Sunflowers For Ukraine

 

I, like many people, have been profoundly affected by the inhumane situation in Ukraine perpetrated by Vladimir Putin.

When it comes to philanthropy, I fly under/over the radar. But, in this case, I felt compelled to share with you that I have been contributing some of my commissions with the “World Central Kitchen” as they have been heroically feeding the refuges fleeing war-torn Ukraine.

Sunflowers have long been associated with this sovereign nation (please read below), and what I am going to do from this point forward, is to donate 100% of my commission(s) to this incredible organization.

As I mentioned in the second paragraph, I do not like to shed any light on myself when it comes to this sort of endeavor, but to assure you that this is not some sort of scam for me to make more sales (it’s always an honor to make a sale), I have attached a receipt associated with this charitable activity. Making a few bucks, although always welcomed, is NOT why I became a photographer in retirement.

It’s what I do for a pure creative aesthetic that keeps me relevant in the world!

If you are interested in helping me out, please click on my Sunflower Gallery here:
https://angelomarcialis.pixels.com/collections/sunflowers+skies

With Great Sincerity,

~Angelo

PS If you do make a purchase, please DM me, so that I can thank you personally (Fine Art America does not let us know who made the purchase personally, just the location where it was made.)

What to Know About the Meaning of Sunflowers in Ukraine
(As read in Time Magazine, March 4, 2022)

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has continued over the past week, displaying sunflowers has become one of the many ways the world is showing solidarity for the Ukrainian people.

At the State of the Union on Tuesday night, First Lady Jill Biden wore a dress with a sunflower sewn-in on the right sleeve. From Mexico City to Caracas, protesters held up sunflowers as they took to the street to condemn Russia’s actions.

In London, sunflowers poke out of the barricades in front of the building housing Sunflowers for Peace, a charity organizing aid for Ukrainian residents, while in Reno, Nev., they emerge from a public art piece that spells out “BELIEVE.”
Globally, awareness of the association between sunflowers and Ukraine has grown since Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, when the news outlet Ukraine World shared a video on Twitter showing a Ukrainian woman in Henychesk giving sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers, with the striking instruction to put the seeds in their pockets so the flowers will grow where they die. The video has racked up 8.6 million views on Twitter since it was uploaded on Feb. 24, and comedian John Oliver featured it on Last Week Tonight.

But the flower has an even longer history in the country. Sunflowers—soniashnyk in Ukrainian—have been grown in Ukraine since the mid-18th century, according to a 1993 Encyclopedia of Ukraine. At the time of the book’s publication, sunflower seeds were the country’s most popular snack. The flower also helps fuel the national economy today; Ukraine and Russia supply up to 70–80% of the world’s sunflower oil exports.

Throughout Ukraine’s history, the flower has been used as a symbol of peace. In June 1996, to celebrate Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons, U.S., Russian and Ukrainian defense ministers planted sunflowers in a ceremony at southern Ukraine’s Pervomaysk missile base.“The ceremony celebrated Ukraine’s abandonment of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which it inherited in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union,” the Washington Post reported back then. “It also marked the near completion of a primary U.S. strategic goal since the Soviet breakup: to gather all ex-Soviet nuclear weapons in Russia, thus avoiding a proliferation of nuclear powers.”

More than 25 years after that ceremony, Russian and Ukrainian ministers are at war, but the meaning of the sunflowers as symbols of peace has not changed, as the cropping up of sunflowers worldwide has become a call on leaders to plant the seeds again for a more peaceful future.

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