Weaving my Dreams : Betti takes on a Tapestry course

Next Tuesday I’ll be crowning one of my little dreams: attending a tapestry weaving course.
I postponed this project for many years thinking that such an activity would have suited me only when the hair on my head would have become very gray.

Since I still stubbornly dye them, I thought to anticipate the time and start the course before it was too late.

Many years ago I had attended a mosaic course for a couple of years in the same school, which required a great deal of patience and an endless dedication (both of which were fairly vacant in my case) but I had to stop in order to be able to spend time with my husband Nazim who, in that time, was still living in Miami.

Walking along the long school corridors I tossed the eye in the tapestry class and was blown away: the classroom was tiny and full of stuff, the walls were completely covered with experimental tapestries and the teacher was a short hyperactive and enthusiastic lady that immediately conquered my attention.

Since then I’ve been dreaming of spending some time in that place, doing something completely meaningless (who the hell is going to buy a piece of tapestry nowadays???) but totally free!
A couple of weeks ago my sister Patti came to my place proposing me to attend the same course I had been thinking about for many years.

In the meantime she was also suggesting to see an exhibition at the Palazzo della Triennale ( The Palazzo della Triennale is the museum where since the ‘30s al the exhibition related to architecture and design takes place in Milan) that was showing rugs and tapestries designed by the most famous and peculiar Italian artists of the last 100 years.

The exhibition title was “Weavings of Twentieth Century Tapestries and Carpets of Italian Artists and Manufactures” and it showed 100 unique and rare textiles, from different Italian manufactures in collaboration with the most representative artists, aim to recreate the creative atmosphere that pervaded Italian textile art, during the twentieth century.
Just a few names to make you understand the scope of artist present on the walls: Gianni Dova, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Renato Guttuso, Emilio Tadini, Mario Sironi Renzo Piano; Giacomo Balla, Emanuele Luzzati, Piero Dorazio, , Ettore Sottsass, Gillo Dorfles, George Sowden, Luigi Veronesi, Gianfranco FerroniLucio Fontana and Mario Nigro among others. With enthusiasm, I dragged my husband to the last rooms where we found some beautiful pieces of our friend George Sowden and his lovely companion Natalie du Pasquier (who by way these days is having a major retrospective in Philadelphia).