Two years, almost.
It was dawn of 26 ottobre 2019 when I got on the train to Austria to see an exhibition patchwork ad Althofen.
Twenty-three months have passed since then, dramatic months, very long, depressing, chaotic, unexpected and inconceivable, during which any contact with the patchwork, out of obligation or prudence, he remained confined within the home.
I remember that, in spring, the arrival of the vaccine gave me a breath of hope, soon dulled by the postponed newsletters sine die the exit from this evil tunnel that China gave us.
Needless to mention the Birmingham Festival of Quilts, especially as the health situation in the Midlands was worsening, and also the complications deriving from the Brexit they do their worst to dissuade me from frequenting the land of albions.
I confess that, although I love Alsace very much, the perfect setting for the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork, reluctantly I had already given up on it; there are too many risks of contagion associated with the long journey by train or bus. The plane, you already know, I don't like it, and drive the car for 1700 chilometri (between there and back) it would have been a major stress for mine sherpa/photographer / guide / interpreter /webmaster/handyman / etc.
E allora?
Then it happened that, about ten days before the exhibition, some Bassanese friends of gentle soul and infinite patience offered us the opportunity to join a minibus they had hired to take a trip to Alsace. They had not even finished talking that we had already confirmed our participation.
So it was that we were able to carry out a pirate raid in Val d’Argent, maybe a little hit and run compared to ours standard, however completely unexpected, and therefore most welcome.
Ecco, certain opportunities must always be seized on the fly, without thinking too much about it, and after two years we are finally able to fit in blog something interesting.
Now that the ice has broken, he could also have gone to Patchwork Gilde Austria in October. Too bad that this event takes place in a remote village in Upper Austria without a reasonable possibility of connecting with the world except by car or helicopter (or even the parachute for the more daring). We are at the usual Calimero, it seems that it is done on purpose so as not to attract the public.

Enough of these caustic recriminations, it's time I told you a little about the 26e Carrefour Européen du Patchwork.

It goes without saying that this was not the usual edition, it couldn't be. The restrictions, waivers, the fears, the crisis, and all the other aspects deriving from the pandemic that still bites led me to fear the worst, that is to a small-scale event, to exhibitions organized by the minimum wage, and instead of all there was only one exhibition missing, and another had been merged into another location.
Not bad.
Nonetheless, I got mixed impressions, bittersweet one might say, and in this regard I will try to explain myself better.
The level of the works exhibited was on average high (e non poteva essere altrimenti), and even if, in my opinion, the amazing artistic "peaks" that make you feel totally incapable are missing, I did not find any exhibits unsatisfactory. Credetemi, it is not a trivial matter.
That said, it could be assumed that the sun has always shone in the sky of my visit to Val d’Argent, but is not so. Unfortunately, I could not help but see a front of black clouds on the horizon, and even if for the moment time holds, the future is not very promising, and I fear that no umbrella could save us.
Each hurricane is given a name, and what threatens us has a very specific identity, it's called "age". I don't know how things are going in other parts of the world, but there is no reason to be happy here, and on too many occasions I have been struck by the presumed average age of the artists and visitors; high, too high.
Life is short, ars longa, these are the wise words of Hippocrates, and we know very well that textile artists are not improvised. In the absence of a ready generational change, it is very likely that the flood will arrive after us, brought precisely by that dark cloud that I happened to foresee this year.
Maybe that's not true, maybe it is just my impression deriving from a generalized discouragement, perhaps it is a matter of congenital pessimism, maybe next year I will be blatantly denied, però, in case I'm not wrong, I would take advantage of this "pulpit" to launch a bold and unconventional proposal: the next time you go to exhibitions bring a young person with you, have you ever seen that then you are passionate about patchwork…
Bene, let's go back to what I've seen, and let's start with the good news.
This year the first prize went (finalmente) to one quilter that I had the pleasure of knowing and appreciating: Angela Minaudo.
For once, I agree perfectly with the jury's assessment. His is the work that has been able to interpret the proposed theme in an original but immediately understandable way, ie "Savage” (wild).

In a world where children "must" be accompanied to school up to the eighth grade, where you don't have to get dirty, scuffle, heat up, except in institutional sports clubs, where every peeling is a drama, every mystery is a danger, every adventure is suspicious, this new Cosimo has decided to explore a world full of perspectives in his own way, of bird's nests, of flowers, of fruit, of a different and higher vision of the world.
We know well that the human being, from conception onwards it goes through a sort of accelerated biological synopsis of its evolution, up to its definitive mammalian form. Nothing prevents me from imagining that this evolution continues even after birth, or by following the steps of his state of being savage, and that this impulse should be freely manifested in his behavior outdoors during childhood. Any compulsion to suffocate them would be unnatural, even if the boy almost always evolves himself into a "staid" person.

Good Angela, also in the technique, since this time he was able to dare with more decision, with more thickness, as if she were a material painter, and the idea of ​​those strips of tulle to represent the rays of light that filter through the branches.
Hat.

I don't know if I really want to talk about the other works in the competition, not because they weren't beautiful, tutt’altro, but because in more than a few cases they have left me dumbfounded.
Forget my regular disagreement with the jury's choices, after all it is purely a matter of taste, and I prefer to overlook some lack of respect for the dimensions imposed. Let's say that for this edition I save two out of five, and those who know me already know that it is a result that should not be underestimated. Però, as has happened on other occasions, it is the declination of the theme that leaves me dumbfounded.
In my opinion, some works very marginally touched what we could define “wild”, while in others they appeared too predictable representations, those that mine sherpa/photographer / guide/ecc. defines “Theme: my classmate”.
If you want to see them all, I am very sure that you will find images on the net. Io, absolute sovereign of this blog, I have the right to report some of those that have impressed me favorably (and that have not been awarded ça va sans dire).

These are too strong, I don't know how to define them, spools of thread, probably wrapped around the finger.
They are eyes, millions and millions of eyes that watch, near, supervise, they stare, guatano, they explore, aim, but they don't look, because in the rainforest there is no time to stop and look, because the eyes are there to survive, to eat and not be eaten. And this uninterrupted observing takes place everywhere, from the dark undergrowth to the last leaf that turns to the sky.
But I can't get rid of the unpleasant impression that all those eyes are watching us, a silent reproach for the blind ecological devastation of which, to varying degrees, we are all responsible.

 

Let's go home, in the sense that we have to leave the rainforest to take a look at what is happening next to our comfortable homes.
By now the only thing that is wild in our part is consumerism, or parking, or for cinephiles the bunch, and nature is confined to orderly gardens, in the pots on the balcony and in cartoons.
If you think that by entering a forest you are immersing yourself in the wilderness, vi sbagliate di grosso. Each local forest is the result of a compromise with man, with its needs and its boundaries, it is a secular pact of mutual coexistence, and also the ancient lords who once walked free along its tracks, today they hide out of fear of that destructive biped.
Ebbene, Geneviève was lucky, shrewdness, the predisposition of mind to capture what is truly wild, and he did it practically around the corner from his house. That glimpse of the forest made her understand that there are no hunters and prey only in the animal world, but that plants also wage an incessant struggle for supremacy, for survival, for playback, and who contend for the ground, l’acqua, l’aria, and above all the light.
We do not notice it, because it is a silent war, very slow, alien, but it is made up of battles fought to the death, or rather, to the last sap, and only after years can we observe the results. Everything escapes us since we don't see battalions, deployments, maneuvers, ordered attacks and hasty retreats, all we can notice is an inextricable tangle where nothing seems to make sense, when instead it is revealed right there, truthful and terrible, the wild sense of existence.
The artist was certainly overwhelmed by that revelation and transposed it onto fabric as best it could not have been done, with a composition deliberately devoid of any formal care, but full of that indeterminacy that sometimes manifests itself with amazing beauty.

 

Let's talk about poetry now, di sogni, of a delicate vision of the world. These are sensations that Ghislaine Dumontier gives us, an artist (definirla solamente quilter it would be an understatement) than on the banks of the Isère, just north of Grenoble, creates fantastic visions, that like those created by the Mirrel brothers (authors of Myst) o di Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) they give a new fairytale dimension to reality, but without ever losing the outlines of the understandable.
This work was deservedly awarded in the ART TEXTILE competition (which unfortunately I don't know anything about), and I can say that it is one of the most beautiful things seen this year in Val d’Argent.

 

It has always been like this in photography, but now the fascination of black and white has also begun to be rediscovered in the cinema and on television. It takes a special skill to work in monochrome, because instead of color it is necessary to use an elusive and changeable component: la luce.
Allora, after this first colorful taste, here are some works of a very particular elegance, fascinating in their austerity.

Elina Lusis-Grinberga did not arrive at these suggestive results by chance. Daughter of art, in Latvia he obtained the Master in Textile Arts, and from that moment on he began his exploration of the infinite possibilities offered by thread and fabric.
In this work you intended to overcome the classical structure that imposes recognizable shapes and colors, to suggest a play of shadows and transparencies, the chiaroscuro that always present themselves in life.

 

darnit, to have known before…
A few years ago I was in Sète, a town in Occitania overlooking the sea. I had a wonderful day there, and I confess that I would gladly spend the winter there to escape from my dark and angry winters.

The fact that in Occitania, and probably in Sète, Isabelle Piron creates her works of art. She fled the rainy lands of northwestern France to find the light and inspiration she needed there.
Chissà, maybe I might even have crossed it while walking along the seafront, or along the alleys that lead to Mount Saint-Clair.
The fact is that that town has a very special relationship with art. Paul Valéry was born in Sète, one of the greatest French poets of the twentieth century, Georges brassens, the singer-songwriter whose works arrived in Italy thanks to Fabrizio De André, and Hervé Di Rosa, one of the founders of “Free Figuration”, the equivalent of “Trans-avant-garde” Italian.

In her work Isabelle married painting with sewing, but in a way that I still missed seeing, with a simple technical solution, and therefore very elegant.

 

Although I know very well that the works of artists who are no longer alive are exhibited in museums, perhaps for several centuries, and the same obviously applies to women who have achieved i patchwork “storici” esposti in Val d'Argent, it still made me a weird feeling, almost a thrill, the discovery that the underlying work is of one quilter who left us only a few years ago.
Not being able to, for obvious reasons, send you my appreciation, I am content to interpret his work as a testimony, that yes always alive and perceptible, of his love for textile art.

Allow me one more brief remark. Aina Muze was the quilter's mother Elina Lusis-Grinberga (see above), and it is she who takes care of exhibiting the works of Aina Muze so that they are not forgotten. For our part, we can only imagine the mother's satisfaction in seeing how skillfully her daughter was carrying on the family artistic tradition..

Whenever I happen to observe some work like these above, I always remember an episode that happened to me many years ago in a fabric shop in my city when I asked to see shades of gray, and the answer I received was rather hasty and peremptory: “but lady, nel patchwork gray is not used!”. Ridiculous…
If you feel like giving a half smile, take a look at this short video in which the legendary availability of Trieste merchants is well described.

 

Before returning to the bright colors, we cross the chromatic bridge that this marvel offers us quilt by Daphne Taylor.
You teach us three things:
1 – Quilting makes the quilt (trad. Only the quilting gives life to a quilt).
2 – Respecting tradition does not mean staying still.
3 – Simple and easy are not synonymous.

Let's start with the last point. In essence, it would only be a quilted piece of fabric, with a yellow circle to make a point of optical attraction, niente di più semplice, ma…
But in the meantime it was necessary to choose well where to place that golden yellow circle, not to make it disappear or, al contrario, not to make him become the absolute dictator of composition. And then the chromatic choice, not too marked, not too weak, not pimp but not forced by force, I would define it suspended between light and dark, in a nutshell perfect.
I invite you to observe two details. The first is a small blue strip at the top, which represents the sky, however you want to understand it. It is a door, and through that the eye (and we with him) crosses the border that divides two worlds, understood with the same yardstick as the previous choice.
The second are white rectangles alternating with other grays, on the bottom edge. It is an ideal lure, or rather a personal tribute to him, to the black and white motifs of Italian architecture from Giotto onwards.
E poi, you try to quilt all those concentric circles on the silk, strictly by hand, as if a thin brush were being used instead of a needle (in the way of Giotto). I did two maths, così, a span. A manual quilting was performed on this silk surface almost one meter by one meter wide, in small dots, more than a hundred meters long, and those who are familiar with this technique will already have realized that we are dealing with the result of at least a year of work.
So all of this explains the point 1, that is, without the patient quilting, a process that does not add any color, this wonderful work would not have depth, it would not make sense, it would have no life.
As far as I can understand of art, I believe that the ideal location for this composition is the International Gallery of Modern Art, a Ca’ Pesaro, next to Klimt and Kandisnky, yet there is nothing more traditional than Daphne Taylor's technique and thought.
She has decided not to betray her Quaker roots, following the scale of values ​​that they indicate, and among those she places simplicity and silence among the first. Consequently, he has chosen to take new expressive paths, but in full respect of its tradition, and he did it with works that are the fruit of infinite patience and devoid of any easy exhibitionism. And so the second point of his teaching also found its raison d'etre.

 

About Kandinsky…
I guess that sort of house arrest we went through a year and a half ago has brought about some changes in your life, and you have probably noticed when the serenity of being able to move freely is important, to be able to do everything that time and strength allow us.
Invece, closed in the house, in that period there are those who devoured tons of books, and if they were cookbooks, then tons of homemade cakes; others anesthetized themselves in front of the television with reruns of Lieutenant Colombo's reruns (Fortunately, at least Inspector Derrick spared us); still others have electrocuted theirs smartphone by dint of texting between friends. Dogs, cats and pigeons have become the best confidants, always available to listen in exchange for treats or a handful of crumbs. Insomma, everything was good to distract the mind from the tragic bulletins that we pursued like waves during a storm at sea.
In green Ireland, during the lockdown Loretta O'Brien achieved this quilt, looking for a point in Kandinsky to anchor oneself so as not to be carried away by discouragement.

 

Paola Zanda has already appeared once in this blog, with a very original and fun group work, a work that I had chosen to conclude my article on the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork of 2016.
Il post It is entitled “I Girasoli“.
This year she had the honor of a solo show, with great works in vivid colors. I hope it doesn't hurt if of all quilt exposed, I chose one that stood for a while’ secluded, however, it is what I found most in agreement with my current state of mind.

In case you want to know more about this talented artist from the Canton of Ticino, I would refer you to the article dedicated to her on the e-zine Art Soft.

 

Who does not miss any color of the palette is Maya Chaimovich, indeed I am sure that if one day they invent new ones she will be the first to use them in patchwork.

It seems incredible how she manages to arrange them without creating dominant color trends and without falling into easy combinations. As in this case where, instead of investigating all the colors that can bring to mind water (illogical operation as the water is actually transparent), she preferred to imagine a solid surface with its strong and contrasting colors that is slowly submerged by the tide, or brutally upset by one tsunami, you choose.

 

This year he was also present in Val d’Argent Quilt Italia, with works carried out for the 25th anniversary of the association.
Among the works on display I soon noticed that of one of mine quilter favorite Italians: Rita Frizzera

And now I will explain the reason for my preference, which goes beyond the simple aesthetic evaluation.
In these ten and more years that I continue to cross some of his works at the exhibitions I visit, I have been able to observe a constant evolution of his style, in which there is a perennial search for new forms and different techniques, from the classic to the more experimental ones.
Unfortunately for her it is a self-defeating attitude, as experimentation is not always well received, and in addition he has to deal with artists who, found their expressive formula, they no longer change it and just perfect it, without risk or jumping in the dark, which is a guarantee of success for them.
Thanks Rita for your courage and generous dedication to textile art.

 

The underlying work is an explosion, but not only of colors and shapes, but also of skill.
Only five years have passed since I first saw one of his quilt, and instead looking at this work, I could swear that more than twice as many have passed.

Badate, it's not just the manual skills that count, but also the compositional choice. In your case, you decided that the vegetable and mineral world had to merge, pollute, support each other. The leaves and the suggested floral shape rest on a bed of colorful geodes, it almost seems that life is born directly from crystals.
Unreal and beautiful like a dream.

 

Nel 2018 A new association was born in the world of textile art
His name is TEXNET2, and scrolling a bit’ of names I would say that it looks promising. Come si dice, if they're roses they'll bloom, anche se, we know it well, the rose is like the patchwork, it has its beautiful thorns…

 

And who of us has never left home on a boat for a year and a half trip to Trinidad and Tobago? Beh, Linda Anderson did it, but then she got a taste for traveling and only returned to her California ten years later.
I allow you to envy her.
But she has treasured her decades of experience, and since she seems to get along pretty well with drawing and sewing, has decided to go beyond banal albums of memories, creating works of great impact with the fabric, both dimensional and artistic.
His message is clear enough, or that, tutto sommato, human experiences are similar across the planet, only the backdrop and stage costumes change, as, parole sue, a thread runs through us all.

I like to think she's going “memory”, that is, that it does not limit itself to transposing a photograph onto fabric. In this way she can distill the pure sensation experienced in a transcendent moment that surpassed the visual experience.
Look at the work above, intitolata “Spellbound” (trad. “Enchanted”). It would be superficial to assume that it refers to the artist's state of mind, there are no aesthetic prerequisites. Instead, the woman at the center of the composition is enchanted, physically present but mentally busy with her thoughts, carried away by a dream, from a worry, from a nostalgia, from a love (click on the image to enlarge it).
If Linda had only been there to take a picture, that woman could never have shown that expression “enchanted”, it would have been distracted by the technological event, and at that juncture “alien”.

 

Since we are around the world, we go down for a moment in a country that despite being very far away, in the state I would say almost unattainable, it is very present in our imagination, and it has been for at least two decades.

I could easily surmise that if I say the word Afghanistan you only think of misfortunes, violence and misery, and maybe you wouldn't even be so wrong since the tragedy of that land has been well described in the book by Siba Shakib “Afghanistan, where God comes only to cry”, or in the movie “Osama” (Consequently, he has chosen to take new expressive paths 2004).
As has happened in the past, that region was again devastated by armed armies, and the civilian population was crushed between a rock and a hard place. Not everyone, however, remained indifferent or morbidly curious in the face of that tragedy.
The Deutsche-Afghanische association has been present in Val d’Argent for some years (D.A.I.), established in Freiburg im Breisgau to offer concrete help to the Afghan population, especially in rural areas. The association was not limited to emergency interventions, on the contrary, it has created a corollary of socio-cultural self-help initiatives, promoting reconstruction and economic development projects.
It would not be necessary to add that the utmost attention has been paid to the condition of women, both as a process of personal evolution and as a recognizable support to the meager family budget. To try to connect the culture of Afghanistan with the rest of the world, Pascale Goldenberg, one of the souls of the association, periodically organizes exhibitions in which the embroideries made by Afghan women are exhibited, small jobs that can be purchased to help the authors, and also works made by four hands together with German textile artists.

The titles of the works are quite explanatory.
“understanding” it means understanding, and we should ask ourselves what it really means to understand, because that's not enough “understand”, too rational a process, it is necessary “make ours” a concept, or to evaluate it as if we had developed it ourselves.
“hOpe” it is a hope, a very delicate plant that must be supported by many industrious hands, and it was not by chance that medical gloves were used. However, the meaning is twofold as the word Ope in the Pashto language is connected to the action of opening, and being there chronically inorganic assistance to the wounded and sick, it could be understood that those hands hold the door of hope open.
Unfortunately, I fear for the future of these initiatives, as the news that manages to arrive here tells of a brutal repression against every aspect of civil coexistence and freedom of thought, with a particular fury against all forms of female emancipation.
Evidently religious fundamentalism does the same damage as alcohol: kills neurons.

 

There is little to do, I have a certain eye.
It was in “far” 2013 when in Prague an opera particularly moved me, indeed I called it hypnotic (qui there is evidence), and then its glacier “Trace Aletsch” it was one of the best works of the edition 2019 (vedere qui).
Now I find Isabelle Wiessler in Alsace with something even more spectacular.

I already know, the purists will turn up their noses, indeed, if they could, they would set fire to this work, as was once used for heretics.
Everything is missing, miss the batting, the quilting is missing, there is no measurable form, understandable, acceptable, but there is everything else, il colore, the dynamics, lo spazio, the expressive force, l’enigma, in short words, the art.

 

It goes without saying that going to Carrefour Européen du Patchwork is like entering a large ice cream parlor, there are all possible tastes, and therefore even those who love classical compositions have something to satisfy themselves.

Come, per esempio, with this job “monumental” by Martine Crabe-Lanux, which loves to faithfully reproduce the motifs of more than a century ago. The dimensions were such that I struggled a little’ to be able to capture it well with my camera.

The works of Sue Ross were exhibited in the Villa Burrus in Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines.

We stay a little longer’ on the patchwork formal.

From previous editions, I recall that the exhibitions in the Saint-Joseph-Travailleur church in Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines were somewhat’ slaughtered, in the sense that being the location quite decentralized they had fewer visitors, and also the works exhibited, albeit beautiful, boasted less appeal.
This year, however, was a great surprise, in the sense that Gabrielle Paquin brought gods there patchwork of superlative workmanship.

Niente da fare, la classe non è acqua, in his case it is a Taittinger del 2002.
His works are there to demonstrate that when the sense of color and harmony are well present, the other aspects concerning geometry and accuracy are not cloying, on the contrary, they contribute to enhancing the artistic choice.
Observe in detail the care with which she assembles the fabrics. It's not just about cutting and joining with precision, she selects every single fabric according to the final result, in the sense that even the printed motif perfectly matches the geometric figure.
But don't think that Gabrielle is just a skilled textile mosaicist, as over the years I have also had the opportunity to admire freer works, in which, however, he managed to impose a structure of “cluster” in figurative representations.

 

There are people who have a particular talent, and that of Sue de Vanny allows her to capture images so as not to let them escape anymore. It does this through painting, the photography, and as you can see below also with the fabric.

The genesis of this work is a bit’ side.
She was on vacation in South Africa, and in Cape Town his hotel room overlooked the Victoria and Albert harbor. As an excellent photographer she has captured that particular image, and then at home he made this magnificent textile work.
Think, two and a half weeks in South Africa, and hundreds of photographs of breathtaking landscapes, of wild animals in freedom, and all those exotic aspects that can be encountered from Kruger Park to the Cape of Good Hope, she fell in love with that photo there.
If you want to know more, go and watch this video below, and you will be able to better appreciate Sue's ability.
One thing struck me in the clip, the phrase with which she confessed that she would never have thought of winning a prize. She…
This attitude should make you think more than a few quilter that I know.

 

Nuno Silk Felting, this is the name of the technique used by Laurine Malengreau for this work that, in my opinion, there would have been a great time in the competition “Savage” instead of tigers, leoni, panthers, birds and little birds.
Wild is the composition, e, without being too recognizable, recalls the fur of some indomitable animal, even if in truth the title refers to Fengshui.
You are not limited to compositions limited in size, but he also creates works of great impact that can cover an entire wall, so it could be said that in Val d’Argent you have brought us a small taste of your skills.

 

Not just fabric for this work by Stephanie Shore, but rice paper was also used, call washi, obviously not the food one of the spring rolls.
The refined play of weft and overlap underlined by an effective contour quilting is not completely perceptible in the photo, therefore the solution remains one and only one: go to exhibitions.

 

Caroline Higgs is also a globetrotter, and she too is attracted to unlikely and less spectacular subjects than what she happens to come across in her travels.
He noticed this old window while walking in the woods around Cherveux, a village in Aquitaine where there is a large medieval castle that belonged to the Lusignano family (sì, precisely those of the Crusades), and did not let it escape.

 

Surya is a Hindu deity who represents the Indian equivalent of the Greek Hḕlios, that is the Sun, and the very word in the center सूर्य stands in Sanskrit for “The supreme light” (it's not that I knew it, I searched on Wikipedia).

All this sunshine is good for me to shed light on a not insignificant executive detail that made me (painfully) notice my photographer /sherpa/webmaster/driving / etc. already a few years ago.
Nel patchwork, as I suppose in other fields of the arts as well (manual or less), there are varying degrees of orthodoxy.
It starts with those who condemn the use of any tool other than scissors and thread, obviously to cut and mend only the recovered fabric. I suppose that this fundamentalism comes to favor domestic lighting by means of an oil lamp.
Machine quilting is already sometimes viewed with suspicion, considered too hasty, or even pointed out as an escape from an alleged manual inability.
Not to mention the contamination with materials other than fabric, and the absence of the dogmatic three layers, or top, batting e backing.
Reluctantly, people came to accept painting on fabric, considering it, in my opinion wrongly, a nobler art form than patchwork.
E va bene, panta rei Heraclitus said, and therefore artistic expression should also adapt to modernity, which requires, I would even say that it requires shorter times from the conception of a work to its complete realization, and I don't see how we too could escape this challenge. But in my opinion there are those who go too far, perhaps trusting in the evidence of the final result and in the inexperience of the observer.
Whoever accompanies me on these trips is a first-rate bastard, always manages to find defects, the copying, the easy means that perhaps escape those who are distracted by the scenic effect. In my post “Il cacciatore” I describe well his perfidious ability to destroy illusions with the same cynicism of one who tells a child that Santa Claus does not exist.
Bene, that is bad, in the sense that he is a highly experienced technician, he had already noticed that some artists used the computer to digitize an image, then they applied one “tassellatura” chromatic with Photoshop or something, or they used it as it was, and finally they had it reproduced on fabric using a large format printer, otherwise known as “plotter“, merely quilting it, obviously by machine, procedure that was also applied for this work (indeed beautiful).
The fact that similar works may even be awarded in competitions makes the whole thing very annoying, and even if the verb “cheating” It's too strong, ungenerous and out of place, after all, in art and in love, everything is allowed (Oh no, the first was war, but sometimes they are the same), at least I would consider it appropriate that those who judge a work should have a pinch of malice.

 

After seeing for the first time a work by Wil Fritsma at the PPM of 2019, I found it in Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines with his personal exhibition “Different Women”.
The subject, it would not be necessary to specify it, is the woman, and the unmistakable female form was inspired by the works of Josepha Brigette.
La silhouette it is almost identical in this series of works, however, the colors and the texture inside the figure change. I understand that you intend to convey the message that even if society tends to classify women according to how they appear, dress, they work and interact, in reality they are all different, and above all different from how you would like to label them.

In addition to the works already known, you brought a series of smaller figures to Val d’Argent, a sort of diaphanous two-dimensional dolls.

 

Dulcis in fundo, let me show you some of Renate Wilde's works.

Che dire? It really seems to be able to touch that water, on the contrary, it is almost feared that it will come out of the picture and take us away into its mysterious and changing world. Even if it were a simple photograph it would be a wonderful image, that you can never get tired of looking at it, now try to think that instead it is about fabric and thread…

Sedetevi, è meglio, trust me.
When you see certain things, you feel like giving up everything to devote yourself to another activity, to something that is light years away from the textile world.
That work was there, waiting patiently, almost blending in with the wall, ready to capture its prey.
I love the “goods side” I was its predestined victim. E infatti…

Crazy, I don't get another adjective. It was just like being on the seashore, and if I tell you I know it as a mountain dweller knows pine needles and cones, you can believe me.
I took courage and asked Renate how she had done that work. His answer was extremely simple: making a mistake and trying again.
Proprio così, she can't boast a curriculum vitae full of advanced courses, artistic supports of various kinds, prestigious teachers, master around the world, she is a self-made one, observing, studying, trying, sbagliando, learning, but look, proprio come me, only that in comparison with it I would like to disappear underground because I am so incapable.
I hope not to offend anyone if I say that, almeno per me, this is the finest work i have seen in 2021 in Val d’Argent.

It's not over.

Go to a wood, in winter, when you are not distracted by the sight of flowers and leaves, and then look up to the sky. Before we get to that, to the clouds and the unlikely sun, you will meet the branches, a disorganized cobweb that is the best witness to the immense effort that those plants have made and continually make to get to the light.

It may be that those branches tell you something, or maybe their stubborn refusal to surrender to the winter cold will give you confidence in a spring that sooner or later has to come.
Just that feeling Renate should have felt, and then she wanted to transform bare branches into a message of hope, camouflaging among them some lines of a poem by Cornelia Elke Schray.

Be patient whispers the land I am sleeping. Find peace whispers the sky I'm here. I will come back whispers the light

be patient the earth whispers I'm sleeping. Find peace the sky whispers I am here. I'll do still return whispers the light.

Ecco, I find these words the most suitable to try to conclude this roundup of textile works.
The light will come back, we have to believe it. Because I want to go back to Sitges, Prague, in Strasbourg, a Labastide-Rouairoux, and go to all those other places that I haven't seen yet, Beaujolais, Karlsruhe, Biarritz, Nantes, Madrid, ecc.

Perhaps you have noticed that, compared to previous editions, fewer images were inserted, ma, as I have already specified above, it wasn't that the exhibits were scarce or uninteresting. It is my fault alone.
Even if I don't even try to justify myself, at least I will try to offer you a plausible explanation (but I already know it will be tough…).
You will have missed lunch or something like that once in a while, that is, to find you with an empty stomach and a killer appetite. Ebbene, it may be that you no longer remember what you ate to satiate yourself, even if it was a three-star Michelin delicacy. It happens because food is attacked by hunger, not for the taste, and the same happens with wine or beer when you are too thirsty.
Ebbene, after two years of abstinence we found ourselves catapulted to the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork, to surprise, because until a week before we didn't even think about going there.
The trip also took place in mode “quick”, compared to our standards of course. So in Alsace we got drunk with that event, and it is already a lot if we have managed to take acceptable photographs and a “light” the works exhibited just enough to report my comments on this blog.
I am more than sure that I have not done my best to document this edition of the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork as befits, but all in all I think I have provided you with a fairly participatory first-hand testimony, at least just enough to get you to take on the trolley and come to Alsace in 2022.
If we're lucky, I will be there.

Some other images from this year's exhibitions can be found on my Flickr page lastoffagiusta2021.
For images from previous years you can go to the Flickr pages lastoffagiusta2019 e lastoffagiusta2013.

E ora, to close, some more photos of our trip, because you don't live alone patchwork.

For those who want to see something more, there would be this short film of our Alsatian excursion, including the tip at the Cité du Train in Mulhuse.
Badate, do not expect who knows, we mounted a bit’ to the garibaldina of the briefs clip shoot with the small car, just to try to take you with us to Val d’Argent, at least for five minutes.
Buon divertimento (forse…)

 

Ringraziamenti

• My sherpa / guide / photographer / webmaster / etc. ancora una volta, sperabilmente non l final.

• Mariarosa, Gisella, Toni and Francesco, for bringing us, supported and endured.

• Jupiter Pluvio, for having worked only when we were in the van.

• Il commesso serbo from La Maison Alsacienne de Biscuiterie di Riquewhir, for your kind gift.

• The Brasserie “Le Central” di Sélestat, for unsurpassed Edelweiss.

• AstraZeneca, for the vaccine that allowed us to return to travel.

• Il “Platzer's bakery & Cafe” di Freiburg im Breisgau, for the first coffee of the morning.

• The European Patchwork, for the perfect organization.

• The restaurant “The Old Tower“ di Sélestat, for dinner like sybarites.

• Our “old” Lumia with its navigation app “Here”, to always find the way.

• Some of the quilters, for spending time with us.

• Il tempo, not to be passed too quickly.

• Lady Luck, for standing always by our side.