Things to get things done

I am preparing a workshop for those who are tired of watching time go by from the window of a train gone mad; for those who need to slow down, recover dialogue, slowness, manual dexterity, their necessary animality; to get away for a few hours from chaos, depersonalization, uniformity.

Lately I have felt a renewed interest in things not shared with technology that remain within the walls of my home. The typewriter. The journal written in pen, with printed photos stuck on it. The stereo with vinyl records. The paper books. The analog photography. A closer relationship with trees, animals, wild herbs, wood, clay, the fireplace, fixing things; making a lunch or dinner with what’s there.

This need for manuality, for physicality, for rediscovering myself and my memories, is what has led me over the years to create containers encrusted with objects from the past, enclosing small embroideries.

The boxes, made of glass, porcelain, wood, cardboard, tin, are memory capsules, accompanying and explaining in a three-dimensional version the embroidery in gestation inside. Physical, irrefutable witnesses of an emotion, an event, a lapse of time, antidotes to the oblivion to which we are all subjected by media overstimulation, by the surplus of information gone mad.

All of this has convinced me to momentarily set aside my precious solitude and physically meet those who wish to create personal containers that express their identity, feelings and emotions, showing them endless ways to do so and guiding them in making a completely unique object, like a ritual despacho imbued with energy, to draw on as needed.

Five hours on a Saturday, possibly to be repeated over several appointments, during which, at a slow pace, I teach technique, offer inspiration, and distribute objects complementary to what each person may choose to bring with them, and to the topic or emotion they wish to focus on.

I have millions of what I call things to get things done, stored over the years in individual and collective containers, cataloged and kept aside, and all these little things are waiting for someone to express themselves through them.

Each of us, properly guided, can (and should) create a work of art that expresses and whispers who we are, beyond what we show to the world, for one reason or another.