I believe in magic in whatever form it manifests itself, and that those who deviate from it are cut off from a world that, when frequented, invades the head of reality, enlarging and illuminating it by day. When they exist, and are available to anyone, passages such as art, in each of its many forms; passports to a parallel reality, which for those who know and frequent it is more real, vivid and dense than that in which we have been accustomed to immerse ourselves.
For example, the music, different for everyone, instantly clears the present even without having had the benefit of any culture; and with a minimum of study then, combined with an innate sensitivity, a sculpture, an oil painting, an installation, a performance, pierce the veil of everyday life, and open the eyes on their own Narnia, just wanting it.
Now I can say that I am an artist, a title I had never allowed myself, because I didn’t allow what I was to manifest itself in its totality; art always remained a secondary occupation. It took the courage to give space and life to what I was and am, and to put at the stake the infamous, paternal, disillusioned, merciless, and cruel “you study to do a real job, then you can always do art as a hobby”.
A friend who is responsible to help Roman artists to become known suggested that I make something small, that even those who have no way to invest a large sum can jealously guard at home, or carry on their person, in the pocket, inside the jacket, around.
So between February and March I reserved a few days of small embroideries sewn together, encrusted with objects that over time I have accumulated in the box “things for making things”: mother of pearl buttons, steel pins, twigs, metal scraps (old graters, pieces of watering cans, elevator plates), glass tubes, pieces of wood and small gifts from the sea brought by the waves, collected over the years around the world.
I embroidered the signature on business cards made from scraps of fabric, rolled up and closed with a string, and I reinterpreted in a different way an object that has always fascinated me, the scapular. I had fun creating these fabric objects that ask to be touched, lifted, manipulated, unwound, and in return they give back a little tinkling or clattering noise.
I love the idea of multi-sensory art, smelling, tactile, maybe even audible Snatching voices from nature, like the wind, the rain, the sea. Below you see a few of these playful, joyful objects to carry around, keep in a drawer, fasten on your wrist or rest on your nightstand, just like that, just to look at or play with.
I also thought that some of them, the smallest and simplest ones, can be pinned on your coat, or inside a jacket, on your heart, hidden from everyone but yourself, or sewn on other objects you love, we all have precious things just for us, and it’s beautiful to see how everyone takes care of their things. For example, I usually destroy or lose them :-D
I tried to include also the videos I made for instagram, thanks to a precious helper who lent me her hands, but I could not insert them here in the blog, so you can find here the one of safety pins, here that of jingling eyedroppers, here that of mother of pearl buttons, and finally here that of saffron, which in the video was still in progress.
For these small objects I have also created containers; some of them are cardboard boxes on which I have glued a collage of papers, strange objects such as the plate of an elevator found on the street, clippings of old photographs taken with my wonderful Voigtlanbder Vito B, and idle drawings made on the fly when I felt like it.
It’s been a nice interlude that I’ll definitely be picking up again; but in April and May I focused on a couple of much more extensive and complicated items from an embroidery standpoint, which took me a lot of time, and which I’ll try to include here on the blog soon.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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