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November 2001
Valery Kouleshov
I was born in Moscow, USSR on January 21, 1957. According the Chinese calendar, I thought
I am rooster. I only just learned ten years ago, that year of rooster began later in 1957 than January 21. So I guess I am a monkey. For better or for worse. I have drawn all my life. Even when teachers at school
were angry when I drew during class I would explain that it is my way to focus my attention. And it is true!
When I served as sailor in the Navy, on North Fleet in Murmansk, I made pencil sketches
for my friends. Some of my pictures were sent home by mail. When I was back home, after my time in the Navy, I decided to attend one of Moscow's art colleges. It was very competitive and difficult to get accepted. I
was rejected the first time I applied because the college did not think the pictures I presented were of a high enough level of skill. The professors told me that I will only lose time for exams. Next year my effort
to be accepted was more successful. But because of administrative error, I wasn't included in group of students that passed the drawing exams, and after this mistake was finally fixed, I hadn't the power in my soul
to continue tests. So I didn't get a high enough grade to be accepted. The third time was lucky for me. By then, I was 24 years old and my daughter was 6 months old.
During summer vacation I went with my friends on Ural and Siberia to work like artists.
We did various kinds of jobs: painted on interior walls, carved decorative figures from tree trunks, did street decorations, and some mosaics. After college, I worked in a design office and made projects of
exhibitions and city decoration.
After Perestroyka, our life seriously changed. This period in time presented a lot of
interesting problems. I worked as a woodworker, as a company manager, and as freelance artist. But I dreamed about computers. I was afraid that I would spend a lot of money and not be able to understand how to work
with the PC.
At the end of 1994, an advertising company hired me to work as a designer, and I got my
chance to learn the new technology. I began with Windows 95 and CorelDRAW 5. In the Spring of 1995, I bought my own P-100 and 14" monitor. I was so happy. My friends, a family of American missionaries, gave me their
modem when they left for home and I started to use the internet. On Xara.com I saw pictures by Gary Priester, Gary David Bouton, and some others. I wanted to work with Xara. I saw a simple, but impressive still-life
made with Xara in our computer magazine, and I was impressed with Xara's features. So in 1996 I started to learn that application.
Some time later, I found some information about the COREL World Design Contest and I
decided to submit my entry. I was so surprised that my picture was selected as the Monthly winner. It was The Road to the Church. Next year I submitted A Time Machine and was awarded an honorable mention. Sun's Fiction did not win anything but PROfile was a monthly winner. PROfile was a continuation of Party as a concept to create foreground and change the background to reflect various surfaces. Here I used canvas, but it could have been wood, stone, paper and so on. The last image I submitted was the Steam Engine which I entered in the technical drawing category. It was the very last contest and this entry was a Grand Prize winner! I created all of these pictures using only Xara. Later I used Xara for various images: Gas station - printed advertising, City Architecture - Posters, Microwave ball, Pocket-Sized Art - illustrations.
—Valery Kouleshov
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