Spring returns with longer hours of light - the golden wings in the beautiful leather panel by Jorge Centofantiseem to take flight again, sparking new ideas and awakening tangible ones after a long hibernation ....
Illumination Series - Tapis Lumière - Light Rug (Guadameci)
This panel within the Centofanti Illumination series encourages and inspires to resume work on my project Timbuctoo (also see: Tahir Shah) which I started the day I bought the panel in August 2010. Some things just take time.
If Guadameci is an art you are not familiar with please read about it in this article on The Art of Leather. You might be as thrilled as I was - to discover an ancient art and some of the very few artists who are still engaged in creating leather art - how lucky can one get.
Our move from the vast and sparsely populated French Midi to mega-city Berlin requires a period of
adaptation. Life in a beautiful place came to an end and is missed
tremendously. Luckily, it is not material possessions we miss. It is friends one cannot easily visit any longer, it is my country cat Howard
who did find a new home but is missed every day, and there is le
Lauragais landscape, the infinite fields, wide horizons, Pyrenees mountains, the Montagne Noir, and the sky with sunrises and sunsets beautiful beyond description - all of this having been the main reasons for
living in that part of France for almost two decades.
Timbuctoo - adding new circles
In many ways we are lucky to have found a true home and friends in so many places,
be it in Germany, the UK, the United States or in France - so I would like
to belief that we will feel at home again someday in this big city of
Berlin. I am slowly picking up my threads again in the truest sense of the word, getting my
yarn stash organized and continuing dormant projects. The cowl Timbuctoohas made a few steps forward - moving along the road to Timbuctoo inch by inch so to speak. As one
says, the path is the goal. And who says one has to hurry knitting ...
This is the last part of ART TEXTILE BERLIN - highlighting a few more artists participating in the exposition in Berlin. The vast array of arts kept the visitor almost spellbound - each room held new surprises, affording lovely insights into old and new crafts and creations. Click here to see all four blog posts on ART TEXTILE BERLIN.
Two more works by Eva Lippert- showcasing her art in a glass cabinet. Such lovely gatherings of materials, be it beads or buttons, yarns or fleece, an almost transparent precious look at one time, darkly glossy and beautiful the other, combining knitting, crocheting, beading, quilting, weaving, just following the voice of the materials.
Mormon, Anne-Marie
- See more at: http://www.textile-art-berlin.de/teilnehmer/mormon-anne-marie#sthash.pdtXab17.dpuf
Beautiful gathering of sensuous materials
Mormon, Anne-Marie
- See more at: http://www.textile-art-berlin.de/teilnehmer/mormon-anne-marie#sthash.pdtXab17.dpuf
Mormon, Anne-Marie
- See more at: http://www.textile-art-berlin.de/teilnehmer/mormon-anne-marie#sthash.pdtXab17.dpu
See this interesting blog by Tara for excellent pictures of bracelets made with the Wikinger Strickliesel. You can see how the wire is wound and stitched around a stick, its size determinant for the length and diameter, crocheting in the round so to speak.
Jewelry made with Wikinger Strckliesel (spool knitting)
Bracelet made with Wikinger Strickliesel (Bracelet and picture by Tara)
Closing this post with a picture of folded Origami ornaments, bringing bright rainbow colors into the church St. Maria, in Angermünde (Uckermark, Germany). I was thinking of how lucky we are that we are able to live in a safe place and how urgently we need to help those less fortunate.
If you wish you can leave a message via the comment link below or use the e-mail link in left column. Looking for a list of genuinely useful information and tutorials? See this post.
In all colors of the rainbow - Origami in St. Maria (St. Angermünde, Germany)
Yoomchi = Korean Art of Papermaking - Artist Sang Hoon Yang ”Love
Song”, 600x1800m, Joomchi, Wire and handmade Paper. Hanji is strong and
long-lasting traditional Korean paper, made from the inner bark of the
dak (mulberry) tree, famous for its ability to resist fading, even after
1,000 years. This material is popularly used in the fashion industry,
normal life and artwork creation, such as Yoomchi.
There are incredible textile artists found all over the world. This cloister could not be more beautiful, the airiness of the crocheted web countervailing the massive Roman architecture, and somehow reminiscient of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, especially the skeleton of the church made of strings and hung upside down, to be seen in the museum below the church.
Artist TOSHIKO - HORIU " Chiesa Romanica con colonne a crochet"
Geometric crochet impressions of a Roman Cloister. Also see: Cathedral Knitting in this blog.
Jorge Centofanti: In the Illumination Series, this is a detail of the Dome Panel / Coupole I. This is all done freehand, a true master plan is visualized and realized to perfection. Inevitably, intricate lace pattern come to mind.
Below the collar for the Timbuctoo project: An I-Cord Collar with three yarns held together: my own handspun and
madder-dyed silk from eons ago, ribbon tape and alpaca wool. A larger
bead at one end, a button hole worked into the I-cord at the other end. Three rows of crochet, working in a gold and copper colored twisted ribbon.
The beautiful Guadameci panels (see this previous post) created by Jorge Centofanti set an entire process of research in related fields into motion. In his latest exhibition "Illuminations" in Revel, near Carcassonne (France), one can view these highly impressive panels, some of which address Calligraphy. A truly fascinating subject, Calligraphy has held many artists captive and cast a spell on their creative work. Jorge Centofanti created this panel of the Arabic Letter Alif.
From Jorge Centofanti's panels I took to wandering a meandering path through literature, rereading my copy of "The Calligrapher's Secret" by Rafik Schami and very well translated into English by Anthea Bell. This prolific author of many books is a Syrian-German writer and every one of his many booksare well worth reading, highly entertaining and enriching.
From Rafik Schami I took to surfing the net for more information on Arabic writings and cane across the latest book by Tahir Shah, a prolific writer of stories and traveler across many countries and continents. Now living in Casablanca ( Morocco) his fifteen books tell the amazing tales of his travels, and his latest book Timbuctoo will allow the reader to submerge in the incredible account of a young seaman who reached Timbuctoo as the first Christian, was held captive in this fabled city of gold and later reached England, poor and destitute, where he lived to tell his story. The gold of ancient times in fact is the amazing treasure of Sufi history, literature and architecture, the latter two tragically and sadly being destroyed right now.
Tahir Shah's book is available as a very affordable E-bookand, starting 7 July 2012, as a beautiful limited edition hardback, with fold-out maps. It is made for book lovers and since the E-book is so affordable I think I will indulge myself and put that precious hardback edition on the very top of my wishlist.
All this talk and public rave about the fabulous Timbuctoo book raised the urge to put the spirit of adventure into a piece of knitting - true to Jane Thornley's freerange knitting inspirations. On Ravelry, there are even a few Islamic Motif patterns such as from Chris Laning, who generously provides a lovely pattern pdf and even a chart for a pseudo-arabic calligraphy piece.
True to free-form though, I rather wanted translate the colors of Timbuctoo into a freerange piece. The idea was to use Jane Thornley's uninhibited and joyful approach to knitting - let your mind, your yarn and your knitting needles tell you the story and it will take you to magical, unexpected places.
I am visualising a knit with lace sections, leaving peep-holes to raise curiosity while providing a tempting yet veiled view of what lies beyond..... Next stage of this project in this blog post.
