepuscular place, where we are observers of its immovable and magnificent beauty. But it is also a book about a red-headed boy who lives amongst this grandeur, dreaming and feeling pretty good.
During the masterclass, participants will talk about the colors of the city and why they so often seem to be gray, and will find out what color means in a monochrome book and how the main character brings the landscape to life. Then, those who wish to can make cardboard city-dwellers who are like themselves—funny, agile, bright, moving their arms and legs, dreaming of climbing onto the roof of a building and on to every boat moving past.
