Pixie Howitt,left, Jada-Jo Branney and Darcey McKechnie, pupils at the Dance School of Scotland, pose alongside works in the exhibition Discovering Degas: Collecting in the Time of Sir William Burrell, in Glasgow on September 3, 2024. (Photo by Wattie Cheung/The Times)

Britain Football Soccer, Burnley vs Swansea City, Premier League, Turf Moor on August 13, 2016. Burnley fan with face paint outside the stadium before the match. (Photo by Ed Sykes/Reuters/Action Images/Livepic)

A customer buys a box of bullits and a target of Osama Bin Laden October 3, 2001 at Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, VA. Guns sales have risen across America since the September 11th terrorist attacks. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

A model prepares backstage ahead of the Amber & Thomas show during Rosemount Australian Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2011/12 at Overseas Passenger Terminal on May 3, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Mimi Kirchner is a Boston-based fiber artist. She live with husband in a Victorian era (1892) 2-family house. Have 3 kids who are mostly grown up and doing their own things. She graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1976 with a BFA.

Miss Alsace, Delphine Wespiser walks along the stage during Miss France 2012 Beauty Pageant on December 3, 2011 in Brest, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

A demolition company explodes the support beams and columns in the roof of the Deutschlandhalle event location on December 3, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.