Hélène Kuhn Ferruzzi with some of her lovely painted textiles at her bottega in Venice on a canal not far from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
https://www.heleneferruzzi.it/
Just before my first visit to Venice in the Spring I saw an article in the Financial Times called Venice mills: fruit of the Loom
As I paint on silks and love textiles I dreamed of visiting.
On our last day in Venice we crossed the shimmering Grand Canal by traghetto, a gondola ferry, to the Dorsodouro area of Venice.
We threaded our way along narrow canals and passageways, lingered at a sunlit square where artists painted to the gentle accompaniment of a baroque lute and made detours into some interesting shops
.....until we finally found Hélène's bottega and were delighted to meet her, see her work and talk with her about what inspires her work. This was an encounter made possible by a shared love of painted textiles and one of the many highlights of the visit.
Hélène works on silk, cotton, linen and velvet and is inspired by the colours and patterns of Venice and her visits to the Alps. as well as block printing she paints the fabrics with geometric shapes, lines like the waves or ripples on the lagoon, bold calligraphic brushstrokes and gold embellishments.
Her works of abstract art become scarves or beautifully made jackets with little covered buttons and pin tucks or take the form of wall hangings or lampshades.
I would echo some poetic words from the FT article, the writer says
That Mandarin jacket lingers in my memory long after I leave the shop. Shall I buy it? Or shall I just bask in the warp and weft of this remarkable city?
When Yeats wrote of the ''heavens' embroided cloths enrought with silver and golden light'', he could have been thinking of Venice.
Or in my case, Hélène's fabrics.
PS In reply to Marilee's question
I didn't buy the jacket but I did bask in
the weft and warp of beautiful Venice for a little longer, on the Grand Canal
then back over the lagoon to collect our cases from our hotel, the Molino
Stucky on the island of Guidecca. We left by Alilaguna as sunset gave way to
darkness then on to the bus station to be whisked through the darkness to the
airport. On my case I had found a book about Venice, left for me as a gift from
Constance, of customer relations at the hotel. What a lovely surprise, I was
glued to it for most of the way back to Gatwick. Another story, maybe for
another post.
