Christ as Hope

A trchnakir-inspired piece I made ages ago: “Hope”

https://vemkar.us/modules/christ-as-hope/

Derderian commission

Vartan and I helped run the silent auction at church last year. That was quite an adventure during Covid…! But we had a good time, learned a LOT, and look forward to contributing to the church that way again in future years.

One of the items in the auction was a custom trchnakir piece from me! I had never done a commission before offering this up, but since the winner didn’t give me a strict deadline (ha ha!), I’ve done a few between then and now. I finally just finished this one for the winning bidder, and I really like how it turned out. She requested “Armenian flag colors.” I hope I wasn’t too on the nose! 😅

Alec and Tanya commission

Finished another commission recently. A wedding present for Alec and Tanya. Here’s a little progression of how I do my work.

First I roughly space out the words, using a word doc in the size of the paper I’ll eventually use.

Then I start sketching out the letters on nice paper. I give myself grid lines as guides.

Then I ink in the letters, and start adding some detail for patterns.

And I start adding in blocks of color – any foliage, any bird feet, and any colors I KNOW I want in there.

Then I fill in sections, trying to balance different colors.

Filling in more and more… adding patterns and color.

Կարմիր Կօշիկ (Garmir Goshig) book review

Hagop, reading the first page of “Կարմիր Կօշիկ” (Garmir Goshig)

We just got a copy of “Կարմիր Կօշիկ” (Garmir Goshig) in the mail, fresh off a big order from Abrilbooks.com. Garmir Goshig is the third book by Alik Arzoumanian, published by Kirk Mirk. It’s an adorable, 16-page board book, small and square and toddler-sized. It’s in the same style as the author’s “Բոպիկ Տոտիկ” (Pobig Dodig) book, and features adorable, accessible illustrations.

The story follows a little boy getting dressed to go out in the morning. Each page, the boy puts on one article of clothing, each in a different color. So each page, you learn a new color and a new clothing word. It’s incredibly simple – the text on each page is literally, “garmir goshig” (red shoes), “germag vardig” (white underwear).

We love the book. It teaches exactly the right things, at exactly the right age. Colors and articles of clothing are words we use with our kids all the time. Hagopig is learning to dress himself more independently, so the book is a great way to walk him through that as well. One particularly great thing is that every time you learn a new color, a new toy is added to the background in that same color. The toys stay consistent throughout the rest of the pages, so the book gets more and more colorful as you go along. You can keep referring back to colors you’ve just learned by pointing to the clothes the boy is wearing, or the new gaboyd (blue) car on the floor of the boy’s room.

Zabel, holding the book on one of the last pages. See all of the cars in different colors?

Now, the book is written in Western Armenian, without transliteration, so you’ll need to know how to read the alphabet in order to sound out the words. (If you don’t know, you can start here!) It did throw me off that the author uses “ganach” for green instead of “gananch,” as I know it, but that’s just a dialect thing and “ganach” is the more widely used word.

Overall, 5/5.
Western Armenian ✅
Transliteration ❎
Translation ❎ (but you really don’t need it)

You can find more from Alik:
https://www.etsy.com/people/alikarzoumanian
http://www.studioalique.com/bookstore

Introduction to Western Armenian Alphabet Lessons

The Western Armenian Alphabet Lessons I have posted on this site are one of the most popular things I have here. That’s great! Hello! Welcome!

For some context, and so I don’t have to repeat myself on every lesson page, here’s a little disclaimer about the “Lesson” posts.

This series of lessons is based on an e-learning course created at St. Nersess Seminary. I recreated them in these blog posts with permission, and since it seems like the original versions are no longer available on their website, I have also uploaded the original Powerpoint lessons. In my posts, you’ll also see lots of commentary, tips & tricks, that I used when I was memorizing the alphabet.

You’ll see that I’m going light on the information in these alphabet posts. Do you really need to know what the letter is called before you can read it? (No!)

These lessons are designed to get you reading Armenian as quickly as possible, and to build up your confidence with the Armenian alphabet. We don’t need to clutter up your mind with extraneous information about the letters, that’ll only make it more difficult to memorize them. We’re starting with lower case, printed, and will get into upper case and handwritten letters later.

I encourage you to follow along with the lessons using these Western Armenian Alphabet Worksheets, that I created for myself when I was first learning.

Enjoy!

Also visit my page, “Resources for learning the Western Armenian alphabet”

Armenian wedding service program

My husband and I created this wedding program prior to our wedding in 2016. We were concerned about the perception of my (very American) family, who have been all varieties of protestant and atheist, coming to be part of a very “traditional” church service, in a different language to boot. We wanted to share with them the richness of the Armenian church tradition, and our personal faith, without being too “preachy.” It was also important to us to include some music from the service in the booklet, so people could participate in the service by singing along.

Here’s what we came up with. I’ve edited it so you can insert a bunch of your own information. Enjoy!

template-for-an-armenian-wedding-booklet Download

A virtual agra hadik

First slide from our agra hadik Powerpoint

Last month, we threw a virtual agra hadik party for our daughter Zabel. I’ve never been to a real one. We’ve been to a few first birthday parties where they do the activity there, but never to a standalone party. The one friend who WOULD have thrown a party (from Yerevan, of course) couldn’t do it because of Covid-19.

We were feeling pretty badly that none of our friends had really met Zabel, because of the pandemic, so we decided to throw her a virtual one over Zoom.

Of course, there’s nothing online about how you can do that. So, here’s the PowerPoint we used to structure the little party. It was short and sweet. Feel free to use the structure if you want to host your own!

template-for-a-virtual-agra-hadik-1 Download

(P.S. Zabel picked the gavel, so lawyer / judge / politician?)

Random things about parenting

RANDOM, I tell you.

Hagop has named his stuffed animals: Michael, Alleluia, Fluffy, Arch (bear in Armenian), Pistachio, and Isaac. Hah! Feels like we’re doing something right as parents.
Hagop has started saying the Hayr Mer along with us at bedtime. A friend of ours said that would eventually happen… I was worried about trying to teach him. But it’s happening naturally, and it’s so sweet. Reminds me of when my Dad would say the Lord’s Prayer when he was putting us to sleep, when I was little. The sound of his voice is imprinted on my soul. I hope that happens for our kids.
Hagop is going to an Armenian-owned daycare, but neither of his teachers right now are Armenian.
1. On his “report card”, he “met expectations” for all developmental milestones except for “names body parts” which was marked as “developing.” Well, that’s because he says them all in Armenian! We got a kick out of that.
2. Now that Hagop is back at daycare, he’s speaking more and more English, and less Armenian at home. It HURTS to see that happen in front of our eyes. There’s an Armenian preschool nearby where I’m sure they’d be speaking Armenian with him, but it’s more expensive. We’re feeling torn.
We do have more than one child, I swear. Zabel. I just don’t write about her much because she’s still so little, and there’s not that much going on. We did a virtual “blessing of the babies” service with her back in February, and hosted a virtual agra hadik party for her about a month ago too. A full post to come about that soon.

Medzmama commission

Wanted to share pictures from this recent piece of art I was commissioned to do. I’m really proud of it!

It was a gift for someone’s mother’s 80th birthday. There’s only one grandchild in the family, so the top and bottom of the piece has pictures of grandma and grandson together (blurred here for privacy). One picture of them together, for every year of the grandson’s life. I picked the pictures, edited and arranged them, had them printed, and even did the framing myself.

I love this super sweet, sentimental kind of thing. If you’re ever interested in working together on something similar, let me know! Can arrange shipping anywhere in the US.

Woah, hello new subscribers!

I’ve had a big jump up in readership lately. It’s equal parts thrilling and intimidating. I’m not a blogger… I started this site to share resources that I’ve created, because I couldn’t find them online when I was looking. A LOT of those resources and a lot of what y’all are viewing = for learning Armenian.

Which… Isn’t a huge part of my life right now. I SO wish it was, but it can’t be. I’m working from home full time, with a toddler and an 8 month old, not in daycare, in a global pandemic. Life is insane. We’re barely surviving.

The 1 good hour we have to ourselves every night after the kids go to bed is used up catching up on work work, moving laundry from one pile to another, or trying to move forward on some other life goals. Vartan is studying a lot, aiming to get ordained as a deacon in the next year (currently a sub-deacon), and has been getting really involved in a deacon’s council for the Eastern Diocese. I’ve started selling my trchnakir art, so I’m working on commissions and drawing. I’m also involved in a women’s collective giving group that’s taking up a lot of my time right now. (I’d eventually love to start one for Armenians… Let me know if you’re interested.) So, gone are the days when we’d make Anki decks and worksheets and go through the Armenian textbook together as a couple. It’s just not possible right now. I know anyone with young children understands, and I hope the rest of you do too!

I do still have a bunch to share on language learning, though it might be outdated or not as clean as it could be. And I’ll be posting about church things and other resources when I can. But PLEASE, new readers, new friends, new community, take this as an invitation for YOU to share with each other as well. If you have online flashcard decks, or great apps you use, or anything else you want to share, I’d be happy to link or upload it here. We’re all in this together!

Sirov and solidarity,
Kalyn