Inside the furnace the red mass of the molten glass is bubbling at 1190 centigrade. Moving as light-foot ballet dancers, they pass the bottle between their blowing pipes and then he held it movingly inside the hot center of the furnace until the glass receives the red of the flames. When it becomes hot enough, he begins to dance with turning, rotating, swinging. While he gently expand the mouth of the bottle, later it turns from fiery red to dark green. And at the fire of the furnace the mouth became well-rounded.

The second blowing master (Károly Ferenczy) is wrapping up a piece of molten glass for the next bottle.

At the dead window of the vine cellar there is usually a “pincetok”, a wooden box. The square-formed bottles, filled by either wine, water or brandy, were produced for this wooden box, so they do not clatter on the carriage.

The L-shaped bottle came from the traditional peasant object. Two of them can be rotated into each other, forming a new unity. It is a popular wedding gift nowadays, if requested, initials of the engaged couple are pressed in it.

He himself carves his seal of graphite. His seal ring contains his master’s trademark: a sign of glass in alchemy that is, the combination the cross and the infinity, with his PG initials added.

“In the 13th century the ‘free-blowing’ tecnique was flourishing in Europe. According to investigations, in Hungary the glass industry reached a high level, even earlier than in Venice. In my workshop we use the Scandinavian technique, which developed from the Venetian art. The Venice craftsmanship, the pride of Italy, was based on Middle East traditions.

Later the German industrial trends of more effectivity were spreading in Hungary. Molds were used, what wore away the artistic inspirations and abilities of the blowing masters, being before of esthetically high-level and very sensitive. The free glass blowing renders a much higher glass culture possible.

I was an exchange student in Ireland. I had a great teacher in Dublin. She like that I wanted to work, it is not general for students of my kind. So she cared a lot for my work. Initially I took pains with the language, but they learned quickly, that asking me was not necessary.

She travelled with me around the country. Thanks to her, I met multicolor artistic traditions. Returning home, I started to investigate. One of our common treasures is the “national cup”. It is like two bottoms of similar size were glued together. Difficult to make, but it is one of the most extreme forms of village glass in the world.

“The last interesting example of the Art Noveau style would be the dining room designed by the famous painter, Rippl-Rónai to count Andrássy. Rippl-Rónai’s endeavors of total art preceeded the Art-deco style. While he turned to the tableware and to the glasses, designing probably bored him, because the dimensions are incorrect on his drawings. We do not know why he did not finish the design. We had many experiments until these glasses and pitchers were ready, waving in a mood of the master’s will.”

Next door to his house is the village pub. From the workshop there is a secret path, across the backyard and the garden, to the pub’s taproom. Tasting the fine cold beer, we can finally talk on the glasses, on the cultural heritages, on the local languages. Then it comes, what is usual among the people: the football…

22/9/2011 Révfülöp

Read more:
www.fenybanya.hu

„Yes, shoes can have erotic content.“ -twisting the spiral-curled leather lace with mysterous smiles. Do not ask more, the gesture indicates enough. Many reported opinions on the emotional connection between a shoe and its wearer.Elements of arts and sculptures can tell us more about this subject.                                                                                             .

„I graduated at the Academy of Craft and Design in 1987. My diploma works of baroque-rococo style caused no little consternation, for the trendy style was the post-modern one that time. I was fascinated that the masters of the baroque-rococo era had so brillantly applied tecnical novelties.“ Her plans for lifelong career lasted no long time. Export-oriented domestic shoe producing companies, high-esteemed that time, were swept out by the economic changes.

For me, designing a shoe means maximal pleasure, happiness, freedom, and discovery. I put a piece of marabu flock inside the shoe, imaging how it would tickle me when getting into…

There is a leather museum (Schuhe und Ledermuseum) in Offenbach, Germany. I was allowed to present my Curly Series there in 2002. This camara exhibition had a great effect, news spreaded on my shoe-sculptures. Thanks to dr. Rosita Nenno, the curator of the Museum, invitation arrived from Bremen, Mainz, Herne, and (in 2006) the German Shoe Design Award for first place in Pirmasens.

I made 107 shoes so far, 40 of them were displayed all around the world. The model „Little virgin“ was a front-page piece in Barcelona. I am not able to sell this and the „Dragon“. I will not sell these even for collectors.

The outside colour set is always a conscious choice, but the interior is random and accidental. It is a great fun. Every detail of a shoe is exciting. Even the sole is a buzz, maybe a puzzle. A little piece of rubber inserted in it — why not? The walk would be safer. When the skin slicks below our foot, we really feel: this shoe is poured on us.

Who is on my mind? I think to female idols, strong characters, challengers, as Iris Apfel, Peggy Guggenheim, Diana Vreeland, or Irén Psota. I never dared to approach the actress, even if the models in my diploma work were inspired by her personality.

I use mostly fine goat skin, glazed kid, and soft calf leather. These shoe sculptures are not for wearing, these are for developing the formal models of the design. I have one last only, for the size of myself. If even taking into account the special heels, to produce a whole marketable series of boot-crimps you must invest serious money. And there is no word on the handwork demand of the uppers, for which I myself have no much patience.

With some gaps, I design my shoes twenty years. I became steady. My playful, rebellious era is outgrown. I understood today that the less is more. I make sketches on slips of paper, and only then I work the details out by the computer. After years of experience, I do know you need a well-positioned red stripe only. Or, why not the left and right shoes can be asymmetrical? Perhaps the pair can make a picture?

For myself, I hunt the good quality materials on sale. Finding a good piece, I buy more colours. I cannot resist to a nubuck leather of velvety touch. I have perhaps a thirty pairs of shoes… Well, you are right, perhaps more…”

13/9/2011 Budapest

http://members.chello.hu/attalai.zita/

My grandfather was a peasant. Lean, tall, silent. He loved the beautiful things, once he exchanged a cartful of hay to this big butella. Grandma was angry, of course. I am crazy for butellas, as well! I could go into a wet cellar to draw a nice piece, jumping from brick to brick. I had some very romantic collector journeys, later continuing and completing at the ceramic collection of the Ethnographical Museum. .

At the farm I had a wonderful life, where the cooperative moved a workshop of blacksmiths and wheelwrights. Waking up at dawn, all day I was busy playing with games invented by me. Later I was charged to guard the piglets, to prevent them to go to the cornfield. In my pocket I brought paperback classics. The piglets are sophisticated and diligent animals, when they observed that I immersed in reading, they run into the prohibited corn. For this reason I used to say jokingly that I have got my education next to the pigs.

We had a fairly nice homestead. It was an old concert piano in the room. Recollection of our last high-school party is attached to it. Classmates visited us, my father played the piano, singing with his excellent baritone organ, oil lamps gave the light; it was a great party.

To avoid having to walk far to the village school, they sent me to Mezőtúr, to my grandmother. I was crippled not to live in our homestead. I missed all the animals, the trees, the song of larks. I started to work with clay there in the quietness of the farm. At high school, I learnt to use potter wheel. My first vocational school was at the Potters’ House in Mezőtúr, where I graduated as skilled worker.

When we moved to Veresegyháza, it was a quiet place. Many comely artists have lived here. Almost it is the only place in our country, where we obtain orders for public institutions. Even my recent work is the ceramic decoration of the new Protestant school.

In design I am instinctive rather than rational. The work is often like a meditation. Literatures, audio books, a piece of my radio play collection help me a lot. I am always listening to these when working.

Since my childhood I have fun to imagine pictures of formless patches. Based on the spots of the ceiling above my studio bed, my drawing “Mary and Christ” came into being in this way.

Her workshop is extended to the garden. Here is a ‘raku’ kiln, to apply a firing method for specific colour scheme. When taking out the burning-hot glazed object, we cool it down covered by soil. The particular colours are created in this way. This firing procedure was invented by the Japanese, producing pots for the tea ceremony. Today it is known and practiced by ceramists all over the world.

Her real hobby is pond construction and gardening. She can always manage to steal some hours from work. Some of her girlfriends were “infected” with this passion, then she needed to help them dreaming pond and rippling traces.

8/9/2011 Veresegyház

“I began photographing early, looking mainly for details, minimal surfaces. I was interested neither in large spaces nor people. My grandparents were chemical engineers, perhaps I inherited my affection for geometry and shapes in this way. Even in the “stone age” they gave me a rattling computer as a present

No games were installed, but I enjoyed the drawing programs. I soon learned to write programs. Due to the family video filming, perhaps, his attention was not engaged by the static things but everything what moving. “I was excited by the animation, if there is no written story, but the movement is effected by external factors. The videomorphic installation generates an illusion, as if the audience swims in the room. I began to project these in parties first. I succeeded to enter the university not to the animation major but to the video one.

We met at the University, at the Department of Media Design. His diploma work is in a safe corner. This interactive sculpture is actually a sensitive totem pole. When a spectator approaching, the sensors launch the digital motors, opening and closing the paper fans as petals. The wicker braid is a tribute to the memory of his father, a sculptor.

When he was a third-year student, he already taught his computer experiments. “It is usual to talk on new media. The subject is the technology itself. We need to consider its feature in the same way, as for any other material, as for stone or wood. The surprises and the failures of the subject, and the accidents are part of the creation. Those painting feel different atmosphere, but here I did not give brush in the hands of the students but digital pencil and tablet-monitor.

The University provides artistic perspective. For the self-expression you need to seek, where you can work in this employee-based world. The media of reception is shaping. The art project of the Pannon headquarters was programmed for three years: the pictural changes of the optical frieze, placed in the huge lobby, are generated by different physical parameters, for example, the weather changes.

Telenor office building (photo by Molnár Ágnes )

Shanghai World Expo. The Hungarian pavilion has got a good press. Apart from the successful introduction of the “Gömböc”, it was not reported what the visitors felt inside the auditive and visual space providing strange experience, changing according to the state of the indoor atmosphere.

One thing is certain: young people start to understand what they want. It is not enough for the human being to see and hear what is fabricated for him. The multi-touch table and the beat-box are present. Imagine a music desk, what is basically a tablet monitor, where we can pluck string instruments with the touch of our fingers, and we can beat the drums to our mood.

“There is no limit of imagination! You are together with your friends, sitting around a table representing the latest technological refinery. Talking quietly, but rather listening. While watching the beautiful white peebles, tranquility is extending. Growing dark slowly, peebles start to light. Thoughts are released. Suddenly something moves, immediately it turns bright, everything becomes white, and the peebles disappear. Latecomers arrived abruptly…” This was the first show. A voice said: “ Do not move! It was so magical!”

17/8/2011 Budapest

In the Hunter Hall of the Hungarian Parliament the world’s elite is bustling. Receptions of Heads of State, protocol-governed events are every day. Dinners, lunches, delicate food, ruby red vines in the glasses. But the traces of these rich events remained on the surface of the rich, exclusive carpet. “It was worn and so blurry, impossible to restore at all, so we needed to re-weave it. My task was to instruct and supervise the works of expert wove women of traditional workshop in SW Hungary that the hand-knotted carpet of more than 200m2 must be from the same wool as the original and with the same density and colors.

The research on textile history is a mixture of the protection of historic buildings, architecture, and painting. What is more: a rare passion to recall and reproduce of the old masters’ knowledge by understanding their practice.

A friend of my father brought me to the Sopron Carpet Factory to take a fancy. Working at the machines in three shifts, I made punch cards, I learned all techniques, even the weaving of Epinglé and Frieze upholstery, what everybody hates. Boring and ugly. These were fashionable hundred years ago. At the Academy of Crafts I attained to learn hand–weaving. When graduated, the domestic textile industry was centralized, so I entered to the central design department of Latex Co in Budapest. When the company was divided, instead of the Sopron plant I remained in the Szombathely unit, where more design opportunity was given. In Sopron, they called me traitor.

Munkám volt bőven: szőnyeg, bútorszövet, takaró, faliszőnyeg. A gyári sorozatok előtt három méteres próbadarabokat készültek a mintázó üzemben.“ Bedobozolva több évtized hazai textil divatja, köztük a Miró és William Morris ihlette sorozat. A történetkutatási érdeklődés egyik elismerése, a weimari Liszt ház Bauhaus szöveteinek újabb rekonstrukciója. Az elsőt Pécsi László készítette. A technológiák, lyukkártyák elvesztek.

A gépi perzsáknál két szőnyeget szőnek egyszerre egymással szemben, már a szövőgép kettőbe nyírja. Egy szőnyeg esztétikai minőségét abból lehet megítélni, hogy a kompozíció pozitív formáinak ritmusa, milyen negatívot vág ki, ez együtt hogyan alkot színharmóniát. A bútorszövetnél a szabás miatt a forgathatóság is cél lehet, ezért találkozunk sokszor apró mintával. A kézi szövőknél ez az olló a csúcsszerszám.

89-ben megjelent az első számítógép. Pianinó nagyságú volt, lassú. Minden magára adó szövőgyár vásárolt, de a státusz-szimbólumnak számító, cocom listás kompjuterek egyike se volt kompatibilis a másikkal. Egy még működik a Kőszegi Bútorszövetgyárban.

„Húsz éve a közös gobelin munkákon kívül főleg magamnak dolgozom. Szőnyegszövő állványon kísérletezem ógobelin felületekkel, különböző göbös hatásokkal. Kozmikus tájba illő a szem sárga foltjának mikroszkópikus metszete.

A franciák a kárpitot függőleges vagy vizszintes szövőszéken, többnyire fonákról szőttek, így a fonalak elől lógtak. Tükörből nézték a mintakartont és amit szőttek. A vízszintes, fekvő szövőszéken színén szőni szinte lehetetlen, a hátra dugott szálakat kell kotorászni.

Ha egy zongora és egy trón szék a színpadon van, akkor azok szerepet is kapnak. Higgyük csak el, az Aurum és Argentum nevet viselő díjnyertes szőttesek középkori hangutához jól passzolnak a vadnyugati dallamok, csak a megfelelő személy kell hozzá!

15/8/2011 Budapest

Elismerések:

Ferenczy Noémi díj

Rózsa Anna díj

“There is a paper museum in Japan. I was invited there, allowing to bring someone with me. My son and myself stood the opposite side of a huge basin, immersing the frame into the slimy, thin pulp. We struggled a lot until we could produce the very thin but incredible strong paper of ours. Five works of different styles, made by five artists of from around the whole world were left to the museum. My object was the asymmetric.

A ten-year-old boy instructed me how to make a kite. I wanted to entertain with this toy my four-year-old son. My first experiment departed in the mud.” Then he made some developments until he published three books on the know-hows. Alas, all of them were sold.

“In general, the balance of the surface-to-weight ratio makes possible the object remaining airborne. The asymmetric kites do have a hidden symmetry, but this symmetry is not visible. The two sides, however, have the same lifting power.

“The perpendicular planes can be opened with hinges of cords. It is my invention. In this way a kite can be posted even to Los Angeles. The buyer, having an eco-house, suffered with his kite for a week before putting together.” Lesson: do not forget the instruction manual.

Turning around the corner, the flute music, sometimes with kakofonic piano and violin passages is lacking. It is a summer holiday at the music school. Wrough iron gate opens, a steep wooden staircase leads to the studio, above the fifth level.

The walls are empty, but not only because being freshly painted. I am not pinning up any works of mine, because it would bother me when starting a new work: I did make this and that before. I am still working on the ground, thought more difficult to to stand up.

“I call my paintings three-dimensional conceptual costructions, capable to fly.” This way an idea can fly away, literally! He works with lightweight tracing paper. The silk is stronger, but he does not like to paint it, using it only for reinforcing the paper. To reinforce, molten plastic foil or glued thread mesh are used as well.

“A kite can delight the others until undamaged, but we humans are not eternal things as well. It was unthinkable for me, that one of my kites caused a problem for the antiterrorist unit in a museum. They made the precautions concerning to the visit of a public dignitary, and they thought the kite hanging in the great hall would be dangerous to the people walking below. They put here and there the light and delicate structure until it was broken.

The people look at the artistic objects differently. In a little village of Eastern Hungary, Told, the kite is unknown. “I was called there by Ms. Ritók of the ‘Igazgyöngy Alapítvány’ (Pearl Foundation). This foundation works on the artistic development of six hundred, extremely poor children living in defenceless. The children chose a theme, then they painted it. For these girls and boys no need to talk about the complementary colors, they know by heart and roots. They honoured best this picture, with the two yellow hands. The abstract art is serious for them. And, we were able even to fly the kites at the football field!”

15/8/2011 Budapest

“I think the painting is not a picture puzzle! The artist paints the gestures and lines by intuition, and there is no need to decipher everything. My pictures are a kind of totems, signal sources. Not necessarily readable ones, rather primary signals, having meanings at the moment of the painting. The artist creates his own myths using colors, forms and signs.”                                                  .

All around pictures, sometimes covering each other gently, rich colors, studio atmosphere. His genre is the flat plastic art, in other words, statuesque images built of monochrome ways. This is a synthetic world, where the space is not painted, but arises from the use of the material. An ancient wall, showing rune-like patterns.

“I make collages from my drafts, using to produce my paintings later. Often, I have included a picture in picture; sometimes details are highlighted with gold foil.

Remaining some pieces of canvas, these leftovers are applied to my paintings, cut into stripes. It may become the part of the composition. I use coarse sackcloth as well.

I mix sand with paint to produce a special background, what you can etch, plaster, and stamp. The sand makes the brillance of the paint to blend; the paint become more flat, more pastel-hued. If I want to produce a very hot colour, oil or bitumen is used. My pictures are made of mixed technique, I use everything from collage to the terra-cotta and graphitic pastes.

I like sealing even more. I usually prepare my seals of wood, linoleum, Styrofoam, any different materials. I found old wooden seals even in the second-hand market. It is a rarity, probably they used to seal grain sacks. Its best use is on handmade paper.

Familiar African elements: sand, dryed bull’s heads, fired totems. The etchings, stratched on surfaces resembling on fissurized dried soil or crumbling plaster, have a special message. “ I am inspired by the African culture. They produce works of elementary power, they portrait the environment with incredible simplicity, they use natural materials in displaying.”

He works mainly for exhibitions, preparing new objects for any occasion. The themes need systematic thinking. “When painting, I must transfer my inside energy, I have to apply it into the picture, that the picture should tell it to the wiever later.”

1/8/2011 Budapest

Aktuális

“The glass is fragile, like life. It must be treated like a lion: with courage, with strength, with firmness. There is no place to hurry. We know where to grab, how to put here and there, how to load in and out of the car. The glass rarely cut our hands. We never broke even a tumbler. “Cliiink… party freezing, the pen hit a blown slender glass! It sings with crystal tone. In moments, a five-piece percussion band can be organized: we are five to sip fruit juice at this summer afternoon.

“I tried almost everything with the glass. The basic style is classical, only the technique is new. I learned a lot from my father. He was a sculptor, created figurative works. To me, the old masters and the archaic topics are much closer.”

“Freshly graduated, my career started with the restoration of the headquarters of the National Bank of Hungary, being suspended or lying on my stomach at twenty meter height. Because of the curvature of the walls, we put in place the century-old mosaics sometimes half meter apart from the wall. On the steel frame of the forty-square meter glass dome of BB bank, we were walking as spiders. Nowadays I am interesting in the more feminine parts of our expertise.

Encircled by my children, I undertook some works easily interruptible. I can create something while the carrot cake was baked. I cannot crack the glass at home, so, enjoying the understanding patience of my mother, my workshop is at her, for the messy and dirty works.

To make ‘Pate de verre’ is required fine crushed glass (warm glass technique). First, a parish plaster mold is made, copying the clay sculpture or relief. Filling the mold with frit, the crushed glass is fired in a kiln.

“Once everybody made Tiffany, later fusing glass. The ‘industrial art’ (as we call crafts) is fighting unprotected with the global competition, inexplicable by common sense. I cannot afford any technical simplicity, because it can be copied.”

She shows us what we did not see before: sand-blown mirrors, where wispy silver film completes the view of surface pattern. The archaic effect is enhanced by bronze and gold leaf application. That is all, what we may tell on it.

“The glass is accepted as a component of the interior design. “ It is hard to tell what style of somebody. Those living among many books, are sticking their habitual objects, and prefer archaic forms. “

Do the ‘minimal art’, or high-level simplicity really dislike the personality? “ I do not think that the minimalism and the personality exclude each other. No doubt, since the spreading of computers architects rarely draw by hand, a plan can be presented more easily on screen, but it is a hard job to sell a dream of unique glass surface by computers.”

Is it true that the people of fifty –and-so of age take nothing along from their past to a new home? “ Yes, sometimes, but they are happy with a nice quote on the glass door, or with a quiet color spot. I hope my brand-new plan will be a success as well: a glass wall will be illuminated by LEDs. The natural play of the daylight can be recalled at night by computer animation. I can hardly wait to start the playful product…”

1/8/2011 Adyliget

The caltrop grows in some parts of the Tisza river. This aquatic plant has characteristic leaves, and its fruit of typical four-horned form was ground, and they made a type of bread long ago or even today. It is also named water chestnut. The horned and pricking fruit hides in the mud, if you step on it, it really hurts. Had I made a sculpture of original proportions, it would have such a long pin, but it is a form of sacred meaning for me, so its cusps are shorter.             .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       .

I carved from one piece of poplar wood. I needed to deepen the hole inside across a narrow slit. I had to invent some special tools. For artists difficulties are not troubles. On the contrary, it is a great joy: ‘I can make it!’ You can see a tiny point of light in the real depth if the sculpture: it is a slight mirror.”

In the slope of Sashegy, the old house hides in the dense vegetation. “ I grew up in a Kőbánya house with garden. Next door, there were the remnants of a cooper workshop, with axes, saws. I brought a planer from it. We try to have responsibility towards our environment: preserving rainwater, collecting garbage selectively, choosing what we eat. Even I mate the stove here. It is summer now, but we burn the litter in it.”

The lemon-balm tea is delicious. The house is filled with surprises. Above the bed, a heart-garden, made of matchsticks. A camera obscura is at the window, hidden in a drum. Another one is at the workshop, invoking the artistic concept of Géza Samu. “I am a great admirer of him. Staring from the country, he authentically applies the material culture of the village life. My roots are urban, and my parents were engineers. Even so, his work is important to me, it means a parallel inspiration. The old wooden fork makes me remember.”

The never-used broken barrel stave, the 40-pound weight truncated by improper casting, a bag of shoddy pearl buttons found at a doorway received a new life. The title of the flaked sculpture is an Indian dish: ‘sour cream delight’. In the middle of the weight is a hole, a tiny mirror is at the bottom.

“As a sculptor, I am interested in the dimensions.” The grooves on the pleated brass plates are breaking, colour and reverse sides are running parallel. A flattened reed is optically emerging from the space.

“How can a plant live? I am excited by the tranquillity! I am looking for what they have related to the human culture.” A blade of grass can express anything. The letter “V” is a Sanskrit symbol of “Virya”, the masculine life energy itself.

There is no plant without water. Two reed roots reach the imaginary water level. From the middle, a fresh reed is emerging upward. With some magic, a tulip motif of three points comes to life.

„I make an effort to understand my objects.” What is the message of this pike? The mammoth pine pike emerges from the heavy ground, its material was found around the Nagyatád Art Colony. As a cone of a volcano, it could be even the Badacsony. Its basement consists of mud from the nearby Nagyatád creek, covered by limestone powder. A charred wood on the top makes the experience real. „My friend has a copy. He does not dare to dust it, just blows a bit. He tells that nowadays there are two to clean it. When passing the object, his two year old son blows on it a big with the same precaution.

21/7/2011 Budapest

Algeria… the waves are gently drifting to the shore, the sun says goodbye to the ever-gray sea in orange. Women walk cautiously, to the soft touch of their feet the sand responds with sinking sound. The cool evening breeze brings the smell of freedom. Taking off their veils, jewels follow the path of veils. Sand, sea, Kabyle jewels: this is the starting accord of the birth of a sofa.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                .

Third member of the Algerian furniture set, named “Algerian pouffe” is missing since the 2010 Construma exhibition. From the booth of Mapei, it was carried directly by special air cargo to the “I Saloni” in Milan, to the world’s largest design contest. The result: “ I became elected member of the International Association of Contemporary Mosaics – AIMC of Ravenna.”

The shapes and patterns were inspired by the oriental prayer rugs. The scenario of the patchwork is emerging from the environment of variegated lights, as from the palaeooceans: the tree of life, oriental jewelry, mosque windows. The bird of happiness is always solitude, because in its heart is guarding its sweetheart.

“I live under the spell of the material. The luring forms of SICIS mosaics from Ravenna, the Wedi board, faithfully following the soaring thoughts, the softly plastic MAPEI Kerapoxy Design pointer, mixed with glitters, scattering million lights, — these are the raw materials of the design laboratory. The pointer material, apparently a soft textile in its final form, has a lot of hardship, surpassing the imagination. When forming and positioning at vertical facing, you need to harness the material, aiming always downward, according the gravity. This is not an easy task, you need great stamina.”

“The mosaic course students came to copy my little blue elephant with high expectations and enthusiasm. I found a trick to do this work without disappointment. I delineate the contours using Keraflex glue, and then they can fill out the objects with Kerapoxy. The big drive is always ending with a big happiness.”

The pointer grout is to fill the joints between the tiles. She applies the pointer in such quantities as nobody before. She is interesting in the depths, in the essence of things. “My Mother made delicious donuts. She formed the round pieces, while I waited the remaining odd shapes. To my liking, she baked these as well. Since then I know that I am interesting in the ‘inner spaces’. I see everything from the wrong side also; looking out from there what the world is like.”

According to the today’s opinion pampering is a wellness bed for an intimate meditation. “At the bottom part there are the Venice motifs: bridges, arches, the colours of the soft hangings, the glittering of the Carnival. When you lie down, the magic of colours touches you gently, like pollen of a butterfly…I hope the people of the next 200 years would say for the mosaic artists of our time: it is an object as Diti imagined…”

11/7/2011 Budapest

“When walking around the factory, long meters of furniture and clothing wool fabrics are coming down from the weaving machinery, all designed by me. On the streets, people wear the clothes, to which the materials were born in my mind. Indescribable feeling.

At that time I could keep my artistic authority. However, our dealers always came with foreign rags and tatters, our textile engineers could make a perfect technical adaptation…” For the Baja Fine Broadcloth Factory, she designed alone for a long time. As a just graduated! She was one of the 13 designers at the Home Textiles Company.

She needed to deal with those foreign rags as well. Jacquard machines were operated there; these punch card controlled looms were able to weave almost any pattern. Nowadays these are governed by computers. But, the 1990 economic transition swept out the whole Hungarian textile industry. “Nobody even knows where the looms now.. Just before we became unnecessary, an American woman came and asked some patterns rooted in the Hungarian culture. I designed a collection based upon the motifs of the Matthias Church wall-paintings.”

It is hot in the garden. We undertake the risk of sunstroke only to see the silvers and blues of the icicles in the “Winter Garden”. She took five years to work out the many small details.

Returned from Strasbourg, the tapestry is laughing as a water surface. A large-size tapestry “Lights of Europe” was exhibited at the Strasbourg headquarters of the Europe Council. 15 Hungarian creative artists had the opportunity to exhibit 15 small-size objects.

At textile artists, generally, skeins and balls occupy all of the places around. But here embroideries of our mothers and grandmothers are on the walls: the hangings. “I acquired them by free gifts. These are funny parts of our culture, of naïve drawings and clumsy verses.”

Why not rework this topic by new approach? And why not be the central figure a unicorn? The unicorn is an iconic figure now, even if it is not visible, it is there.

Canvas – car cover – road – journey – a great travel: and where is the unicorn? The title leads us not only the world of hangings. “Many do not understand… An art action was organised by the Textile Museum. You could apply with objects made of old covers. I selected a black tarpaulin. I suffered a lot with the holes. Could you see the old-fashioned railway car on it? The message will come from your fantasy…”

“My tapestries depict landscapes. I simplify it until the pure effect of the landscape beauty can be observed, regardless the picture, and until it is clear that this is a textile.

Her small pictures are almost sculptures, the masks depict characters. An instructive story can be connected to a woman with impaired conscience. A U-shaped carpet was ordered around an opulent, four-poster bed of Renaissance style. No carpet needed below the bed, but this had to be invisible. For practical reasons! Said the (crazy) hookum, to make the cleaning easier below the bed. They were not allowed even to meet the customer. It is rumoured that the dogs destroyed the hand-woven wool carpets within two years, and the customer moved out. They did not receive an order for the new place.

6/7/2011 Budapest

Elérhetőség: mutermek@mutermek.hu

“I prepared myself to participate in the “India” exhibition of the Sterling Gallery. After making a ring of cat’s whiskers, I wanted to construct a ring of tiger’s whiskers. Bogi (his wife Boglárka) surprised me at the whiskers. She called the Zoo

They said: ‘You have great luck, had you called us yesterday, we would have said no, but just today we found two files’. It was made of the one, the other file is waiting for being inserted.”

“We live together with my parents. Ever since I can remember, my father is whittling in the basement. The outbuilding was weaving plant and metal workshop as well. When Bogi and myself received this place to use, we needed a lot of tools. The stove was bought from the flea market, a familiar master gave us this turning lathe, and hammers arrived from here and there…”

The equipment of the workshop strongly reflects their many-sided interests. Before the university, he graduated at the “Art and Crafts High School” as apprentice in metalwork (vocational certificate). This workshop was established using experience from there. Thus, for example, they have a classic Brett-Guard table saw. Using this device, it is easier to work with straight back, and collecting the metal filing.

For casting with lost-wax technique you need a wax injector. For a son of a devoted do-it-yourself family it is not a big problem to recycle a gas boiler thermostat, and producing this important tool. Bogi created her “gopher”ring using this injector.

“We learned object creative arts. During my Dutch fellowship I made this “Dino” chair. I could hardly go out to the streets being asked: “Where can we buy this?” Really: this is the question, where could I make it manufactured?

This pepper mill grinds in several grades. Not only practical, but it can become a table decoration as well. We would like to see it on our dining table!

We walking around the house, and then out to the yard. “Grandma planted not only pine-trees with passion, but gourd as well. From this, I made a rebec first (the ancient violin), then a Saxon lyra. The walnut was produced with a little sculpturing.”

In the garden there is a shed, under construction. It hides the old anvil of 100 kg around. The steel knife was made on it, using Damascus technics and youthful devotion. To produce a blade by forging layers is the grand test of the craftsmanship.

On the grass there is the model of the play-sculpture Dragon, diploma work of Bogi. “The Dragon is a frequent motif of the Gypsy tales. In a small village, Bódvalenke, we made the replica of this form, helped by the local Gypsy people. Its skeleton was made by traditional basket weaving techniques.”

The afternoon passes away, turning cool. “Do you really want to see the metal casting? “ We can hardly wait to this moment at the workshop of akchemist’s atmosphere; this is the highlight of our visit!

22/6/2011 Budapest

Read more:

www.imreiboglarka.com

www.szilosa.blogspot.com