We met with sculptor and graphic artist Andrius in Birštonas, where he has been creating life and art for several decades. The artist gave a short tour through the city forest – Vytautas Jurgis Meška Park, which creates the atmosphere of an open-air art exhibition.
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As soon as we greeted each other, the conversation first turned to the very unusual surname of the interviewee.
“When I meet someone – the two most popular questions. The first: where does such a surname come from? It’s very convenient to sign at work, you always stay where you come from,” Andrius joked. –
I was at a plein air with the artist Sigute Ach. She told me how the Ach got added to her name. She said: “Everyone comes – ach, how beautiful, ach, how beautiful. So I made it Ach.” Her surname is Abramavičienė. She asked: “And what about your Lik?” I didn’t have to do anything, just fight for the original surname. When I was 16 and making my passport, they wanted to add -as, to Lithuanianize it – Likas, but since I was not born in Lithuania, they didn’t Lithuanianize it. So I remained Lik.”
Andrius also recalled a funny situation that happened with Vytautas Grubliauskas when he once came to his studio.
“I said to Grubliauskas: ‘You’ll have to write an autograph.’ So he wrote: ‘Andriau Lik, do whatever you want, but stay Andrius.’ A nice person, memorable. And about the origin of the surname, unfortunately, I didn’t have the wit to ask my grandparents – I was too young at the time,” Andrius revealed.
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The second most popular question he named: do artists make a living from art? The interviewee gave an answer, but about that – later.
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The Birštonas native A. Lik, who creates a unique language of plastic expression, participated in an exhibition for the first time in the 1980s, as he himself says, a very long time ago, “at a childish age” – when he was only 13. Since then, he has not changed his life path.
“Trying to count how old I am? 58. No education. I live from art,” the interviewee blurted out, whose works are in the “Devils’ Museum” in Kaunas and in Lake Galvė in Trakai, underwater.
Currently, he says he is “sitting where he started” – in the Birštonas Cultural Center studio. And that would be more interesting to an ordinary passerby than any museum – diverse, chaotic, but as artistic as you could imagine.
“When starting to talk about arts, you need to set a formula for what art and an artist are. The most complicated thing. If you asked who Cicinas is, many in Lithuania would answer; if you asked who Robert Plant is, only those interested in something would answer. Does that make R. Plant worse? Far from it. Does that make Cicinas better? Also far from it,” A. Lik compared.
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