Back in Rome but overwhelmed by the unexpected. Hope to be posting soon!
Bluesky
BEBINA BUNNY free download here
-
Shoebox loom purse.
I have already posted about cardboard weaving but will do a Revival Gig because I recently finished a purse using, primarily, shoebox weaving.
As you can notice, my technique is what you’d call Laid Back. Because, not afraid of making mistakes, I don’t let myself be intimidated by lack of know how. After getting the general idea, I just go for it. Rarely am I disappointed as enthusiasm is a magical element for anything you do.
When making plarn (plastic bag yarn), handles and bottom seams can be recycled for weaving as illustrated below. I weave little squares then sew them onto plastic bags cut into squares which, in turn, are sewn together. I like purses to be sturdy so I sewed the patchwork squares onto an empty wine carton. The handles and the covering for the top of the purse pictured were made by using plastic bag crochet. Stitching with regular thread was added as a form of extra embellishment.
Como La Flor
I had to go to a wedding but had nothing to wear. But I did have a beautiful apron Anthy had given me. She’d bought it from a Russian immigrant at the produce market in Athens. I don’t wear blues but knew that, despite the lack of time, it wouldn’t be difficult to quickly transform it into a huipil dress. And for the back, I lucked out by finding a long straight skirt from many summers ago. The color of the skirt was compatible with that of the apron so I got my colored thread out and started sewing the parts together. A few considerations had to be made like how to do the shoulders but, with imagination, scissors and fabric scraps, I got it together just in time.
The name of this huipil dress is “Como La Flor” because, as I was putting the dress together, I watched the film about Selena, the young singer so tragically murdered by a flipped out fan. “Como La Flor” was one of Selena’s biggest hits and the title means “like the flower” (Like the flower With so much love You gave me It withered). Since the apron was full of embroidered flowers, it was the perfect title for my dress.
Posted in Uncategorized
4 Comments
The Streets of Paros
At least once a year (especially before August 15, the Feast of the Dormition), you will see the women of Paros bent in front of their homes and shops repainting the whitewashed outlines of the streets’ dark flat stones. They trace those lines often created years and years before by their ancestors.
Actually, the paint used today is not whitewash but a synthetic varnish. Originally, whitewash was made of calcimine or lime. Because of its anti-bacterial properties, whitewashing streets was done mainly for reasons of sanitation. But today it’s done mainly for tradition and aesthetics.
No one is forced to do it. It’s an instinct that comes naturally if you have a sense of community. Everyone has their own style depending, in part, upon what kinds of street you have, what’s already been painted and how much paint you can afford.
Posted in Uncategorized
5 Comments
”Walking Art, Talking Dresses” exhibition
This past Sunday, we installed the exhibition of my Muy Marcottage dresses. The exhibition, ”Walking Art, Talking Dresses”, was held at The Library (Voutakos, Paros) and, thanks to my friend Anthy, was a great success.
Years ago, when I was making big paintings, exhibitions were a lot more stressful. The biggest headache was that of transportation. But with Muy Marcottage, that has changed. Ready to be displayed were 35 garments that I neatly packed into two plastic milk crates. Pierluigi strapped the crates onto our rented dune buggy then off we went!
exhibition on wheels!
Below, one of the dresses exhibited:
This dress is called “Il Gattopardo”.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy was no longer a country as much as it was a series of city-states with a Papal presence. Then the Habsburgs took over and saw Italy little more than “a geographic expression”. But Italians did not agree with this vision and thus began the Risorgimento (Resurgence) which led to the unification of Italy , a long process that began with the end of Napoleonic rule and terminated with the Capture of Rome in 1870.
Change is a part of life and provokes a period of transition. And this transition often provokes an element of decadence—the old must die out to let the new come in. Il Gattopardo is a story about such a transition.
It was written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Prince of Lampedusa, born in Palermo in 1896. He led a privileged lifestyle until he was drafted into the army in 1915. Giuseppe was caught by the Austro-Hungarians and held prisoner in Hungary. But he escaped and went back to Italy to live with his mother.
In 1932 in Latvia, he married Licy, a German noblewoman who studied psychoanalysis. Initially, Giuseppe and Licy lived with Giuseppe’s mother. But Licy had difficulties living with a Sicilian mother-in-law and returned to Latvia. A few years later, WWII came along and the Lampedusa palace in Palermo was bombed causing Giuseppe to sink into depression. That’s when he started writing Il Gattopardo.
Giuseppe finished writing Il Gattopardo in 1956 and sent it to publishers twice and twice it was rejected. He died a year later. And a year later, Il Gattopardo was published.
Posted in Muy Marcottage
Tagged ”Walking Art, Il Gattopardo, Muy Marcottage, Paros, Talking Dresses” exhibition
3 Comments
The Narrative Within 