TapestOry

Interview with a Painter

My name is Sandra Schoenenstein I am a graphic design student and I am currently living in Santa

Fe. I have this class in the university, it is called Documentary Photography; we have to interview people from the community and take some pictures of them in order to tell their stories. Personally, I love this class, and I take it very seriously. I love to look for interesting people, ask them questions and then let them narrate me their stories. Some days ago I interviewed Mark Wagner, who is a security guard at our university. I had talked to him sometimes and every time he came up with really interesting stories about his travels or experiences in other countries.
As it turns out, Mark is also a painter and he was very excited with the interview. It was a real challenge to shorten the one-hour interview into just two minutes, and also choose 30 pictures out of 400. But it was a really cool experience and Mark and me had a great time listening and telling stories.

“I feel that each one of my paintings is an excercise, is a trial, and at this point in my life, I feel that I learned something” Mark Wagner

#art

Video

Some words and music from a new friend, Luigi

This week I (Sarah) was fortunate to meet Luigi. He is an 85 year old Swiss man who has lived in London for the last 50 plus years and remembers when a whole chicken only cost 25 pence. He loves to play music and he loves to talk. I walked into the room to him playing the piano, and we got talking about where he started playing. Initially he played the piano accordion, which is to this day his favourite instrument and he has a couple at home (not the button accordions, the PIANO accordions!) He can play several instruments (piano included, of which you will see) and is apt and repairing instruments to there original state. He told me one story where he picked up a violin at a second hand shop for £10 and sold it for over £600 after restoring it – it had been made by a famous Italian, which he realised as he could read Italian (as well as knowing Portuguese, German, Spanish, English and Swiss).

Luigi can tell a story that’s for sure, and I was hooked. I told him about TapestOry, and he was interested in it, especially as it is connected in with people around the globe and he was happy for me to share his music and his words.

I asked him about when he started playing music and he told me about how he had been living in Italy in the 2nd World War, and there were occupying forces in the town he was living (near to the Swiss border). Whenever someone would kill a pig for food, and the pig made a noise, the soldiers would know what had happened, and come and take the meat away. So Luigi used to play the Piano accordion at full pelt to drown out the noise of the pig squealing. After the war, him and a friend, used to play in the street. This was at a time when work was hard to come by, and he used to earn a little bit of money and also spread music around the place.

I know I could write much more about Luigi, but I want you to see his music, and the songs he chose (just the old stuff, the new stuff is not so good he feels). I love the history behind his music, which talks so much about his life, as well as giving a slice of unique history. He can only play piano for up to 30 minutes (which he does daily) these days, as he has bad arthritis in his hands, but still he can play his old favourite classics.

If you’ve got a minute, please do write something for Luigi, as we have his address to post back a response document to him.

Photo

a big bright heart beating out colourful tapestories

This is a little piece of sewing I did thinking of TapestOry for the whole time.

Thinking of the stories we have been fortunate to share, and for the many, if not all of them, which in some way touch on love. For the love of family, for children, siblings, grandparents, mothers, elephants, adventure, travel, home, creativity, art, song, stories, and for everything that I haven’t mentioned. The stories of hardship have a theme of love coming through as well.

I also wanted to say how the love of sharing these has made me feel. I am a visual person, and I hope that this piece of sewing can perhaps convey a bit more than words how I feel. It seems to me as though it is the heart of tapestOry pumping connections and stories.

It also comes for the love of my dear friend Katia, who is the other half of the tapestory heart/corazon who is just an absolute love.

I love it all and I love this little project.

Love Sarah

P.D. Click on the image and you will travel to all the love stories that have been shared in the project. Enjoy! :D

#love

Text Living with a little less

Patrick Wundke Martes 14 de Agosto 2012.

Working and playing in community centres and collectives and dance and music workshops over here in Valparaíso (chile) is really making me rethink my attitude towards the reuse of things and the sharing of knowledge. In Australia I clearly fit into the lower income bracket of society and I live there partly by choice preferring to work less and live with less in order to have time to create, dance and be involved in collectives and workshops that for me enrich my life; but I do so within a social support system where I don´t have to worry about falling into homelessness or really being forgotten by a health system (Im talking in the context of global realities) and in the knowledge that if I want to I can go and get work AND that it pays at least $15 an hour but more likely $20+, enough that I can work 10 hours a week and get by if I want.

Video

Hi everyone! We just made this video where we are explaining what’s TapestOry about. Maybe it doesn’t have the best quality o all but it comes from our hearts to you! :D So hope you like it! xxx

Text Meeting Mario

My first encounter with Mario Prado Martinez was through his words and his honesty. With all his heart, he told us his life; from his happiest moments to the ones that tore his soul, which were cured with love words. This moved me. He was still strong and ready to embrace the life that had hurt him so much. He made me feel strong and aware of how we should not cry for the small dramas.

My second encounter with Mario was in Oaxaca, in Taller Tamayo, where he is working and where he met Sarah. His story received a lot of answers (various comments, a drawing and a song) and, since I was going to visit Oaxaca soon, I decided to give him personally the package. Pablo my boyfriend, who made the drawing of his story, went with me to this journey.

We recognized him immediately, thanks to the photo that Sarah took him, and we felt something like an electric current in our chest, because we saw finally someone we already knew so well. He didn’t know who we were and I explained him about our friendship with Sarah and our relation to TapestOry. I expressed him what I felt while reading his story and doing this I experienced something new. I felt a confidence that pushed me to trust him something personal: that I sometimes cry for little dramas and that his words had stirred up my conscience so I can stand up and keep fighting. I’m not sure about what he felt, but I do remember he smiled moved at hearing this, at seeing he could inspire us. He told us that it was important for him to express others the value of keep gong even if it seems impossible, and he inspired me and stirred up my conscience again.

We talk about Sarah and his friendship with her. I ask him about the work she did and he showed me with crystal eyes of nostalgia some little clay statues that hold revolution signs. He invited us when we get back to Oaxaca to his house and to a walk through his town Coyotepec. And among all, we got very excited to discover that he was just as the smile he shares in the photo: radiant.

The warm feeling in my chest lasted for a while, remembering me that I just lived a very special moment. At the end, some words not just took me to a magic encounter, but also started a beautiful friendship.

#written stories #Mario Prado Martinez

Text Beautiful Memories

Translation of Gratos Recuerdos

My name is C. Leticia Martinez, I was born in El Rodezno, Pinal de Amoles, Querétaro, in México, 34 years ago. I’m the 5th of seven brothers, from which we are six alive.

For sure, in that moment El Rodezno was a place frozen in time, and it has been slow it’s advance. El Rodezno is a marginalized community from the town of Pinal de Amoles, Querétaro. It’s a place buried deep between the mountains of La Sierra Gorda Queretana, now declared nature reserve of the Biosphere. My childhood memories of that place are so beautiful and probably my perception of it betrays the reality. However, I’m going to describe you briefly how it was for me: mountains over 1, 500 meters over the sea level, cold weather and very wooded; though there are certain areas intervened by the human hand, with an excessive logging, there is still a predominance of big areas covered by oaks, live oak groves, escobillos, strawberry trees, ailes and aspens, along the plentiful rivers in rain times. There are old abandoned mines of Mercury and Antimony, proof of the prosperity that it had some day, but without any evident benefit for the 40 families scattered in the mountain. There are no roads, just tracks made from the constant passing of the goats, donkeys and sheep, which are the biggest wealth that an habitant could have. The houses are wooden shacks…and radios? We are not talking about television because that is very advanced for what I’m writing…radios, I still remember those made with transistors, and only the people that could buy batteries could have one. The currency was the “peso” but the negotiations were made with the barter. It was common to change corn for avocadoes or beans, and vice verse, etc. Our parents worked from the “jornal” (day’s wages) of the sowing season, because there is no way of having irrigation. There is a lot of water but the terrain it’s so craggy that is impossible to carry it to the sown fields. Drinking water? There’s not, just the water from the well, and so tasty! Direct from the spring or the river! And, electric light? Neither, we lighted ourselves with oil “machines” (a coca cola bottle, or any glass bottle with metallic cap, with a piece of fabric inside to absorb the oil). And telephones: we didn’t know them.

Something very important from my childhood were my toys. Santa Claus and the Wizard Kings didn’t exist…I never had a new doll, but my toys were the swings of the trees, planting seeds that I found, rag dolls made by my mom, or at last, dolls dressed with leaves and bushes…And as this I could go on with plenty experiences.

#written stories #childhood #past

Text The town I love so well

‘Is leor nod don eolach’ - Home is where the heart is.

I have been living away from home for 6 years. I recently enjoyed a longer than usual holiday at home and was filled with an enormous sense of pride and love for my city. One of Wikipedia’s definitions of home is the ‘geographical area in which a person grew up or feels they belong’ and it may relate also to a ‘mental or emotional state of refuge or comfort’. Now my city has had its fair share of difficulties over the years and is continuing to work through these difficulties. There are so many wonderful things going on in my city, and the award of the 2013 UK City of Culture represents that the divisions of the past, are the divisions of the past and that there is a unifying potential for the future. On my trip home there was a festival to celebrate a round the world yacht race stopping off in the city after crossing the Atlantic. There was such a buzz around the city and our Quay was packed like the city has never seen. Derry proved to the international community that it has the potential to host high prestigious events with style. It was the talk of the town for over a week and for weeks after. Walking along the quay I felt a warmth inside me for the place and the people, I recognised a sense of place in me. The notion developed in me that I was of this place and that I would take charge and do something about it. I still live away from home, across the water in Scotland, and I plan to do so for the next few years. But I do hope to return to my city someday to take charge, use the skills I have learnt whilst living away, to benefit my home, and help in this transition towards peace. Bronagh Gallagher, an actress from Derry once said:

‘What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.’

#change #home #written stories #love

Text Pikes ridge

A story by by Ben Grech

Gene liked the street at night. Imitation gas lanterns lit a small circle of light around their base. Fuse boxes and power lines hummed with the excitement of people being home. If you walk down Haywood and take a left on Cartwright you can see right to the edge of town. Right to the place where the mountain curls its fur in the soft moon and listens to the ebb and flow of the waves just beyond. He would take his dog Tasha with him and together they would fight off any dingoes or rabbits or possums that scurried around after dark.

On Gene’s desk was a photo. Gene is on his dad’sshoulders and the boat is behind. Where it isn’t rusted, the hull is pale blue. Even from the dock he could hear it hum and throb. It looked like the boat his father would own; tough and ragged and unstoppable. He remembered so badly wanting to be on it. He remembered his father patting his chest. His mother telling him it was too dangerous.

Gene’s Dad walked with a slouch and moved his limbs with a slow strength as though the air around his arms and legswas as thick and dense as water. He rarely sweat; but when he did you could smell it right through the house. When Gene lay in bed on a Saturday morning and his dad had just come stomping back in through the backdoor after chopping wood or after his run Gene could swear, even though he’s never been on it, he was lying on the bottom of the boat. If he let go ofhimself he could almost feel the ground swaying and his body chasing to catch up.