This artwork was created by Maya Volkova, an applied artist, a member of the Artists’ Union of Russia, and an Honored Worker of the Komi Republic. In her art, she works in leather using natural stones and semi-precious stones.

Maya Volkova was born in Kaliningrad in 1950 and graduated from an art school in Moscow where she specialized in wood, bone, and stone processing. Since 1981, she has lived and worked in Syktyvkar. Maya Volkova studied the ethnography of the Komi people during expeditions and based on museum materials. After that, she began designing products made of fur, suede, and leather with the use of beads, bone, wood, birch bark, and semi-precious stones. She created outstanding artistic versions of traditional bags, caskets, and dolls.

The artist has successfully experimented with Ural ornamental stones, including agate, lapis, jasper, and rhodonite. Combining stones with natural leather, she has designed new products, including plaquettes, caskets, and women’s jewelry. Maya Volkova came up with an unconventional combination of leather, painted silk, and enamel, helping the subjects of Perm animal style from the Bronze Age come to life in a new way.

The panel is made in the form of a tree crown and represents the three-part structure of the world, symbolizing an archetypical pillar of the universe. The red and brown leather background features images of lizards, moose, and a flying bird.