Hidden qualities

The most enjoyable works are those that speak to me right from the start. Two narrow strips of tapa blinked their holes at me and took me away to where the dreams live. After a day of dreaming and sewing, listening to great music and to my inner voices, a long strip was finished and ready for washing.

I like the stage when the bark is at its most vulnerable, floating in the water like angel’s wings (Ricarda’s description), but also the most beautiful stage. The sun was so bright, even the grid pattern of our screened doors shone into the washing bowl – another lace of a different kind. 

The strip is 7.5 m long and for drying I had to pin it diagonally to my long table where it could just barely fit. The material is so different when it is dry and before it has received a lot of handling... Manipulating it will make it softer again, may even break it in parts. Just like human beings, I think. The change in texture brings up thoughts of the difference between vulnerability and strength, softness and hardness. In this case, both are part of the same thing. But they can only be seen as part of it when it is submitted to different influences. Pretty much like human beings who are soft and vulnerable at times and can be, even prefer to appear, hard and strong. It is so good at times to accept one’s vulnerability, allow ourselves to be soft and give life a chance to remold us. It is also necessary to be strong, bendable perhaps, but unbreakable – if possible.

I let it meander around itself so I can get much of it into one photograph. The meandering tapa-lace strip has an almost architectural quality to it. I think of the balconies and walls in Arabian countries, richly carved into intricate patterns. They use their delicate designs to conceal from view the beauty (or ugliness) that lives behind them, allowing only an undetected glimpse into the reality of the outside world; tempting viewers on both sides to wonder curiously about the concealed.