THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603140135
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Ellen Riddle
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Cynthia Zdanski has angels all around her. And the 40-year-old bookkeeper of 15 years is making a break with the help of her winged friends.
An East Carolina University art school alumna, Zdanski hopes to leave the rigid world of numbers behind and soar into the more ethereal realm of making angels.
Armed with a sculpture degree and an open spirit, the Kill Devil Hills resident has filled her small kitchen and living room with celestial beings.
Using Styrofoam, tissue paper, wallpaper paste and ribbon, she handcrafts angels of varying sizes and colors. Small paperweight angels are surrounded by shells and pearls. A larger ``spring angel'' comes carrying a basket with a bird.
She has pitchers and baskets filled with angel heads. More heads hang drying from lines draped across the living room. Zdanski uses recycled plastic bottles for the bodies, then clothes them and gives them their wings.
Zdanski has always had a taste for flights of fancy. She remembers her mother saying, ``Cynthia, you're going to imagine yourself right in a corner one of these days.''
To which Zdanski quickly replied with hands on hips: ``Well, Mother, I will just imagine myself right out.''
Art school was one of the only places Zdanski ever remembers being happy.
``It was the only place I remember not feeling odd, guilty or stifled,'' she said. ``Anything went. I could do and achieve anything. There were no boundaries. You could create your own little world.''
This was a welcome relief from her rigid upbringing, which she said did not validate emotions. But although Zdanski struggled all her life against these odds, all was not dark in her childhood.
She had Bubchi, her great grandmother, who reminded her that everything is magic. Bubchi, like Zdanski, believed in angels.
Zdanski started making angels about five years ago to help her get through her divorce.
``I needed some hope, and to me angels have signified hope and all that's glorious,'' she said.
For several years, Zdanski gave the angels away. Today, she looks to put one in every household.
``I have plans to do month angels: January angels, February angels; doctor angels, gardening angels,'' Zdanski said. ``I wanted to take boundless joy and vision and put it into a vessel that most people would feel comfortable putting on their mantel or as a centerpiece for the dinner table. It's soul food.''
Each angel Zdanski crafts is unique. While she will repeat a theme, such as the spring angels, they are never identical. Her angels have no facial features, and their wings are in different states of flight or repose.
Some look as if they are hovering just above the table. Others give you the sense that they've only just landed. The wings are alive with motion and feeling.
Zdanski makes angel heads to hang in your home, and standing angels from about 4 inches high to floor angels prepared to hold candles and bouquets. With an angelic smile, Zdanski said she just wants to spread the joy she is feeling these days.
``If you're reaching up and someone's reaching down, eventually you'll touch,'' she said. ``The ultimate goal is to be pulled up. I want to reinforce the nobility of humanity. It's the high road. The view is much nicer.'' MEMO: The angels are available at Crafters Gallery in Kitty Hawk and Island
Craftsmen in Ocracoke. To order, call 441-3580. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
Cynthia Zdanski of Kill Devil Hills has filled her small kitchen and
living room with angels made using Styrofoam, tissue paper,
wallpaper paste, shells and ribbon.
by CNB