Lovers' stop at Riomaggiore

It is starting to look fixed: we will be spending a good fortnight in Italy also in October. What worries me a bit is that so far I have only managed to scratch the surface of our April journey and soon I’d have lots of new things to tell and show. Well, at least I will have much to think back and keep posting about during the dark and weary winter months ahead.

Let’s start with our visit to Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five coastal villages constituting the fabulous Cinque Terre in Liguria I was posting about some time ago. We wanted to take a romantic walk on the famous Via dell’ Amore, the short pavement-like path that connects it with Manarola and is known for its breathtaking beauty.

So we headed straight to the tourist office through the pedestrian tunnel between the village bay and that of the train station. The cameras were all set, the drinks were packed – but we didn’t get any tickets as even the lovers’ path was closed because of repair work. We couldn’t but skip the vows this time. Judging from the padlocks at the entrance to the path, some of the other travellers hadn’t been as easily discouraged.

We could spot places where the path had completely fallen off also on the cliff between the two bays. Today, I checked the current situation from the Cinque Terre trails page and found that the Via dell’Amore as well as several other paths and trails are still closed because of the damage caused by the torrential rains of October 2011. Kirsty, a fellow blogger, was lucky to walk the path before that. You will find the post on her blog ‘You had me at bonjour’ here.

There is an impressive mural entitled ‘History of men and stone’ by Silvio Benedetto on the wall behind the train station. It’s a pity it had been painted on something like plywood boards so it had already started to decay. Benedetto’s multimaterial mosaic ‘The sequence of memory’ on the wall of the 157-metre tunnel, on the other hand, will stand the test of time, there’s no doubt about that.

Benedetto is an Argentine-born artist of Italian descent. He moved to Italy in the early 1960s when he was in his twenties and has made a career as a painter, sculptor and theatre director in his new homeland. He has been described as the last of the great muralists. We saw another mural by him at the courtyard-like square above the pedestrian tunnel with a view down to the little village bay. His paintings of local everyday life decorate a school building there.

When in Riomaggiore, you will eventually end up at the picturesque cove with the tiny boats and the hills patched with terraced houses rising on both sides. The cove is located at the mouth of a stream running under the main street of the village. Actually, the name of the village derives from what used to be a river called ‘Rivus maior’.

Thanks to the colourful rows of boats and the fishing-related items hanging by the arched stone structures, the lovely cove still maintains something of its former character of a humble fishing port. 

We were so charmed with the multicoloured views it took a while until we noticed there was a professional photo shoot going on by the boats.

The team was shooting accessories – handbags and shoes – and the model had nothing but a rough stone-and-brick bench in a corner by one of the buildings for a changing room. As far from glamorous as you can imagine.

San Giovanni Battista.

Oratorio di Santa Maria Asunta.

Finally, a quick pop into a couple of churches and we were off to new adventures. We will hopefully return to the spectacular region one fine spring or autumn day to explore some of the numerous hiking trails in the National Park for real.

This post completes my series on the Cinque Terre.  The earlier ones were:

Unique man-made landscape (Corniglia)

Hiking with sea views

Riviving Vernazza

Towards Manarola

(We never made it to Monterosso al Mare. Something new to look forward to next time.)

Another plywood board mural by Silvio Benedetto.

Dream-like weaves

What do you think happens when a graphic designer, illustrator and artist who is renowned for his colourful and bold creations – and who has worked for such mega brands as AT&T, Diesel, Issey Miyake, Jennifer Lopez, Lacoste, Levi’s, The New York Times, Nike, Microsoft, Playboy, Swarovski, The Times, Vespa and Wallpaper to mention a few – so what do you think happens when he finds the world of jacquard weaving? He gets completely carried away and it is totally dream-like and ghostly, absolutely hypnopompic* what happens (*associated with the semi-consciousness preceding waking).

Arachne's web.

Hypnopompic is also the title for the exhibition of the Finnish-born, Amsterdam-based Kustaa Saksi unveiling his jacquard weaves at the Korjaamo Galleria in Helsinki. His imaginative, often surrealistic nature-inspired designs have gained international acclaim in recent years. The striking tapestries are no exception.

Arbor vitae.

A few years ago, Kustaa Saksi had his first professional contact with wool when he was invited to design patterns for the Italian knitwear company Gentry Portofino. He got excited about the material and its potential. In fact, he became thrilled to such an extent that for the last one and a half years before the exhibition he kept making the 100-km journey from Amsterdam to the Textile Museum in Tilburg to study the tricks of the jacquard technique. According to his own words, he was on fire when the museum’s old weaving machine finally started to produce his textile designs and he saw them for the first time in three dimensions.

Hiding in plain sight.

The jacquard loom developed by the French Joseph Marie Jacquard at about 1800 was one of the earliest programmable machines and one of the first ones controlled by punched cards, i.e. a sort of an early version of a computer. The loom allows complex mechanically patterned weaves in multiple colours. 

Snowy owl.

The closer you inspect the Snowy owl the more you think you distinguish human or fairytale-like figures.

In addition to different types of wool, Saksi has also used various other sorts of yarn to increase the three-dimensional texture of his creations: cotton, linen, viscose, acrylic, polyamide, even metallic yarn as well as phosphorescent yarn that glows in the dark.

Blood brothers.

Chirp, chirp.

Thanks to the inventive materials, the tapestries are amazingly light compared with the traditional ones we are used to or with almost any other kind of wall-hanging textiles.

In the fish trap.

Herbarium of dreams.

The exhibition also includes a few illusion-like serigraphs printed on black-and-white photos taken by photographer Matti Pyykkö, a friend of Saksi’s.

A numbered edition of six has been weaved of each of the jacquard tapestries and the price tag is €5,400. These are clearly for the venturesome, as a work of art on its own right, as a collector’s item or as a fabulous piece to improve the acoustics. Whichever it is, Saksi’s weaves will certainly be the conversion piece in every space where they are hanged.


PS from Feb 2014: The tapestries will be on display at the Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid from February 6 to March 31, 2014.