Discoveries

Over the summer, I met textile artist Averil Stuart-Head for the first time.

Averil in front of her house in Introdacqua, Abruzzo

She is the director of Abruzzo School of Creative Art and has hired me as one of her teachers for July, 2013.

Click here to view my course outline.

She lives in Introdacqua

I visited the school space.

View from the school grounds.

We will be able to work outside.

outdoor space

After our tour and wonderful lunch, I visited her studio...

Her studio has street access.
It is on the ground floor of her home

...and saw her amazing, colourful works.

Part of her studio with work in progress

Selecting her colour palette using torn fabric strips

Averil talking about her favorite piece

Her work was seen in the Florence Biennale in 2007.

The second part of her studio is
set up more like a gallery of her work.

We ended our afternoon with a yummy gelato in Sulmona! Thanks Averil and Bruce!!

I am looking forward to this new experience in Abruzzo, the birth place of my great-grandmother.

I am busy now tweaking my itineraries for my own textile trips coming up in 2013- Verona in April and Umbria in August. Keeping checking Textile Trips under Pages for updates and to sign up. Hope you can join me for one of these amazing experiences.

Plastic

We stopped at MACRO in Rome to see a particular art piece.

Me viewing Plastic Bags, (2001-2011)
by Cameroon artist Pascal Marthine Tayou

It is a giant vase-shaped installation made with plastic bags measuring almost 10 metres in height.

The thing that surprised me was that the bags seemed new and not repurposed.

If "plastic bags are forbidden by law and should no longer pollute or constitute a danger to the world's ecosystem" says the artist, then why did he choose to use new bags?

Circles and Shadows

Morning Coffee in Rome

view from the bathroom window,
Sulmona, Italy

Exhibit in Valmalenco

I had a very busy year concentrating on curating "Tradition in Transition" and was only able to produced three art pieces.

One of them was for an exhibit by invitation from the association, Quilt Italia.

The inspiration for the works was Le Città Invisibili, a novel by well known italian writer, Italo Calvino. The idea to create a body of work inspired by this book was that of past vice president of the association, Gabriella Manara.

Each piece was to measure 1 metre x 2 metres.

I posted during the year about the work in progress but never posted an image of the entire piece.

Cyber City, detail, 2012

Now that it has been exhibited in Valmalenco, Italy, for the first time, I feel I can post it.

Click here to view another blog post by an italian about this exhibit. If you scroll down her post you'll see a booklet you can click on to view all the works in the exhibit.  You can see mine on page 15.

Patchwork Sidewalks

Spent a morning in Maratea, the town nestled into a mountainside just south of where we stay.

Maratea with view of the port below

Maratea, Basilicata, Italy

The sidewalks surprised me.

They are patchworks made of ceramic tiles.

Everyone knows I love scrap quilts!

There are some good ideas for quilt making in these examples.

I got back to our town late but still had a good swim before the sun set.

Metal Tapestries

One of El Anatsui's work is part of the permanent collection at the Centre Pompidou. He gained international recognition in 1990 when he represented Africa in the Venice Biennale.

About two years ago, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, hosted a 40-year retrospective of his work.

Sasa, 2004

This monumental work can be displayed in different configurations which the artist leaves to the curator to decide.

Its size is very powerful.

His metal tapestries recall the golden shimmer of Klimt paintings, evokes weaving and cloth and even sculpture.

He used flattened liquor-bottle tops and "sews" them together with copper wire. His medium, introduced by Europeans, hints at the relationship between Africa and the Western world.

Dutch Lace

Galvanized steel wire chain-link fence woven to resemble traditional Dutch lace, Centre Pompidou, in Paris.

The Demakersvan partnership has teamed up with an Indian company to marry industrial production to manual skill.

I will be posting more about what I saw at Centre Pompidou. Their collection is really spectacular.