a note from an artist

On Wednesday 15 August I posted an entry about Montse Romagosa and the sculpture she dedicated to the flags for peace project.

Peace and Freedom

Montse was really moved by the response of the readers and on 12 September she sent me a note so that I could post it here. It is only my fault that it has taken me so much longer to do so. I have been feeling poorly and things got disorganized for a while here.

So this is Monte's note for you all:

'I am delighted with the many interesting interpretations of Peace and Freedom. My intention is to recover objects of daily use that have lost their original purpose of being - discarded materials, objects that the passage of time and subsequent deterioration have turned into waste, old pieces of junk, things that have lost their meaning and their value - and to give them new value, a new symbolic and aesthetic significance.'

I hope Montse will forgive my delay and thank you for your warm interest in her work.

peace beyond dates

As Mary Jane wrote in her latest entry, the project for Peace is 'never - ever - over'. The 21 of September is a symbol, not a limit or a compulsory formality. So I hope you won't mind my posting the flags for peace created by our Spanish group 'Roots' today, on the 23rd. They set them flying on Friday, 21 September in the morning and I only got the photographs yesterday.

This is the Medieval stone bridge leading to the Town Hall of Valderrobres, where our ten flags are flying now and till the end of October.

As you can see, hanging the flags required some climbing skills! The intrepid Lilianne Cantó went up the ladder to hang her installation, an Earth globe made from barbed wire with branches of olive tree inside and a foam pigeon holding an olive branch in its beak.

The rest of the flags awaited their turn on the stone floor of La Lonja.

And then everyone got busy...

And the flags came alive...

Birgit Ploessner is a German painter who recently moved to Spain. Her lively blue flag is her first collaboration with our Group.

There is a poem written in German on her flag. I am really sorry that I cannot translate it.

Jordi Ferrer's flag installation depicts the contrast between the opposing forces of Peace and Conflict, symbolized by the white/blue and dark red colours.

Jordi is a graffiti artist, a video artist and a photographer. He was also the one who took these shots and our thanks go out to him through this blog too.

Ángel Vilamajó painted his flag on canvas and he didn't go about it the easy way!

The difference in styles and media speaks of a cheerful, bright dedication to the idea of Peace.

Jordi's dog. Not an artist but sooo peaceful!

Esther Hofmann is a Swiss painter who chose to live in this part of Spain with her husband. Isn't this coexistence of people with different nationalities a sign of peace in itself?

My own flag among the others.

 Silvia Sanmiquel's letter installation. It says 'peace is freedom'.

Francesca Payera's flag with the word 'PAU' on the background. 'Pau' is Catalan for Peace.
Ángel Vilamajó and Francesa Payeras run the beautiful 'Mas Marianets', a country
house and art centre that I blogged about here.

Ana Carreras' deliberately naïve flag, a world of joy and colour.

And the completed installation.

The Medieval building of the Town Hall relates Peace to History, our cultural backgrounds, the passage of time and what we all learn from it.

a white flag for peace

This is my finished flag and I am now excited anew about being part of this project. Today is International Peace Day and I am able to add my tiny grain of sand. I have been going through the entries and I can see that the blog is virtually flying high with them all! Mary Jane, you gave us such a wonderful opportunity, thank you.

After considering a (too) wide range of ideas and possibilities, I decided that fabrics would be my medium and white my colour of choice. My flag is made up by three different fabrics. A hand-woven piece I made with an old toy-loom, a larger piece of white cotton cloth and a shorter backing of white sack cloth, that you can see through the cotton. I used macramé cord to weave the first fabric and a long piece of cord is hanging loosely below the flag itself.

A close-up view of the upper part of the flag. Here you can see the woven fabric better. The white fringe is made up by the loose ends of the warp-threads.

The lower part of the flag, where I added a white twig that is being held in place by a couple of white ribbons. I spent more than 4 hours hand-fraying the edges of the cotton cloth!

Everything was hand-stitched here, I never used a sewing machine. Stitching by hand means spending more time with your work, establishing a long, calm dialogue with it and getting to know its needs and requirements better.

Here you can see the three fabrics better. The sack-cloth can really be seen through the cotton when the flag is hanging in an open space.

Sewing, weaving and working with cloths and fabrics are activities carried out in peace. Traditionally, fabrics were used to dress people and their homes, to protect them from the elements and to keep them warm and wrap them up with love and care. White is a peaceful, serene colour and it is also the colour of truce flags.

I will soon be posting photographs of my flag flying along with other nine flags made by the Spanish group of artists called 'Roots'.

weaving my way to a flag

Hello again from Spain. I am delighted to announce that Autumn seems to be finally here. After four consecutive heat waves in a month and a half - and two previous ones starting in June - the temperatures have gone down, we had some delightful and much needed rain, and I was able to start working on my flag.

After hazily considering and discarding different projects and ideas - a rope ladder included - I decided to use fabrics for my flag. And I started out be weaving a small piece on a toy loom I've had since I was a child. This small piece of fabric only measures 18 x 22 cms (7.2 x 8.8 inches) and it was my first attempt at weaving in decades! I used a three-strand macramé cord, separating the strands and weaving them one by one. My toy loom can weave up to a length of 1,5 mts though (about 5 feet) and my next piece will be quite longer.

I will sew the woven pieces to cotton fabrics and work on the whole. The flag will reveal itself to me in the process, so I don't have the definitive idea in my head yet. That's my usual way of creating, I start a project and let it guide me along. I follow its wishes.

My flag must be finished by 10 September, along with the flags of the other ten participants from the Group 'Roots', so I will soon show you more work. My own and that of the other artists.

Have a lovely week and enjoy the change of season, whatever it may be!

open your heart....

Thank you for the reminder, Mary Jane.

You nudged me to work on the peace flags...

September 21 will be here soon!

I'm recycling windbreaker jackets from a second hand store....such nice, light fabric.

"The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. 

The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace."

-Carlos Santana

-Lela

first flag from Spain

I have been posting from Spain as a member of a group of artists called 'Roots'. However, the first Flag I can show you here was not made by a member of our group at all but by Montse Romagosa, a jewelry designer gone sculptor from Barcelona (230 kms from here). The beautiful photographs were taken by Àlvar Caixal.

Montse visits the area regularly, she has a house here in Beceite, and she liked the idea of the 2012 Project from the very beginning. She is a member of another group of artists called Land Art Associació Catalunya.

So her first contribution to the Flags for Peace Project is placed on the ground, on a piece of land. This piece of sculpture is not very large or heavy and she means to hang it in a public place for 21 September. I'd love it to be near the ten flags of our Group.

The piece is titled 'Peace and Freedom' and it is made with recycled materials, mainly iron and rope. The iron grid represents Freedom.

The same figure placed in a different location. I'm not sure where (I forgot to ask!) but the surroundings look a lot like anywhere around here.

'Peace and Freedom' resting on rows of roof tiles made of clay. I think it's a 'she'. What do you think?

P.S. Mary Jane, I thought this work would appeal to you, I hope it does!

update from Spain

A small update about our group's Flags for Peace activities:

The members of the artists group 'Roots' that are involved in the Flags project met last Friday evening to plan our activities. We met in Ana Carreras' studio and had a nice dinner after the meeting. I took this shot while we were seated at the dinner 'table'. From left to right: Birgit, Esther, Francesca, Angel, Lilianne, Jordi, Monica, Silvia and Ana. I was holding the camera.

We had fun and we also decided the course to follow. We are barely starting to create our flags, so I can't show you any yet. But we did make a definitive decision on how we will fly them. They will all be hanging together from a rope or wooden bar and we will be meeting with representatives of the local institutions to find a public space for them. Some alternatives (pending authorization):

* In the square in front of a fourteenth-century castle
* Near a Medieval stone bridge in Valderrobres (the main village in the area)
* In one of the main streets of Valderrobres

There are 18 villages in Matarranya (an administrative devision comprising a number of municipalities) and we will try to get them all involved, so that the children of each village participate in the project too, creating their own flags for 21 September. It really depends on the teachers in each village to organize workshops for the children for the occasion. Then there would be flags flying in each one of the villages, apart from our own flags. I think it's a wonderful idea and I do hope the teachers will collaborate. This way, the Flags for Peace Project would become a mass event in the area.

I must say the Flags that have already been posted in this blog are really inpired. I love the creativity and open-mindedness in them and the beauty of the resulting works. They make the project even more inspiring.

first set complete

my first set of flags are in the darchor style - or vertically oriented... 

and, yes, they are small!


i used my carvings of the 'om' symbol and an opening lotus blossom to etch metal... i liked the idea of an opening flower here - to me it acknowledges the difficulty we can have being vulnerable... unlike the natural growth of the lotus, we often have to work at being open... i think many of us at times stay tightly bud-like, but the only way to experience and share love and peace fully is to blossom...

there is a lapis drop at the bottom... 


this was interesting for me - while flags are traditionally on fabric, my jewelry/metalworking background clearly guided my decisions... the carvings were first intended to use on a soft material... but i had to try them with etching on copper and brass and am glad i did... 


i really want to tell everyone how pleased and grateful i am for all of the participation, the community that is very present here... by having you signed up already as authors, i get to be just as surprised by the blog posts that regularly appear as everyone else... it's a gift and i thank you! if you aren't already an author and would like to be, please just let me know...