Artesanía de Galicia - POTSFINK

Twice-yearly publication fromArtesanía de GaliciaNo. 3 June 2009

Foreword - issue 03Through this new issue we intend to turn the magazine Obradoiro de Artesanía [Craft Workshop]into a dual tool for communication, cohesion, development and the promoting of the Galician craftsector. On the one hand – and just as we have proven in two previous issues – this publication functionsas an internal means of communication between the sector and the initiatives that are beingset up from the Economics and Industry Council through the General Directorate of Trade and theGalician Craft and Design Centre Foundation. It is also a swift communication tool within the sector,so that the craftsmen themselves can get to know the work that is being carried out in the country,can have a platform for exhibiting both the contemporary craftwork that is being made in Galiciaand also the relations that this sector holds with other areas such as design, photography, architecture,fashion and art. Indeed, in this third issue we are including an example of the link betweenarts and crafts through the gaze of the director of the Luís Seoane Foundation on the engravings bythe craftswoman Anne Heyvaert.On the other hand it is also a manner of divulging the sector abroad, a way of opening up craftworkthrough different distribution channels. The main one, as it grants greater access, is throughthe web page for Galician Crafts, which up to now allowed one to make a free of charge PDFdownload. In this issue we are introducing the novelty of the possibility of consulting each of thesections of the magazines through a web space of its own, which can be reached through the pagewww.artesaniadegalicia.org so that access may be made available to all those interested in thecontents included in each issue.The other methods of distributing the magazine, which will start from this third issue, will bring itto the tourist establishments throughout Galicia, to the international fairs which have institutionalcraft stands, to the schools and training centres related to craftwork, and, of course, to the shopsthat have adhered to the Galician Crafts brands. In this manner we hope to increase the presenceof our sector both in society and on the markets, and at the same time manage to show the greatpossibilities that craftwork has a sector with a future.As for the contents, we would like to highlight the central role played by the first edition of the GalicianHandicraft Exhibition (MOA), held in February of this year, as well as the strong presenceof the traditional craft techniques that, as has become habitual, occupy an important place in thismagazine. In this sense we should highlight the reportages on two areas of Galicia that are greatlyconnected to tourism: one the one hand Ribeira Sacra, where the weaver Anna Champeney works,and, on the other, Ancares, where the basket-maker Carlos González is carrying out an importanttask of research and recuperation. The work of the clog-maker Alberto Geada, that of the Taxuslathe workshop, the Códice bookbinders and the craft application by Luthiers to current Galicianmusic, are a good example of the combination between innovation and design on traditional craftworkthat is taking place nowadays in Galicia.Finally, this issue also stands out because it binds together two activities that are not usually relatedwith craftwork, such as scenography – which we will know through the hands of the characters andthe sets from the Kukas workshop – and then the making of nets, through a report on the O FeitalNet-makers Association from Malpica. The intention is thus to offer an overview of the heterogeneityof the Galician crafts sector and to stimulate its great possibilities of development in the future.

summary04 Textiles with the Ribeira Sacra official denomination12 Patterns of Life18 Between Wicker and Mego Baskets24 Nets, the Invisible Work30 Gallery40 Opinion46 Makers of Harmony52 At the Heart of theWood58 Prêt à Porter Clogs64 Literature Tailors70 To Duplicate Reality. Anne HeyvaertPublished byDirección Xeral de ComercioConsellería de Economía e IndustriaCoordinated byMaruxa Ledo Arias / María GuerreiroFundación Centro Galego da Artesanía e do DeseñoL25MN Área Central 15707 Santiago de CompostelaTN: 881 999 523 Fax 881 999 170e-mail: prensa.artesania@xunta.eswww.artesaniadegalicia.orgDesign, edition and productiondardo dsdardo@dardo-ds.comPhotographyMiguel Calvo, Marcio Machado, dardo ds andcontributions from the craftsmenTranslationDavid PrescottL.D.: C-4788-2008

Textiles with the RibeiraSacra official denominationFabric surrounds us all throughout our lives. It identifies us culturally and socially.And yet it goes unnoticed, eclipsed by fashion and ephemeral tendencies.Anna Champeney, an English ethnographer, has invested in revitalising a techniquethat is natural to the region but which was about to become forgotten:Galician pile fabric. Although it is not precisely documented, this technique isaround one thousand five hundred years old. Ten years ago she left her life inNorfolk, which is her home in the south of England, and moved to the heart ofRibeira Sacra, to Cristosende, in a house with a view over the River Sil, whereshe makes cloth “with roots”, which release all the strength of the soil and theculture in which they are made.Anna Champeney discovered Os Ancares in 1995 when she was making a study on popularcraft work, where she discovered a bed coverlet made with the technique of Galician pile fabricthat was in a very bad state. “When I touched it in order to take a photograph of it, it cameapart, and I thought, ‘What a nice piece of work and in such a bad state.’” This aroused aninterest that led her to draw up a project exclusively dedicated to these coverlets. “I got the ideathat this is what I wanted to do, to take up a tradition that is about to be lost and give it lifeagain, to resuscitate a tradition”. So this English ethnographer decided to make a halt in herprofessional life and devote herself to textile production in the company of her husband, theCatalan craftsman Lluis Grau, who produces craftwork basket in which he also recovers traditionalGalician basketwork.“What we arepromoting areoriginal works,we want thereto be pride inthis traditionhere in thiscountry”Cristosende, a village on the banks of the River Sil, was the place chosen when almost ten yearsago they started out on an overall project in order to link craftwork with a sustainable rural farmingidea. Here they are not only producing textiles and baskets, but are also preparing a ruraltourism inn which provides the possibility to take training courses in their workshops. And sincethey arrived in Cristosende life in this tranquil village has been changing: visitor numbers grew,particularly coming from abroad and from places that are quite unusual in areas like these. InOctober, for example, a student will be coming from Mauritius.“All of us Galician weavers need to seek a place of our own and make very special products, andone of the ways of doing this is to connect the works to a tradition or to a zone, in my case to RibeiraSacra”. Anna Champeney is aware oft he fact that her works reflect the colours of this land. Not onlythis, she has also taken traditional works from the area, which were the red sacks, and has recuper-

Galician Pile FabricThis technique that Anna Champeney is recuperatingis estimated to be 1,500 years old,even though it is not well documented as it hashardly been researched. It consists of pullingout each bouclé by hand, which makes it verypainstaking work, given that in a small item,like a cushion, there are over 3,000 bouclés.The coverlets were made in bright colours andwere decorated with floral motifs or geometricforms.“At every step in makingated them for usetoday. “I make aline of sacks andlittle sacks, whichare the works inspiredby the redsacks of RibeiraSacra, items thatno one uses anymore to pick chestnuts, which was what theywere used for before. But instead for bread, for garlic, forspices... It is another way of taking a traditional work andgiving it a new life”.the fabrics there is aphilosophy of respect fornature”In her work the sources of inspiration are two very differentiatedones. On the one hand this is the fruit of a reflectiveprocess which is very closely linked to the origin andmeaning of the works. The other is more in keeping with thetechnical production: “It is the textile structure and the designin itself, the crossing of the stitches, the interweaving, theinteraction of the colours, which change in the weaving andaffect perception”. For her, the act of weaving itself only representsa quarter of everything that goes into the process ofmaking. “I always start out by making a drawing on paperand then I go on to make samples, sometimes mistakes, butI always try to do things differently”. The textile drawing hassomething “technical and mathematical” about it, which isbrought into play with the creative part. What she is workingwith now are cloths that crease. “The challenge is to workwith different combinations of threads in order to make clothwith texture, textiles with a great deal of life”.When it is a matter of works made in Galician pile fabric,she tries to explore new uses and different ideas thatare now no longer daily use items, which were those thathave traditionally been made but which, due to their technicalcomplexity, nowadays have very high costs. In this fieldshe makes cushions and is also preparing a collection ofpictures. All of this using a handicraft technique that is asold as Galician pile fabric, which grants an added valueto the works. “I am interested in expressing myself throughthe cloth, thinking of Galician culture, in my experience asa foreigner resident in Galicia, in the passion that I have forthe Galician people, in the history of weaving in”. And sheconcludes, “For me it is a dialogue between myself as anEnglish woman and Galician culture”.Research“The craft of the weaver is one of the most complex ones, becauseas a craftsman you have problems in finding sourcesof good material, you have difficulties at the time of drawingup patterns and selling your work is not always easy”. Indeed,Anna believes that this is why the weaver women thatshe has met have such a strong personality. Like her teacherof Galician pile fabric, Ermelinda Espín, an eighty-year-oldwoman from Lugo from whom she learned the technique thatshe would then research in greater depth. “Between 1995and 1998 I came across a large number of women whoworked on textiles – retired women, their daughters, customers– and little by little I started to understand this traditionbetter, but above all it is the quilts that really teach one

Creative TourismChampeney and Grau propose a different kind of holiday, through creativetourism, an idea that is not yet established in Galicia but which hasmany attractive qualities. The idea is to bring together a leisure stay, suchas a weekend or a week, with training in the area of fabrics or basket-making.A training extra for a different way of enjoying a stay in the uniquelandscape of Ribeira Sacra, for which one may board at the A Casa dosArtesáns [The Artisans’ House] rural tourism lodge. A house in which onemay see original coverlets made using the technique of Galician pile fabricor a collection of portraits of craft workers made by Champeney herself. Inthis sense they highlight the importance that they take on in relation to theknowledge and the creative experience of this type of stay, which are goodfor people’s well-being. For this reason they provide different possibilities,both for beginners and for those who wish to perfect their technique ascraft workers who want to refresh their knowledge. “For people who havenever thought of doing craftwork and perhaps had doubts about their capacityto do it, we have introductory sessions that are easy and have goodresults with relatively little effort”, Anna explains, as she indicates that she11

The Colours of Natureconceives the improvement sessions as “a creativeretreat in an environment conducive to creativity”.Indeed, Champeney stresses that this type of approachfavours an increasing of sensitivity towardscraftwork: “the more the public tries out and gets toknow the process of craftwork, the more they willappreciate the works we make. I think that in Galiciawe need to carry out a dynamic and interactivedivulging of this work”.On the other hand, they are seeing that this possibilityis having more success abroad than in theirown country: they have received visits from peoplefrom Denmark and from Great Britain, but stillhaven’t had any Galicians. “It has to be said thatit is relatively easier to come to Ribeira Sacra forsome creative summer holidays from La Corunnaor Madrid, and I hope that in the future we will beable to connect to the interest that there is in Galiciaand in the rest of the State”.Anna ChampeneyCristosende, 7832765 A TeixeiraTN: 669 600 620www.annachampeney.comwww.casa-dos-artesans.comlluisyanna@terra.esThe threads that AnnaChampeney uses bear thecolours of Ribeira Sacra.Both the linen and the wool,or even the sophisticatedCashmere are naturallydyed by herself. Althoughshe has to buy some of theplants because they do notgrow well in this area, suchas indigo, she takes otherones straight from nature.Gorse or onion bulbs aresome of these, and have awide-ranging spectrum ofcolours, some so intensethat it seems incredible thatit is possible to obtain themin a natural way. “I considerthat they are unique coloursand have a special harmony,they combine verywell, and thus gives me awide range of colours”, butthis also solves a practicalproblem common to manycraftsmen: “It is very difficultto find quality thread. I ambuying them from a Catalancompany, and I have to buyin large quantities; it wouldbe impossible to collect somuch of each colour”. Soshe is considering the possibilityof commercialising thethreads.“I love having close contactwith the materials, beingable to go out of my houseand find the plants. Thisalso gives me the chance tomake works that have rootshere, which are the coloursof Ribeira Sacra”, AnnaChampeney states.13

Patterns of LifeKukas’s PuppetsSomeone once stated that being a puppeteer wassomething bad. Kukas and Isabel have devotedthemselves to this for thirty years, and believethat it is the best profession in the world. Kukasis today the indisputable name in the making oflarge-headed carnival figures or puppets, withoutever stopping imagining, or pergheñar, asthey say locally. A trade that mixes the stage artsand plastic arts, literature and music and magic.Over these years he has been gathering the viceof thinking, the healthy vice of never stoppingcreating. They are therefore convinced that thebest thing about Galician craftwork is the creativitythat it releases, that stands out whereverit goes. Kukas’s puppets have exchanged thefold-away theatre box for magnificent stagingsand huge casts like the Galician Royal Philharmonic,without ever losing the essence of thecompany: everything remains to be invented.14

“We have always takenrisks on the plastic andconceptual levels andthere have never beenany problems”“We have had to struggle, going around with our gear in a rucksack.Nowadays we perform in very important theatres, the Arriaga,the Campoamor…, huge theatres”. Thus speaks Marcelinode Santiago, better known as Kukas, a name inseparable from thehistory of puppets in Galicia. Because if today it is possible to enjoya puppet show, it wasn’t the case only thirty years ago when hebegan his career as a puppeteer and maker of marionettes. “Atthe beginning there was nothing; we are self-taught”. A work ofacknowledging and dignifying this craft was always present in theirprofessional course. But that is also the stimulus, when everythinghas to be done. Even the word. Isabel Rei, who, along with Kukas,is one of the pillars of Kukas’s puppets, smiles as she recalls thatthey chose the name “monicreques” for the company because of itssound qualities, and which referred to the rag dolls that got carriedon one’s back. “Before no one used this term, and now people evencorrect us if we say ‘marionettes’”.Dolls, rag dolls, ugly face dolls, puppets, big-heads, marionettes…,whatever they are called, they are their lives. Kukas’s hands havebeen building, carving and shaping the recent history of marionettesin Galicia. His company is devoted both to the production of showsand to the making of the sets that we usually see in theatres or on TV,such as in the Xabarín Club. And they are easily recognizable, with astyle and a design that are clearly colourist, brutally expressive, andfull of strength and emotion. An eclectic style, as Isabel and Kukascall it, as each work is unique. “Each work has its own style. I don’tthink that a work has to be made by the same standard. It is like achild. I’m not really in favour of this matter of copying oneself andmaking fifty copies of the same thing”. Isabel highlights the explosionof colour in her work, along with her finishing touches. “A lot of peopleknow you due to the way you finish the work, both marionettesand stage sets, treating them pictorially like paintings”.The protagonists of Seven Capital Stories are made out of papier-mâché for the heads, and the bodies are made of carved and painted wood.15

The show Untitled 4x8x6. Mixed media on stage set, used the creativeprocess of a craftsmen who makes puppets which, in a leap ofmagic, jump out of the sketch on the paper into reality, producinga whole puppet show on the boards, made with the same materialsand the most unlikely techniques, ranging from classical rod marionettesto others made with pots, clothes hangers and scrap material.Kukas, as a craftsman, has a very clear and stable working process,in which the first and longest phase is that of thinking, “going roundin one’s head” until coming to the point at which the design can bevisualized, to go on to the technical phase of production, which onlydepends on his technical skills.And the creative freedom is also greater, both on the technical andconceptual level. Having a studio in Compostela thirty years ago wasmuch more complicated, as finding mechanisms or slightly unusualmaterials implied having to go to Madrid or Barcelona. Nowadays,thanks to the Internet, it is much simpler and everything is within reach.And on the conceptual level everything remained to be done, so therewas nothing left to do but take a chance. “In the theatre and withmarionettes it is important to run certain risks. There was no school,so we tried things out ourselves, and at best we would have to eat theshow with potatoes”, yet Isabel tones down Kukas’s reasoning: “Wealways took risks on the plastic level and on the text and conceptuallevel, and we had no problems”. For this reason each type of show isthought out, discussed and debated, and its plan is drawn up accordingto the idea. Each work requires it own puppet, with its style andits language. “The characteristic of our shows is that we work hard onthe articulated puppet, with unusual or invented mechanisms, with acardboard articulated head and a wooden body”, Isabel explains.Doubts are arising in relation to the continuity of this craft, somethingwhich often threatens so many crafts and workshops. This is generallypositive, although, like everything else, thinks could be improved,and Kukas points out that training is needed for the tradition not to belost. This is the direction they are taking, with an ambitious large-scaleproposal. The Puppet House is a project that is at the moment goingthrough the phase of “negotiation”, explains Isabel, a centre that isindispensable today, as a logical step to take on their trajectory. “Thisis very ambitious for Galicia, but there are similar things throughoutthe world”, so Kukas sees that its viability and pertinence would bejustified. “We are trying to set about creating a centre that will includetraining as well as a museum”, something which Isabel feels is verynecessary. “We have a vast heritage, we have all the marionettes,which are a part of the history of marionettes in Galicia, and a veryimportant part. We have kept all the settings, and when we exhibitour puppets we do this as a set, as a part of the show”, somethingwhich is very showy but which occupies a lot of space. Now, for example,they are in the Galician Craftwork Centre, in Lugo. “We havemore or less structured the basis of what will be the permanent exhibitionof our work”, a space that will also receive temporary showingsfrom other companies and from other places.“Kukas is a person who as a maker, as a craftsman, is very wellknown, and it is a shame if this experience and expertise is lost”,and Isabel thinks that the workshop, both in terms of making puppetsand in teaching others, would be a way of bringing stabilityto the profession and providing jobs. Because research and experimenthave always been a constant factor in designing Kukas’s puppets,in which they acknowledge the great influence on them in thissense by Paco Peralta and Matilde del Amo. “They came to givea course in Galicia, and they taught us a new way of designingmarionettes, here we had kept to glove and rod puppets”, and theyconsider themselves to be disciples of these two Andalusian puppeteers.“They gave the vice to me.” She finishes off by acknowledgingKukas himself. One of his major contributions as a craftsman is theresearch he has done into the string support, which has greatly sim-16

plified the manipulating of the puppet, and which, accordingto Isabel, has amazed the eastern European puppeteers,who have a greater tradition in the field of marionettes.The first recognition that Kukas received as a creator andmanipulator of puppets was in Bilbao, in 1997, from thePuppet Documentation Centre. Two years earlier the Peoplesof Spain Theme Park in Kintsetsu in Japan commissioned sixmarionettes from him, which one can visit in its permanentexhibition. They are, indeed, one of the companies with thegreatest distribution outside Galicia, because, according toKukas, “the only thing we can really export are the puppetswhenever we are at international festivals”. And withoutsimplifying or standardising, “our marionettes are purelyand legitimately Galician,” says Kukas. “We are exportingvalue. It seems to me that this globalization business aims atdestroying all cultures, and I reject this, so just as we bringthe Vietnamese here, I want to be taken there as a Galician,not through being globalised”.Kukas and Isabel came to the field of puppets in order to fill acultural gap they detected in Galicia, somewhat by chance.“It was the inertia of the fact that there were no marionettes inGalicia and this carried out a function and people started callingfor us from everywhere” and, as Kukas points out, “andthen we realized we were immersed in this world”. Why?Because in the puppets they discovered theactivity that complemented their interests:plastic arts, literature, poetry and music.Now, with a vast career, involving over fortyshows, after collaborations from such as theGalician Royal Philharmonic, they only talkabout satisfaction and effort when they lookback and do not forget that there is still agreat deal to be invented.“Thirty years ago no one calledthem puppets, and now peopleeven correct us when we call themmarionettes”Set for the TV programme TVG Xabarín Club, at the model stage, during construction and when finished.17

“My process is to think for a long time untilI see everything really clearly”In the thirty years thatKukas and Isabel havebeen working with puppets,although the productionof shows is their most popularactivity, their workshop has alwaysbeen another fundamentalaspect of the company.Is the marionette workshop oneof the ways of making this businessprofitable?ISABEL: Of course. There are seasons with a lot of showsand others without so many. And there is also a demand.KUKAS: There are also certain jobs such as making propsand sets, or even making marionettes for other companies,which we have also done.I: Indeed. It is a job that makes Kukas an artist and a craftsman,doing what is required, making marionettes, props,posters and sets … Because in fact these works are allinterrelated. We have three fundamental activities in thecompany: the production of puppet shows or puppets withactors; then the craft workshop for sets, props and papiermâché;and we have another activity to which we devotetime, which is teaching. Kukas spends a lot of time almostexclusively giving Occupational Training course in theCraft Centre in the Theatre Course at the University; almostevery year we give courses in making and manipulatingpuppets, especially in Lugo.This is a mixture between a handicraft componentand an artistic one. How does this relationshipwork? Where do the two meet and separate?K: Well I’m not really sure where the crafts end and theart starts, or vice-versa. I see things that say “This is art”,and I think, “Well, because you say so”, I just see a handthat worked; it doesn’t transmit anything to me. And othertimes they say, “No, this is a piece of handicraft”. But look,working on stone like Master Mateo worked, what wasthat, craftwork or art? I don’t really know where it startsand stops.K: Handicraft work is usually understood as that of producingseries, and so we don’t ever do that. Each work isunique. But the person who makes individual works is alsoa craftsmen. At best craftwork is a type of art that can moreeasily become accessible to the people, and art is somethingthat only capitalists and millionaires can achieve. Idon’t know the difference.I: Crafts also have a more practical, useful aspect.K: But if it doesn’t have a functional element, I don’t knowup to what point craftwork is not art, such as in the case ofa decorative plate. In Galicia there was a time when therewere some fantastic ceramicists, and there still are, and Ialways wondered why this wasn’t art, because I adoredthat type of craft work, it was so interesting. And if thecraftsman is the creator … I think Galician craftwork isvery creative. What impresses everyone outside of Galiciais that it is so creative.The last show, Untitled 4x8x6, portrayed theprocess of the artistic creation of the puppets. Init the drawings leap out of the paper into realitythrough a magical trance. The real process willbe somewhat different...K: I don’t know how other artists do things. I know how Ido it. There are creators who start out by scribbling on thefloor and look at the scribbles, to see what they discover.I have a process that involves spending a long time thinking,getting up early, going over things in my head until Isee things clearly. When I see them clearly I draw them onpaper. I have to see them very clearly. The process of thinkingtakes me a long time, and doing it takes a short time.Other artists or craftsmen start modelling the clay as if thework might tell them what is inside it. But when I make theclay I’ve already seen what’s inside it. My process is moreof a mental one, of going round in my head first.And then is it easy to reach the aim?K: Very easy. Then it’s a matter of technique, like writing.These are craft techniques, whether it is painting or sculpting,nothing odd. What you have to learn is the language,the process. Then the creative force depends on each person.No one teaches that at any school.I: A lot of the work that we do has in principle a handicraftpart, and then it has an artistic side. They are normallyunique works, made with an artistic intent.18

Types of puppetsRod PuppetThe movement of the puppet’s limbs is made usingrods.“Research hasalways been presentin our marionettes,firstly because weare self-taught, andthen due to a need,like a vice”Glove PuppetManipulated by hand inside it.MarotteThe puppet’s hand are replaced by those of thepuppeteer.String MarionetteManipulated through strings attached to a crosspiece.Finger PuppetSmall heads set on the finger like a thimble.Flat PuppetUsually flat wooden or card figures moved frombelow with rods.Direct Hand PuppetThe puppet is manipulated in full view of the spectators.Chinese ShadowsA silhouette of the moving figures is projected.Pedestal PuppetThese have a rod on their upper part and a woodensupport like a pedestal below.Marcelino de Santiago (Kukas) and Isabel Reifounded Kukas’s Puppets in 1979.They devote themselves to designing and makingpuppets, masks, big ugly head dolls, propsand stage sets, posters and programmes.They have produced around forty puppet showsand regularly give courses in countries such asPortugal, Brazil and Greece.Kukas produccións artísticas S.L.Lino Villafínez, 11 –1º D15704 Santiago de CompostelaTN/fax: 981 562 734609 884 630 / 660 298 070www.kukas.biocultural.netmonicreques@mundo-r.commonicreques@hotmail.com19

Traditional basketryThere are three specialties in traditional basketry: wicker, thatch and wood.Wicker basket work is also known as twig basket work, given that one can use othertypes of flexible twig bushes such as willow, gorse, genista, cytisus, myrtle, hazel orelm. These twigs are woven with different techniques and are made into different formsdepending on their use. Stripped wicker corresponds to urban basketry, while wickerwith skin is for rural uses.In thatch or rye straw basketry one rolls a sheaf into the shape of a spiral, tied up witha strip from another plant. They are very tightly woven baskets, so they were ideal forthe carrying seeds, grain and even flour.The basket-maker has to manipulate the split or sliced wood, getting the blades fromthe trunks of chestnuts, willows or oaks. In intertwining these strips one can above allmake the patelas, elongated and shallow baskets used particularly for carrying fish.22

“Our work used to beconsidered as a complement ofthe men’s work”Nets, the Invisible WorkThe making and repairing of nets was work that was not recognised as such for a long time. Over recent years alot of work has been carried out to dignify this craft, which in most cases was in the underground economy withextremely low wages. In this sense a vitally important role was played by the vindications of the net-makers themselves,as most of the net-makers are women.Ángeles Millé is a net-maker, president of the O Fieital Association, in Malpica, and is also the secretary of the “OPeirao” Federation of Craft Net-makers, a group thanks to which her voice is heard louder and in many other places.And she brings us to this craft, in a struggle half way between labour recognition and the feminine.At what time does the day start for a net-maker?We start at seven in the morning and, depending on the work wehave, we don’t stop until eight or nine. And as we are autonomous,we also divide domestic work with this work. We don’t have a fixedtimetable, and when there is a big workload we sometimes go onuntil ten at night. It’s something we have in common with other autonomousworkers.How did the Federation of Craft Net-makers comeabout?The association was formed after several meetings with the FisheriesCommission. One could see that there was a craft that was beinglost and that was remaining anonymous. One didn’t see it. Peoplestarted to come together from all the ports in Galicia, and theyfound that there were people with many common concerns. The associationsstarted to be formed in 2002, and after the catastropheof the Prestige oil spill we agreed to form a federation that wouldexist for all the ports in Galicia.How did the Prestige disaster give an impulse to thenet-makers’ union?Until that moment we didn’t have any contacts among us. Manypeople worked on the ships and others did the work at home, andas a consequence of Prestige, we started to get to know each other.We needed to be heard, because after the sinking of the Prestigewe wanted to earn, like everyone, because we were registered andpaying contributions.Did it affect you in the same way as the fishermen?Ours was a sector that was hit badly and is still being affected bythe other problems in the fishing sector. When there is a shutdown,if you are working on an art you have to stop working. Sometimesyou can do some other art, but on other occasions you can’t, becauseyou don’t have access to it or it doesn’t exist where you live.In these cases you just watch things come and we carry on withoutcounting on help.What has been the Net-makers’ Federation’s main strugglesince its creation?Since the beginning we have struggled to get our professional dignityrecognized, because as women we are marginalised. Our workis recognised as a complement. It is like the man is the one whobrings the money home and you help him doing this. But it isn’t likethat.At the moment, the Federation has been looking at professionalillnesses so that we don’t get told when we get an illness that it isa common disease. Cervical pains, arthritis, tendonitis or carpaltunnel syndrome, which affects one’s wrist, are consequences ofthe repetitive movements and the postures we have while working.Tiredness is normal in all jobs, but there are forms of tiredness thatlead to illness, and that is what affects net-makers most.The work of the net-makers has traditionally been seenas a complement to the work of the fisherman, and forthis reason they worked irregularly, without registeringas autonomous workers. Is it still like that?Unfortunately that still happens. It is the underground economy that isprovoked by the chandlers and by the intermediaries. It is something27

we have been denouncing in the OPeirao Federation and through theassociations themselves, becausethis is very harmful to us in manyways. On the one hand you haveno work, because they only giveyou work when the others havetoo much. When there is no oneto turn to they decide to cometo us who are legalised. Most ofthe time this is what happens, becauseit is much easier for the intermediaryto take the work to a house where,besides the woman, the children work orother people who work with them.What percentage of people who devote themselves tomaking and repairing nets work in an irregular manner?According to a study made by the Industry Commission a year ago,in Galicia there are over two thousand people doing this work,but registered is only seven hundred are registered. That meanswe have sixty-five percent infiltrations. We are mainly talking aboutpensioners, but a person who is seventy or eighty finds it difficultto work. There are fishermen who retire before reaching sixty anddecide to play cards in the afternoon and spend the morning workingon the nets. The fishermen have a lot of experience and can helpthe net-makers, guiding them in their work, but they are workingagainst us, competing with us. We had the opportunity to travel tothe Basque Country, where we met other net-makers from the wholeof the Cantabrian coast. We saw that they needed the help of theretired people, people with experience, and when they need themthey called them and they were there.Why does precisely the opposite happen in Galicia?The ports most affected by this situation in Galicia are Guarda,Malpica and Ribeira. It is precisely where the chandlers are, whogive work to the intermediaries. The latter prefer to give the workout to the houses, rather than to the professionals, whereas in theother areas, where they work directly with the ship owners, illegallabour doesn’t exist.Is your salary suited to the work you do?What isn’t normal is that we have a day’s work of eight, twelve orthirteen hours in order to earn a salary that is below the minimumwage. Now we are trying to unify the salaries in the different portsin Galicia. The work is the same in the different areas, but the paymentvaries from place to place.How did you start working on the nets?I did a lot of different things before I became a net-maker. I studieduntil I was nineteen. I took a course in administration, but I preferredto devote myself to my house. When I saw that the children weretwelve or thirteen and could look after themselves I started workingin agriculture, and one day, by chance, an intermediary offeredme a job working on repairing nets. I started doing it and liked it,but I never imagined financial independence. No matter how littleyou earn you see that you are contributing towards the house andthat made me feel good. At the end I decided to leave agricultureand I decided to get into this on a professional level. Fourteen yearsago.Is there enough work for the net-makers?There is a great deal of work. The problem is that it is badly dividedup. If they improved the conditions and we had a worthy salary thatpaid well for the day’s work then young people would get involvedin this. I’m involved in teaching this to young people so they canwork, but with a salary that allows them to live. The ones we aremaking now are in order to keep up our contributions, because atour age, between forty and fifty, there isn’t much more to turn to.In order to improve your situation you first have to getyour work to stop being anonymous. Is the Federationworking towards obtaining this recognition?We are managing the professional qualification of the net-makers,we are demanding that our work be recognised. In order to registeryou need a diploma, and that contributes towards people not doingit underground, because training is very important. The FisheriesCommission manages the courses through local guild associations,which is what we know, but we net-makers don’t belong to theseguilds, which are only for fishermen and people who extract thingsfrom the sea. That isn’t our case, because our work is only thatof making or maintaining the nets. We are independent from theguilds.It also depends on the Administration to obtain professionalrecognition.Yes. We achieved something from the Vice Presidency, which thisyear brought out the Arlinga programme. This accepts the net-makers,but can’t go any further, because the Vice Presidency has noauthority over the sea. In the Fisheries Commission, in training, wehave a hundred percent, but we still have to solve the problem ofunregistered workers.What can you do to end unfair competition?That’s in the hands of the Work Commission. They intend to dosomething, and they are seeing whether the Treasury Office cando something to get the underground economy up on the surface.They have to control it; there have to be receipts to prove where theboats get the material and who did the work. The situation is thatwe are a very pacific group and here everything works on the basisof struggle and war. Once we called a demonstration and after twodays we had an inspection in the ports. If we don’t do anything noone pays us any attention, and I believe that it’s also because weare women.The Indispensable HandIs there any industrial alternative to hand-made nets?It has been tried, but manual work always has to be there. It alsodepends on the nets. In the case of the frame in the past it was alldone with hemp and cotton string. Now these arrive and what thenet-maker does is to put them together or repair them. In the smallernets one used to work with the same strings and the women repairedthe nets, but now they come ready made. Our work consistsof linking them, tying one piece to another. In the case of the long28

line nets they tried to use a machine to make the knots in the net, but they were alwaysslipping and coming loose when they went into the sea. The only thing to do was to goback to manual labour. Up to now no one’s invented a machine that can do our job.What fishing nets do you work with?They are different in the north and south of Galicia. In Malpica we have trawling nets,that the men usually work with, as they are very heavy. Then there are the ring frame, thesmaller nets and the long line ones.Let’s take this in parts; what is a trawler net like?“There are over2,000 peopleworking as netmakers,butonly 700 areregistered”It is a large size net. It is based on a bag that is dragged along the sea bed and is closedwhen the fish is inside.You said that the trawler nets are mainly used by the men. What are theones you work on most?I work on the smaller one and the long line nets.What is a long line net?It is a selective net. We can distinguish between a deep long line net, a surface one andshort one. Each of them is made up of a “mother line” on which the hooks are hung, andeach one catches a fish. It is a smaller fish than in the trawler net, which captures all thefish together and it reaches the boat all crushed up. When they get to the fish auction thelong line fish are of better quality and fetch a better price. They also require a lot of workfrom the net-makers. I think that within five years I will have to stop this job. You have toAsociación de Redeiras O FieitalMuelle Norte, 5015113 MalpicaA CoruñaTN: 618 311 79829

stand up and do the same repetitive movements, and when one getsto fifty we go on to the smaller nets.What are the smaller nets?They are nets made of cloths that are tied to a rope and that aremainly used in shallow water fishing. They used to get repairedwhen they came back from the sea damaged, but now the quickestand most economical thing to do is to take the cloths of and tie somenew ones on. You save a lot of time. Before you used to spend thewhole day repairing the mesh and now you can change several inone day.What materials do you use to make the nets?Depending on the thickness of the mesh you use one string or another.Those that are for Gran Sol have plastic strings that can be usedand taken off. When it is to tie up (to attach the cloths to a rope) youcan’t use these strings because they slip, being plastic. Mostly wework with synthetic materials, but we still use cotton for the long linethreads because we need them to keep really tight.Has there been an evolution in the materials over recentyears?They’ve been modified, but the net is still the same. The materialsare more accessible and more resistant, but the manual work isstill the same. The mesh has to be treated in the same way with thesame steps.You have had the chance to exchange knowledge withother net-makers in the Basque Country. Are the netsmade in the same way here in Galicia as in the rest ofthe Cantabrian cornice?It’s the same. Indeed, we make a lot of long line nets here for theBasque Country. The intermediaries and the chandlers give us a lotof commissions for work for abroad, as Galicia is the place wherewe make more nets. We work for the Basque Country and Asturias,but also for France, Argentina and Chile...Is the business going to do well in the future or will ittail off?It’s not going to be lost because it is a craft. Until they invent machinesto replace us, and maybe they will, handwork will be necessary.Can there be nets without net-makers?The fishermen also work with the nets on the boats, and when thebad weather comes there is no work for us but just for them. Thosewho work in shallow water fishing, when they have to stay on land,occupy themselves repairing the nets, and so they save money. Ifthey have to go to sea next day they need to rest and so then wehave more work. In the case of the fishermen who go to Gran Sol,who take at best two thousand nets on each ship, they give us thework to do over a fortnight and we have to work all the hours possible.When they have less quantity they themselves repair the nets.How important is it for you to hold live exhibitions, likeyou did at the MOA?Many people leave this when they can’t make a living, and nowwe are going to diversify our activity. Just like we showed our workat the MOA, we want to go to schools to teach our work to youngpeople, because we believe that it also good for the young peopleto know it. What we do is a part of Galician culture, and wassomewhere in the background without anyone realizing that thesewomen were here doing this work. The important thing is not onlywhat you are earning, it is what you can transmit to people who areinterested in your work at events like the MOA. There were groupsof people who wanted me to explain what we did to them. Whenwe eat fish we don’t ask where it came from and we don’t knowwhat the nets are like, or how they are used. Even older people aresurprised by what we explain to them. It is important for the worldof the sea to be present in these fairs, and we thank the MOA forthinking of us.Your movement has a good deal of feminist complaint...The situation has evolved, and the women themselves have achievedmany rights for which we had to fight, but we still have a lot to do.It is like men have to bring the money home and that we do, if wecan do so, it’s even better, but the fact is that work is there for men.Fortunately this is changing. Women are getting on to the labourmarket, and our professional labour has to be recognised.Were you able to convince them that in the small fishingvillages there is work for them?Of course there is work! Indeed there is someone who does it. Whatis not normal is that there is so little work officially registered in billsto the Treasury if there is so much work going on. The undergroundeconomy has to come to the surface sometime.Are you managing to get young people into your activity?Young people are needed, like in all jobs, because we have theexperience, but young people have a great deal to offer. When youpass things on to other people you see things that you have missedbecause you are fed up of doing the same work all the time. Youngpeople bring you freshness, they liven you up, and that is necessary.30

Belategui RegueiroLugar de Outeiro, 15. Cambre / TN: 981 674 55733

Encaixes MónicaDor 92. Ponte do Porto / TN: 981 730 46034

Olería de GundivósConcello de Sober35

Tejidos vegetalesHortas 7, Cela. Outeiro de Rei / TN: 982 390 66636

Pendant: Mayer Joyeros [necklace: A mouga]Espasande 2, Luou.Teo / TN: 981 893 094 37

SedaníaÓrbigo 14, 3A, Virgen del Camino. León / TN: 987 300 80538

Marion GeissbühlerVon Tavelweg Konolfingen. Switzerland / TN: +0041 317 910 32239

Chonín Ruesga NavarroOrégano 5, Palomares del Río. Seville / TN: 955 763 26141

“The MOA has been set up in a settingof the most original creative diversity”Aure ChardonSpecialised Press, Grupo Dúplexwww.grupoduplex.comWe believeit is veryimportant toparticipate inthis role asa promoterof “Made inGalicia”Quality. What stands out is the quality of thosewho are here to display and the products onshow, both due to its excellence on the artisticand craftwork levels. With reference to the jewellerysector – a field in which the Grupo Dúplex isa specialist with over thirty years of experienceat the forefront of the specialized press – we arehighlighting the great participation of this productivesegment that is so important in Galicia, withconsecrated names such as Óscar Rodríguez,Ardentia, Fink Orfebres or A Feitura, among others.In these cases we are talking not only aboutrecognition of the handicraft aspect, but also theproductive capacity, facts that are demonstratedas these companies grow throughout their professionalcourse.Creative Diversity. Jewels, objects for thehome and for decoration, ceramics, bags, musicalinstruments... The MOA was started in atrue setting of the most original creative diversity,not only within our borders. The existenceof an invited country, Switzerland in this first edition,contributes towards enriching the range ofsuggestions for the customer, providing a veryinteresting multicultural dialogue both for the exhibiterand the visitor.Supply. From the most attainable to the mostexclusive item. At the MOA there was room forall price levels, so that the visitor could in factfind everything all together. Fortunately the originalitywas in the product and not in its cost.Image. We particularly call attention to thechoice of the colour orange (a dynamic and activecolour) and the single aisle concept, whichgrant a very pleasant touch to the showing. At thesame time visitors to the MOA could enjoy someservices and a programme of events designedfor their total comfort and satisfaction (restaurantarea, a choice of evening shows, etc.).Made in Galicia. With the MOA we are notjust talking about the good event called uponto be consecrated as a setting for the protectionof the craft and of its product. We believethat it is very interesting to focus on its role asa promoter of what is “made in Galicia”, stimulatingcollaboration among the several differentsectors involved and the institutions towards thedivulging of traditional Galician craftwork andits cultural heritage on the national and internationallevel.Pioneering Initiative. In Spain there arefew, or we can almost say hardly any exampleslike that oft he MOA. For this reason itspioneer nature, its vocation for the future and itsrelevance as an element that promotes addedvalue inherent to work by individual authors isundoubtable.42

What say the murmurers?OpinionDavid BarroArt Critic and Exhibition CuratorThe challenge was difficult: to set up an innovating and pioneering fair in Galicia in order to put our craftson an international perspective. There will be those who didn’t understand, who haven’t travelled andseen how these things take time and effort, who believe that the costs don’t justify the result. But the factgoes far beyond what one can see over three days, and the promoting of our handicrafts will remain inthe memory of those who only heard of it, of those who were only aware of that reality when they saw theadvertising, of those who had the opportunity to look at the catalogue, of those who were able to enjoythe promotional videos, of those who delve into the memory-book published days after the fair or of thosewho are reading this magazine.There is no lack of ideas in Galicia, but there is a lack of connections, intermediate spaces, bridgingplaces for the up and coming elements of our craftwork can develop, for us all to become aware of itsuniversal character and of its existence beyond the topics. On many occasions we have spoken about theperiphery and about our position, more than due to the physical situation, this concept comes about becauseof budget restrictions and efforts that haven’t been carried out. Galician culture and our handicraftshave abused of an imaginary that insisted on their exclusively rural origins, and in that sense it is necessaryfor it to acknowledge itself also as being avant-garde, with neither reticence nor prejudgments. Andthis was possible at the MOA, in the quality of its exhibitors and their products, in the modernization oftheir image, in the diversity of the proposals, in its condition as a meeting point and as a place to developand grow. The effort was great and was important, although certainly not enough, because it is urgent tocarry on, to go forward on the path of the normalization and internationalization of the handicrafts sectoras has been achieved in other sectors.For those who now the universe of fairs, managing to get eighty one exhibitors is something exceptional.As is the quality of some of the craft workers and artists who participated in the exhibition. In the Gallerythe aim was to expand the concept of craftwork, precisely seeking out the less commercial products and aconfrontation between Galician handicraft and contemporary international handicraft. Thus there was thesetting up and presenting of the works assuming the unusable area of the space for a series of performancesthat granted life and movement to the exhibition. We were thus able to move through the imagesand empower the idea of a parallel “event” in order to give primacy to surprise and to explore that placeas a craftwork space in which anything might happen. Important craft items, some of a monumental size,surrounded a meeting point or a leisure area presided over by a radio programme that granted a voiceto the true protagonists of the fair, the exhibitors and guests. Always starting from one premise: to connectthe country and comprehend that which Tolstoy stated: “paint your village and you will be universal”.43

Switzerland at the MOAPeter FinkExhibitor (Switzerland)PotsfinkRoute du Petit Epenedes 3Epenedes-Fribourg. Switzerlandwww.potsfink.chinfo@potsfink.chMOA is the foremost professionalevent for those who work in thecraft and design sectors. Thisis the best place for creatingnew collaboration and businessnetworks:Expocoruña covers 7,500 m 2 .1,200 accredited professionalvisitors.A hundred exhibitors bring quality,design and innovation.High quality international guests.The exhibition was accompaniedby concerts, artistic performancesand other cultural events.The MOA showing has beenplanned to be an annual event,and is organized by the GalicianFoundation for Handicraft andDesign, with the aim of becoming apermanent fixture in this field.They walked the path. The authentic one, theone that leads us right into the heart of eachone of us, which might change a man. Aneternal seeking, that path. Nineteen yearslater on I am off again, but this time I amin the company of fellow craft workers, andthe path does not take us to the cathedral ofSantiago de Compostela but rather to» Expocoruña,the burgeoning new exhibition centrethat has been set up in La Corunna. Thistime our professional activities are our centreof interest. We are all professional handicraftcreators. Sharing our know-how, exchangingideas with our colleagues from Galicia,discovering another market far away from usand, besides this, receiving commissions.From my house in Lausanne I took 72 days toreach the hill that dominates the city; this timewe could do with a few hours before leavingour bags in the hotel on the other side of thestreet that separated us from the exhibitionsite. Preparation for the whole journey is veryimportant: the phase of uncertainty, dreams,technical preparation. I was in charge offorming a group of Swiss quality craft workers,mixing up many different styles, but balancedand representative. I couldn’t havedreamt of anything better, despite the tighttime schedule, an unknown fair and severalaspects that needed clarifying.In a click, and after some returned correspondence,the technologies allow me tocontact hundreds of Swiss craft workers whoare potentially interested in the project. Thenumber of replies was considerable: not one,not two, twenty-five enrolments were thosethat came together and proposed themselvesfor consideration by the Foundation. And agroup of ten craft workers is chosen. Later oneperson withdrew and was replaced; anotherone was eliminated when it was discoveredthat they produced everything in Asia, andyet another was unable to keep to this commitment.Others presented themselves, butafter the time period allowed. So then therewere eight of us craft workers from differentareas. The textile section, despite being verystrong in Switzerland, was absent. A shame.Then comes the trip itself. The time of action,but also of suffering and fun. In the time ofthe journey on foot I would put my walkingboots on, put my rucksack on my back, havemy maps handy and the direction clear. Thefirst kilometre would start and there were twothousand more left. This year was the same.Collaboration and communication with theorganisation are extraordinary; everythingworks perfectly. On arriving, our works arealready there, the stands ready, and weplace our objects on them. The translator introducesherself; Cristina will always be thereto help us! We visit the exhibition in the assemblyphase. Will there really be a crowd ofpeople tomorrow? The three days that it lastsare a hurricane, the press is there, we makecontacts, and we compare and share ourknowledge. Exhibitions, music, dance andgastronomical pleasures. After the fair travelaround the country, presenting our work andtraining interested young people. Anotherstrong point for us in relation to feeling thehistory of Galicia was unforgettable – seeingsome craft workers from Sargadelos in theirworkshops.Return from a pilgrimage has a bitter taste.One has to go back to real life and getback to work as if nothing had happened.Yet these 72 hours in nature with only myessential needs had a deep effect on me.Returning from the MOA, as such, leaves usoverwhelmed by the innovation and boldnesson the part of the organisation to proposeexhibitions, concerts and other cultural eventswithin a commercial fair. We didn’t expectthis. On our side we kept to our mission: toenrich and diversify the MOA, showing whatis done – very differently – far from Galicia.Back in Switzerland I get messages from craftworkers: they tell me about the coming year.A new Swiss group calmly takes shape. TheMOA has become visible beyond Galicia,the path is fertile and the generosity of Finisterrahas ended. But there is still more ambition,to do things clearer, better and muchbetter, and that is the way forward, the onlyway forward. The true craft worker will alwaysfollow it.44

Opinion“The MOA is importantas a meeting pointbetween products andtradespersons”Luís SantínExhibitor (Artesanía de Galicia)Luís Santín has been a professional leather craft worker for twenty-seven years inhis Santín workshop in Cambre. A period during which his distribution strategieshave changed as his workshop became consolidated and his products were settledon the market. For this reason Santín is convinced that trade fairs like the MOAare fundamental to stimulate and facilitate relationships between tradespersons andcraft workers. “I went from selling in the street to going to international trade fairslike I do now”, Santín explains. “Professional trade fairs by sectors are necessary,because these are the contexts in which we can sell to shops”, and in this sense theinternational vocation is crucial, not only due to sales, but also to grant visibility toGalician handicrafts. “If we are not there, like on the Internet, we do not exist”, heargues.“For me the MOA is indispensable, but it is important not to make a political war outof it”, given that, according to Santín, the MOA has been set up as a commercialand professional meeting point, and should therefore be consolidated as an annualevent in this sector. “The name ‘MOA’ itself is a heritage, one which will increasewith every passing year and that can’t be taken away”.In addition to this, he thinks that it is necessary to change the manner of assessingthe succession and the repercussions of this type of event. “In Galicia my productsare in more than 160 shops, and I have a distribution firm. So it is these trade fairslike the MOA where people meet Santín and Santín gets to know the shops, andthat is very important”, he states. “That meeting means a verbalising of the objects,setting my products against what people think. The MOA allows us to find somecontact with reality, which means the shops, giving us very important information”,he assures.SantínUrb. Camiño, 31. SigrásCambrewww.santincuero.comluis@santincuero.comSo the results of a trade fair should never exclusively be the sum of the orders at theend of the meeting, but rather the relationships and the contacts that are establishedduring these events have a value that is as much or more important than direct sales,as is shown by this workshop specialized in leather work. “Analysing the value justthrough the orders is a mistake”, he guarantees. “The fair is important in the sensethat it proposes a meeting point between the products and the traders”. Indeed, afterhaving been at the MOA he is receiving more orders from the contacts he madethere: “The fairs are a space of contact and opening”, he concludes.This does not mean that there has to be a deep analysis of the results of the MOAfrom several different points of view through discussion among the different sectorsinvolved in order to improve the coming editions yet granting primacy to the permanenceof the event: “If the fair doesn’t happen we will no longer have a referent forthe situation of Galician crafts”.45

Replying to the proposal by the Galician Centre of Crafts and Design Foundation,I attended the MOA, the first Exhibition of Galician Crafts, whichwas held in La Corunna in February 2009. The fair was created with thefocus that many of the craft workers dedicated to trade with shops, galleriesand large-scale sales establishments have been calling for over recentyears.Eighty-five craft workers accepted the challenge, although almost all ofus knew that this was a bold step, without doubt those of us who tradedthrough other professionals demanded and needed an event in which wecould reach our potential customer in a clear manner without being mixedup with other products that had nothing to do with the type of public thatdeals with handicraft works.Susana Aparicio OrtizCarrer Perill nº41 bajoBarcelonasussanglass@hotmail.com“In my personalexperience, theMOA shouldcontinue”Susana AparicioExhibitor (Barcelona)“The atmosphere was ‘sensational’. Despite the situation resulting from theeconomic crisis that is affecting Europe and that is provoking the closure of alarge number of workshops throughout the state, there were few long faces,and most of us knew how to fit into this reality that, on the other hand, weall knew”.The standard of the products presented by the participants was very high,and once again demonstrated that Spain has a healthy group of seriousprofessionals capable of competing on any market.The guest country at the fair was Switzerland, which impressed most of uswith its creativity and minimalism, and the Swiss craft workers took advantageof their stay to create links, to make contact with other craftspeople, tovisit workshops and to propose ideas for possible future projects.The MOA layout had a good interior distribution of the stands, which werevery detailed, although no doubt if this layout is repeated at other eventsa different type of stands would have to be considered given that some ofthe participants did not find them suitable to their needs. Yet in general theywere well adapted to all the products shown.Many visitors, companions, politicians and institutions from different Spanishcities came to see the fair.Shop owners also came to see or to make requests from craftspeople withwhom they already worked. On Saturday afternoon and on Sunday onecould see considerable real interest among the people, with notebooks intheir hands, making notes and taking cards. What might become futurerequests is a usual practice by those who have shops, and more so now thatthey are selling almost day by day, as the sales in shops develop. We’ve allbeen dragging our feet.In my personal experience the MOA should be continued, but it is importantfor more resources to be allocated to commercially attracting the professionalvisitor, given that even though the fair and the participants were ofan exceptional standard, its continuity will not be possible if there isn’t aneconomic movement to justify the effort and the investment both by the craftworkers and the Galician government. The craftsman has to sell in order togrow, in order to maintain jobs and to improve on a daily basis. This is theaim that has to be achieved.I believe that it is the time to make an effort if we want this model that wehave wanted for so many years to prosper, and all pull together. Spain isone of the few countries in Europe nowadays that does not have a strongevent of this kind and which has effective results. I believe there is no shortageof will on the part of the crafts workers, associations and institutions.We have to keep on working.46

For several years Rosa Segade has headed A Mouga, a shop specialisingin crafts, both traditional and more recent ones, and in which Galician craftwork occupies a privileged place. In her establishment one can find the mostvaried products made by the hands of our craft workers, ranging from potteryto avant-garde jewellery, and including one of her specialties: traditionalcostume. Despite having a fluid relationship with the craft workers, an eventlike the Galician Craft Exhibition was an ideal place to measure the state ofproduction in the sector.OpinionWhat idea did you have about the MOA at first?What I expected to find was basically Galician craft workers, and then whenI got there I was surprised to see people from other places, which I also thinkis a good idea. But at the MOA I expected to find Galician craft workers withavant-garde products, that was the idea I had when I went to buy things formy shop. I didn’t have any preconceived idea.And did it live up to your expectations?There was a little of everything. I already knew a lot of the craft workers, becauseas I am from here it is easier to get to know them than what is done inGalician crafts. T thought the fair was excellent, very well set up. And indeedI bought things I didn’t have.Do you think that this MOA, the Galician Craft Exhibition, isnecessary as a meeting point between the craft worker and theshop?“I believe that theMOA is the righttype of fair”Rosa SegadeProfessional VisitorTo some extent, because the small craft workers usually come to the shopa lot. Then when they are established they logically visit fairs because theyhave access to a wider public. Being a shop we have the advantage that thesmaller craft workers who make a special product usually come to the shop toask if we are interested in it. So until now they have been supplying us. Evenso there are always unemployed people or those who work on a very smalllevel. I work with all kinds of craft items, I have works from other places, butI try to work within what I can with people from here. So it seems to me thata fair held here and with craft workers from here provides me with a greaterquantity of attractive products, of a certain standard and of a more avantgardecharacter than one sees here in Galicia. That’s what I was looking forat the MOA.And what did you think about the standard of the works?Generally good. Although in my case this didn’t surprise me because I alreadyknew the work of most of the craftsmen and women. But I believe thatthe people who came from abroad would find a really good level of craftwork.I discovered some firms that I really liked, and in the Swiss representationthere were some special and very striking works, it was a very pretty andimaginative craftwork. At the MOA there was a lot of choice. For examplethere were plate-makers with intricate works, although we don’t work withthem in the shop. There were many craft workers who had very pretty products,well-made and of high quality.A MougaRúa Xelmírez 26Santiago de CompostelaSo you would recommend other shops to visit it?Without any doubt. It seemed very well organised to me. One has to considerthat it was the first edition, and that these things usually improve: you realisewhat was lacking in the previous edition, and people already know the fair andturn up more. I mean that a first edition will always have fewer participants.Would you suggest any changes?Not really. I didn’t see anything lacking. I think it is the right type of fair.47

Makers of Harmony“The great artists are going back to the mostrudimentary things a priori, which means craftwork”Abe RábadeA tambourine with applications made of Swarovsky glass... forwhom? “The artists request it a lot, they have to stand out when theyare on stage”, according to the percussion craftsman Xosé ManuelSanín. And not only a question of aesthetics, but they also want agood instrument, and the music creators agree: the best are handmade. Although technology has been coming into the making of instruments,the craftsman’s knowledge, and above all his ear, are stillindispensable when the instruments are made. And who better todefend this than their main users, the artists. Four of the names whoare most heard on the contemporary Galician scene: Nordestinas,Bonovo, Nova Galega de Danza and Susana Seivane talk aboutthe presence of handmade crafts in their work.“Handicraft, not only on the level of making the instruments, buton other levels, goes alongside with music, opening up new marketsbeing very experimental and having a good standard”. GuadiGalego devotes his life to music, particularly traditional music, andhe knows full well the importance of the craftsman’s hand in makinga musical instrument, a close and inseparable relationship, thatprovokes and takes advantages of the developments in both directions.Nowadays, thanks to the time and worked being invested bymaster craftsmen, the chromatic scale that a set of bagpipes has ispractically complete. And this is achieved through that will that sooften appears in an implicit and organic manner in the craftsman’swork: that of seeking, experimenting and evolving.Nordestinas is a project which is also given voice, besides GuadiGalego, by Ugia Pedreira, singing songs about the sea in therhythms of jazz, with the suggestive harmonies of Abe Rábade,who is convinced that the pianos that make the best sounds aremade by craftsmen. “The great artists, the good ones, are curiouslygoing back to the most rudimentary things a priori, which meanscraftwork, manual work. Among the great elite of the piano wefind those that are made by hand, the Bonendorfer, the Bechstein,the Steinway and Sons... Even though Yamaha is the most standardized,it always has a manual part to finish off the instrument”,48

ecause in processes like tuning the participation of the human factoris indispensable. The three members of Nordestinas agree thatit is the name of the craftsman that is the guarantee of the product.For Galego, the musician “looks for the signature of a craftsman,whenever he has a set of bagpipes by so-and-so or a hurdy-gurdyby someone else, it is always different from the other one”.Nordestinas, in their relationship with music, go beyond the purelyinstrumental. The set that accompanies their concerts is made by thecraftsman sculptor Caxigueiro from Mondoñedo, a relationship thatcomes from way back, when Ugía Pedreira made a soundtrack foran exhibition by the artist. In Pedreira’s opinion the true revolutionon the instrumental musical panorama lies in the hurdy-gurdy, andthe new craftsmen, who are making and selling more. It is an instrumentthat is the tip of the spear in Europe”, and he quotes performerslike Xermán Díaz or Óscar Fernández.After being a member of such well-known groups as Cempés andBonovo, this is this latest project by one of the greatest and mostactive Galician hurdy-gurdy players, Óscar Fernández, who formsthe group along with Pulpiño Viascón and Roberto Grandal. Theywork under the designation electro-acoustic folk, which, more thanreferring to a musical style, talks about the mediums they use. “Theyare not two types of music, but this refers to the purely crafted toolsthat we use, made by hand, and other electric ones”, Fernández explains.Their instruments are classic, but with names: a midi hurdygurdy,an electro-acoustic accordion or even a musical saw. Tuning,as they call it.The question is that to find these instruments one has to go abroad,because in Galicia, for example, it is a long time since anyonemade accordions by hand, Roberto Grandal points out. “Hurdygurdies,yes. What happens is that they don’t make the type thatI use”, explains Óscar Fernández, for whom the spirit of Galiciancraftwork lies in its own way of conceiving and producing the music,and it is recognizable in the sound. “Indeed, we produce in acompletely crafted recording studio”, he comments, given that theirfirst record, Bonovo, is an example of self-management in whichthey control all the processes.And they also agree on their investigating and experimental desire,like the curious instrument that, using friction, Pulpiño Viascón managesto get a unique and spectacular sound out of it: the saw. Alarge saw that, as Roberto Grandal explains, “can just as easily cuta tree-trunk as make a melody”.They all share a concept and a way of creating with one of thedance companies that is most being talked about now, even outsideof Galicia, Nova Galega de Danza, a solid and coherent initiativethat changes the usual face of this discipline in order to propose aformula in which the most traditional element is the essence of ourcontemporary condition. Their last show, Tradicción, is directed by50

Xaime Díaz and Vicente Colomer, seven dancers perform it and ithas a life band with seven musicians. Their challenge was to dosomething really current and new, reinventing the country’s artisticproposals. And they manage to do this through dance and music.Traditional rhythms that bring us updated jigs, combining moderninstruments with traditional percussion, and which explore all theversatility that the Galician bagpipes provide today.And for this they go on stage and dance with clogs, that traditionalstyle of hand-made shoe – also called “galochos” – which had awooden sole and a leather upper, and was tied up with stringsand was shaped like little boots. Pedro Lamas, who is the head ofmusical direction for the show Tradicción, this latest one, considersit to be “a work of handicraft”, in which this sector has an evidentpresence and through the involvement of all the members of thecompany.A Family ThingBut one of the names that best reflects the link between crafts andmusic is that of Seivane. Xosé Manuel Seivane, master of Galicianbagpipe craftsmen, found his children to be more than worthy successorsat the head of the family workshop, and every time she goesonto the stage his granddaughter shows what the production of thework of the Seivane house can produce. “Obviously when I was inmy mother’s womb I must have already been dancing a jig”. SusanaSeivane is the third generation from one of the most established51

“Getting to know the ins and outs of the instrument you play is anincredible philosophy”Susana Seivaneworkshops in the construction of bagpipes, and probably also theperson who granted it greatest international projection. One hasto acknowledge her work of divulging our traditional music and itsadapting to the new tendencies, through her own compositions andarrangements.What lies behind her mastery in playing the bagpipe is withoutdoubt her deep knowledge of the instrument on the technical level.“Before I devoted myself to music professionally I worked in theworkshop and I really enjoyed it. Getting to know the ins and outsof the instrument you play is an incredible philosophy”, althoughthis doesn’t take away difficulties in her work. “This involves manyyears of study, research and patience. The bagpipes that are madenowadays in the Seivane workshop have a well-deserved reputation,because my grandfather started working in 1936, and that isa lot of years of experience”.Susana belongs to this new group of bagpipe players who thanksto the evolution of the instrument and good training are achievingmusical excellence. In this sense she points out the importanceof craftsmanship: “It was the most important thing for the Galicianbagpipe-players nowadays to be able to express ourselves as wewish with our instrument”. Without these advances it would be impossibleto accompany the bagpipes with a piano, for example.“The high standard it is achieving outside Galicia is impressive”,she stresses.Because, according to Susana, a Seivane bagpipe “enjoys goodchromatic health”, with a scale of one octave and a half. “In manyaspects they are ahead of the others”, she guarantees, in an allusionto the competition, given that a good part of these new craftsmenthat are emerging were her grandfather’s pupils, although shesees competition as something stimulating for the market.Both for Susana Seivane and for Óscar Fernández or for any otherof the many artists who work in the musical area a lot, the relationshipwith the instruments and the importance of craftsmanshipknowledge in their making is fundamental. And the definitive tribunalat which this importance is judged is always the same one: onthe stage, a risky appearance in which the person who judges is thespectator, for whom the complexity, evolutions and improvements inthe instrument often go unnoticed, shaded out by the mastery of theartist’s performance.53

54At the Heart of the Wood

“It is very difficult to inventsomething new, but thereis always room for mixingcertain techniques withothers, for applying themin a different way. I tryto leave that space forcreativity”When Javier Martín was doing his course in Economics,what was really going on in his head wascreating with his hands. So he left Madrid ten yearsago to realise his dream: to work on wood usinga lathe. To do so he settled as a craftsman in thedistrict of Vilamaior, in the La Corunna area, fromwhere eh designs and produces ornaments andutensils made with the technique of the lathe, usingthe name Taxus, Madera Torneada. His raw materialis usually local wood, but he also works withmore exotic ones like ebony. He sees his craft as thesearch for constant innovation starting from beingfaithful to tradition and to craft techniques. Since theoutset Martín has explored all the possibilities thelathe offers in order to show that, although it seemsthe opposite, it is a craft with a lot of future.How did you learn to become a wood turner?I am self-taught. I knew how to carve, and I was always attractedto the subject of craftwork, specifically wood, and at the endof the nineties I decided to experiment with the subject of thewoodwork lathe, as I only had theoretical notions. I bought anEnglish lathe that wasn’t very good, some tools, some books,because there aren’t very many, and I started working to seeif it would work out. And I saw it did, that things were goingwell and that it was a question of years of practice. After thatthere was a great explosion thanks to the Internet, which allowsaccess to more information.How did you decide to devote yourself fully towood-turning?I did many different things until then and nothing really satisfiedme, while the subject of craftwork always attracted me. I was ina very particular situation in life and economically, I took thatchance and I saw that I enjoyed it. It is a work at which I don’tmind spending a lot of time and effort.Because you taught Economics …Going from economics to craftwork was a good change fromthe start, but even while I was studying I was already involvedin handicrafts and all this. Indeed, I knew the theoretical aspectseither through other people or through technical publications.So craftwork was always something that attracted me, yetwithout getting involved in it. It was after time that I decided totake that step.Let’s have a look at your working process, but fromthe beginning. Where does the wood come from?I get the wood mainly from all the sawmills that still remain inGalicia, particularly in the interior: in Ourense and in Lugo.Some in Asturias as well. Sometimes also through neighbourswho come and give me wood, saying “I have a cherry tree thatis about to fall, come and have a look at it” or through gifts. Itis almost always green wood, that is, freshly cut. I keep it in awarehouse, in traditional wood driers where the wood is keptyears until it can be used. As I started this process in 99, this willallow me to have some very suitable wood. Most of the woodis local, except for specialised cases or requests for which I can55

it is interesting because on the ecological level you can avoid a lotof chemical products and energy.Once the wood is dry, how does the process continue?I put the item on the lathe, varying the method according to its characteristics.If it is for culinary use I give it a covering of oil, usingan ecological oil so as not to provoke problems of allergies and inkeeping with health regulations. One gives it a series of coats of oil,and then the product, as it is very dry, can be commercialised. Anon-culinary product has many possibilities for finishing: from waxesand oils exclusively to finishing with pore-blockers, with water-basedvarnishes. And the final coating is always with waxes because thetouch and the warmth that wax has is unequalled for me.What is the key to using the lathe well?It’s important for the lathe to be minimally good. It doesn’t have tobe a technical wonder, because wooden lathes have a very simpletechnology. It has to be stable, well-aligned, that it can handle vibrationsand all the demands that are made of it. The tools are very important;now there are very good quality steel-workers. We use faststeel, which handles both vibrations and the heat very well. Whenyou are turning at three thousand revolutions the heat is very high,and the tool heats up so much that you have to wear gloves so youdon’t get scars. I also make certain tools myself because they arevery specific and would be very expensive to buy. The cutting tooland the scraper also have to be good. And if one adds techniqueand experience to a good lathe and good tools, then things will runsmoothly.How much time do you spend per day at the lathe?use tropical wood. I greatly like working with chestnut, wild cherry,walnut and ash … They are very grateful woods, and for the moment,although increasingly rarely, they can be found on sale.How does the drying process work?I don’t use any kind of industrial nor semi-industrial drying agent.It’s the old method of cutting the wood on a determined date, in adetermined manner, exposing it to an atmosphere of interchangebetween air humidity and preserving it from everything that mightinvolve wind, rain or exposure to sunshine … This is a process thatno one uses nowadays because it has been replaced by industrialdrying processes, but it has the advantage that, in your workplace,when the wood has reached an optimum state of humidity (normally12%), it is much more secure than that which has been treated in adifferent way, which might regain its humidity, the typical thing onehears is “the parquet floor gives way here, this piece warps …”.In this way, with the “inconvenient” factor of being a slow process,one can really get good quality wood. There is another wayof working, which is also very interesting, which is with the greenwood, with the work still being damp. Then you turn it and then dryit. The process is obviously much quicker, because you do withouta large volume of wood for drying, but even so it is a very gradualand natural process. Once it is dry you have to turn it again, do allthe finishing off, all the applications from other techniques such apolychroming … For me, besides doing without the industrial dryingGenerally eight hours, but sometimes more and other times evenmore, because you are working with a piece that you really like andyou want to finish it. Other times tiredness overcomes you because itis a job that is very demanding physically. When you have to workwith a tree that is sixty centimetres in diameter in order to take ajug out of it … First there is what the wood itself weighs, becauseI have put seventy kilo trunks in the lathe. In other works the oppositehappens; they are exhausting because you are working withsomething that is too small and you have to use a magnifying glass,you build up tension, you have to sharpen the tools very much, yousight deteriorates … And then the great fear that the wood-turnershave is always the same thing: an accident. A spindle rotating atone thousand five-hundred rotations and a piece that weighs twentykilos and flies out, this isn’t the first time that there is a serious accidentthat can even cause death. Today one has to be extremelycareful with the safety measures, but one can never avoid the riskcompletely. The small works also carry risks; you can lose an eye,get your face cut.And then they are finished off.Yes, I don’t do any finishing off on the lathe. What I do is to sandthe piece down, if it can be done, which is in eighty percent of thecases. In other ones there is no other way but to sand them by handfor very specific things. The lathe facilitates, but it also limits a lot,because it is a tool that is always in a process of circular revolution,and if you get out of there is no option other than to stop and do itby hand. Then I also think that the quality and detail is increased.56

And besides, I often work with textures, with colours, and I do polychroming. Doingthis on the lathe is very risky and the quality is not up to scratch.What is eccentric chuck, a technique that you particularly master?The normal piece goes on an axle with a point and a counterpoint on the left andright of a cylinder. If I modify the central point, and if I spin on the axle as much onthe left as on the right, I manage to make the piece turn on a differential axis. If Igo on modifying this I have a lot of possibilities. One can get very curious figures,both by doing them in a very geometrical and very precise controlled process orletting yourself improvise. What really interests me now is the so-called ornamentallathe, in which, which also involves eccentric chuck, but in general it is very geometricwork. You have to design the piece very precisely from the beginning, andthe finishing work is impressive. When you are working you also like to vary. If youare working making bowls, after a while you feel like having a break and doingsomething different. You leave the simple sanding and polishing of smooth surfacesand you start making textures...When you have to think about the project you are going to do inwood, how to you design it?If it is an order you are more restricted, but if it starts out froma design of mine the first thing I do is to get the wood and thenadapt myself to what I might find there. Other times one improvises.Wood is a very special material; inside it you might finda crack or a knot. Or otherwise you might find something thatsurprises you positively: a streak, for example, that has manyaesthetic possibilities. One has to be able to adapt oneself to thistype of surprises. In general the wood-turners who do a part oftheir work creating work in this way. You have to let the wood itself take you. Thereis no perfect plan.Wood is a special material due to its fragility. Does it disappoint youoften?Not me particularly. I only had one moment of cutting and a couple of pieces thatbroke. One was okay use and the other wasn’t, so at the moment it’s one-nil. Ifyou work for many hours with worries and stress, with routine, you tend to getside-tracked, or to exaggerate certain conditions and you take them to the limit.Especially when you are self-taught and you learnt as an adult, at a given momentyou might trust your possibilities too much and do things that are totally ill-advisedbecause you think you can do them. You have to be careful with wood. I work alot with gloves and a face-mask because a slight spark can cut you. Eye-protectionis fundamental. Sawdust, particularly from tropical woods, can be irritatingto the eyes. And this is when it doesn’t produce dermatitis or when inhaling itdoesn’t cause dizziness or even fainting. And even internal problems, which arethe worst, because you don’t see the manifestations: lungs, hormones, etcetera…Norms have to be established to have everything in its place, the tools in order andthe workshop clean.Besides for the wood-turner, the process has a lot of risks for thework itself. A slight error can destroy it.Yes. Above all when they are very delicate pieces, when they have complicatedoutlines, when one tries to exaggerate a certain effect to the maximum, this alwaysinvolves risk. This usually causes problems, especially at the beginning. Then youstart getting experience, you get the tool that is best for the job and you can almostmanage to overcome this. And you are always playing on a level of uncertaintybecause you never know what a piece of wood might be like on the inside, nomatter how good it is. The other day, working on a piece of ebony that was perfecton the outside I found that it was like glass on the inside and it shatters into athousand pieces. This is something that sometimes happens to ebony through the“And if one adds technique andexperience to a good lathe andgood tools, then you have thekeys to wood-turning”57

drying process or if the tree has some disease, but, of course, youcan’t see this until you open up the wood. And there are other surprises:sometimes you find a stone inside a tree, partridges, bullets,pieces of iron...How do you organise the work? Do you normally takeorders or do you mainly work for yourself?Now I have a part of orders, so I have to adapt to requests, to therhythms and to the characteristics of each order. Above all when it isrestoring furniture or old pieces. Otherwise I make plans accordingto the way I see the situation, the material I have …, and I alwaystry to leave a part of my time for experimenting, to carry on dealingwith new challenges and personal projects. It is very difficult toinvent something new, but there is always room for mixing certaintechniques with others, for applying them in a different way, withwood with which they haven’t been made before. I try to leave thatspace for creativity because I have loads of projects.What are the items that people ask formost?Mostly the decorative ones, the very ornamentalones. It is something that itis difficult to find here on the marketand that here, due to a lack of ahistorical tradition, is not very wellknown. People are surprised thatcertain things can be made inwood. Then the utilitarian items,typically for kitchen or for thehome, are being made less becausethe industry took over thissector with lower prices althoughwith absolute limitations in quality,variety and originality.What are the ones you mostlike to make?Sixty percent of ornamental wood-turningand the rest conventional. I like to makeboxes, because they mix a lot of different techniquesof ornamental and conventional wood-turning: you can use screwdesigns, add a lot of decorations, different tones, texture, carving,mill cutting … It is very stimulating because it implies controlling thedesign, the drawing …Let us talk about the commercial part. How is the marketright now?That’s the worst part. It is tremendously difficult to live off this. Ifwe look at the normal part of the commercialization (the shops), itis practically reduced to nothing. It is very difficult to sell an itemof ornamental wood-turning made here at a worthwhile price. Atthe trade fairs wood is not a sector that is sought-out, much to thecontrary. It varies a lot by communities, and this greatly influencesthe difference or cultural variation. The same wood isn’t as liked inAndaluzia as in Navarre or as in Aragon, Estremadura or Galicia.Here chestnut is highly valued, but not elsewhere.Where does the strength of handicraft workshops lie?In my case, in the complexity of the work. Mine forces me to obtaina quality product and to work on the limit of self-sufficiency. If youare of average skill you grow in capacity, acquiring the trade, asused to be said. You spend a lot of time on it, you are up to dateabout knowledge and techniques, and you’re on a higher level. Inthe things that don’t require an extraordinary technique, that onecan learn in between three and eight hours if the person is receptive,the field is more open to these emergences on the market.Could we say that craftwork is halfway between industryand culture or between industry and art?Pure and genuine craftwork is clearly connected to culture. It is cultureand it comes from a historical tradition; I don’t invent anything.The latest novelty that I am introducing is applied thanks to a machinewith some first plans dating from the XVII century, made inwood and with only two irons pieces. In other cases, due to thetechnique one uses, one finds oneself in a place of semi-industryor directly from industry. In this sector overthe last twenty or thirty years there has beenthe introduction of technological and technicalimprovements, and they don’t alwaysguarantee that the development willbe purely handicraft. These are veryquestionable. I know the limits to mywork; I can quantify them and definethem. In the quality one can differentiatewhat is good from whatis bad. Craftwork is developedin the XIX and XX centuries aftera previous development, occupyinga gap that industry couldn’t fill,which is that of the objects that needthe use of the human hand and brain.In many cases machines can’t manage todo what the hand can. Of course there areconvergences, but it would be necessary todistinguish the frontier between craftwork andindustry very clearly.What do you think the public in general’s view ofcrafts is?Firstly there isn’t a lot of knowledge. It depends on the areas andthe cultural habits. People don’t differentiate very well between thecraft product and the industrial one. The avalanche of products thatare on the market and that are really attractive have some influence,but above all there is a phrase that is often repeated in craft fairs:“Here it’s always the same stuff”. On the one hand it is true thatcraftwork cannot change in certain aspects, but it is also true thatwe have reached a moment in which there is a repetition of formsthat saturates a certain public, that public that has more knowledgeabout crafts. And for the other public it is either one extreme or theother, so that the item that is be showy, quick to get and cheap willmove forward. Nowadays globalization makes us lose specificity(we find the same products here and in Munich) and the mixturewith industry makes us lose quality and originality.58

Faced with this situation, what is the future forcraftwork?“Wood is a very specialMoving on and changing. Making a root change both in thesector and in the Administrations and also on the part of everyoneinvolved. And even so there is no guarantee, becauseeverything has its limits. But without this, part of the craftworkand above all the most handicraft based risk, if not disappearing,to become something so residual that it is worth nothing.There will come a moment when it is impossible to distinguishbetween what is sold in an industrial outlet from works sold ina craft workshop. Craftwork should not be present just in the media but also in teaching,and not just in Fine Arts, but in general. When you go and show young people a demonstrationof what you do they are amazed. One should add to this the culture of speed, ofmanaging to get cheap things that wear out in a very short space of time, like what happenswith clothes now. A craft product is something that lasts, to be maintained, somethingthat doesn’t come into the culture of arriving and filling which is predominant today.Another area of your work involves short course in wood-turning. Whoare your public?There is a very interesting part of the public who are workshop teachers, teachers of cycles… People who are very interested and who have great capacity who see that both in theirtraining and in their daily activity they have a series of gaps. I am very happy to work withthese people because you know there is a seed. On the other hand, there are aficionados.They are also interesting because there are people who enjoy this very much and show alot of passion and devote a lot of time to this. What is nice is that through this there is thecreating of networks of solidarity and information. We communicate if a new wood appearshere, if we discover an interesting magazine and that type of thing. Then there arealso the young people: up to eleven, twelve years old there is great interest and if you helpthem to do something, no matter how simple it is, they are very happy.material, and one has to beable to adapt oneself to thistype of surprises. You have tolet the wood take you.”Taxus Madera TorneadaVilamateo, Liñares 2715638 Vilarmaior, A CoruñaTN: 981 781 927www.taller-taxus.comtallertaxus@wanadoo.es59

“We Galicians are emigrants, and emigrant Galiciansappreciate my work as if it were gold. Theyhug me and cry...” So speaks Alberto Geada, atwenty-eight year-old lad who is a clog-maker bytrade. He is the youngest clog-maker: “the one afterme is seventy”, he says. And so he recalls his experiencein Frankfurt, where he went in May 2008through the General Secretariat of Emigration, andthrough which he discovered the passions that aproduct – clogs – aroused in people when they associatedit to their homeland, Galicia.Alberto Geada started out eight years ago in hisworkshop in Mondoñedo, encouraged by theinitiative that the district council was setting upin rehabilitating a whole neighbourhood in orderto receive craftsmen, the Muíños neighbourhood.Before he had worked in the carpentry sector,but craftwork offered him an independence thathe would not find in another sector at the time tomark his own working life, his working rhythmsand his lines of business. And why a clog-maker?One might say it is a genetic issue. Alberto is thesecond generation of clog-makers, after his fatherSecundino, from whom he learned his craft. Andhe guarantees that the fact of being emotionallylinked to this sector is an important factor for anyonewho wants to carry on in this field of activity:“I could only teach this craft to a son of mine”.Indeed, the fact of having a stable clientele aftersome holidays in the northwest, along with the offerby the council, was the final stimulus for Geadato opt for making wooden shoes.Prêt à PorterClogsAlberto Geada took the clogs from the feet of ruralworkers to those of the models who parade on therunways of Barcelona and Paris. He has spent eightyears devoting himself to the crafting of wooden shoes,above all clogs, madreñas (carved clogs) and albarcas(leather turn-shoes), traditional items of the peninsularnorth-west. From Mondoñedo, in the Muíñosneighbourhood, where several different workshopshave set up, Geada invents the Morning Clog, whichmay even become the million-dollar clog.“I learnt the technique from my father, but at thesame time I had to train myself”, so he travelledthe peninsular northwest in order to get to knowthe last clog-makers and the last albarqueiros,who make the traditional footwear of Cantabria,the albarcas, as well as the makers of madreñas,which come from Asturias, and which are stillwidely used in agricultural work. He recognizesthat it wasn’t easy to get into the clog-makersguild, as he found attitudes of lack of interest:“The old clog-makers appreciate what I do andrespect me when they see my work. There wasone who didn’t want to receive me, he practicallywanted to throw me out. I took a piece of mine,he started looking at it and I spoke to him for overan hour. Then he saw me differently”. Today hefeels well-accepted by his “battling clog-makers”,as Geada calls them.From them he learned the techniques that predominatedover different periods, a knowledgethat he now exhibits when he goes to craft fairsand which he adapts according to the peoplewho watch him do his work. “When I am makingclogs I show them the technique from the momentthat they lived it, I don’t give them any touches of60

quality like I should do, but I use a lot of tools”. All this knowledge forGeada is a cultural heritage given that nowadays there are technologiesthat could do a part of his work, more so when it is a product that doesnot have the same demand here as fifty years ago. In this sense he feelsthat distribution of the product is fundamental, through a good work ofmarketing and valorization of craftwork.“I’m going to bringout some clogswith new materialsand which will beuseful for today’speople, the clog ofthe XXI century”On the CatwalkIn 2007 some spectacular clogs designed and made by Alberto Geadawent onto the catwalk, with a 16 centimetre heel, for the collection of anew promise in fashion, the Lugo designer Manuel Bolaño. These itemswere part of the “Miñas Celsas” collection, inspired by the woman atthe end of the XIX century, which was shown at such important events asthe show with the latest details in urban fashion called “Bread&Butter”,held in Barcelona. In March of this year some new models of clogs byGeada also went on show with the creations by Bolaño, on this occasionin Paris. Yet fashion is not a business possibility for him, but another wayof revalorizing the product, as it serves to “create illusions with the clog,to modernize, innovate...”, as he explains.“Over recent years I have managed to introduce the clogs into the modernworld, my clogs are on show now on important catwalks in Europethrough a designer”, which changes the concept of this footwear: “Clogswere the footwear for the peasant and the labourer, so they had an importantsocial value but they were not made visible. So with this work ofgoing onto fashion runways, into art galleries, which is what the societyis valorizing, recovers the illusion of many years of work”. This type ofidea also serves him to get himself known and to show the potentialof his works, given that “many people in the fashion world and majormulti-nationals go to those places, looking for new creators and, as it isa very competitive world, the exclusivity of the item is very important”,he reflects.In this sense, Geada is making a spectacular clog that he foresees willbe on show in a couple of years. “I am going to make a clog that I moreor less have imagined, in order to present it at one of the most importantgalleries in the world, in Las Vegas, it will be an item whose price isaround a million euros”, he guarantees. The reason for this particularinitiative is to generate expectations. “It’s going to be a great boom,clogs costing a million euros”, made out of very special, unique andexclusive materials. Creativity is fundamental in his work not to fall intomere repetition, as Geada always tries to make a new tour or find a differentsector in which to enter. He always tries to have a part of researchand innovation that goes alongside with the making of madreñas andclogs, which are very successful commercially and are the base of theworkshop’s profit. “Clogs are at the last moment of their history and theproblem is that the clog-makers of the time were unable to adapt clogsto the habits and needs of today’s people. I’m going to do that work.63

“The oldclog-makersappreciatewhat I do andrespect mewhen they seemy work”I’m going to bring out some clogs with new materials and which will beuseful for today’s people, the clog of the XXI century”.From Finisterra to TokyoA gaze at Alberto Geada’s workshop is like a visual trip through thehistory of wooden footwear in the Northwest of the Peninsula. Therehe has originals of galochas, a fusion between the madreñas and theclogs that were used in the areas of Asturias and Galicia. There arealso copies of early madreñas, that were worn with gaiters. He also hasalbarcas from Carmonera or those made with a split, and copies fromother parts of the State, like Catalonia, and even France, where theyare called sabots, as well as the typical Dutch ones.But his concerns go further, given that he has a collection of over 150original items of wooden footwear, which he intends to set up a centrefor the interpretation of footwear in the centre of Mondoñedo, in the palace that belongedto the Pardo Montenegro family and in front of which the Northern Way passes.The collection includes spectacular items coming even from Japan, and the prices of theclogs can reach up to 9,000 euros. From Turkey he has some takunyas, wooden sandalsthat are used to go to the Turkish baths, which are encrusted with mother-of-pearland are embroidered with silver thread. “I have some snow-shoes, from Canada, whichare laced with cat gut”, he highlights from among his most peculiar items. A large ethnographicpatrimony that includes a good part of the world tradition of wooden footwearwith items even from the XIX century that Geada himself restored.Alberto Geada ValAcernadas, 5 -Lagoa27776 AlfozTN: 636 396 824www.albertogeada.comHe also has a large number of traditional Galician clogs, like the “thick” clog that wasused in the fields, or its female version, which had the name of slipper clog, which weremore open on the area of the upper. “There were also ones to go to parties and pilgrimages,like shoes. As there was no money to buy shoes, clogs were made to imitatethem”.Along with the exhibition of wooden footwear are the tools and the clog-making stoolthat Alberto Geada recuperated after his father sold it to a former Asturian customer.In his way of working both on clogs and madreñas, which are the products he makesmost, one appreciates his good way of using the tools he had collected from otherclog-makers, like the sharp hoes or the llerdas, with which he shapes the piece in order64

to make it adapt to the shape of the foot. He also highlights thedesign that he usually puts on his works, a simple flower.And his way of using the tools with such mastery has taken himeven onto the stage. It was with the show “Clogs Project”, by thecompany Á Mercé das CirKunsTanzias, directed by the choreographerMercé de Rande, in which the six dancers danced to therhythm both of Óscar Fernández’s hurdy-gurdy and of the signthat comes out of the work that Alberto Geada did live. CurrentlyQuique Peón, according to Geada, is also working on a danceand theatre show which will also have the presence of clogs,something that particularly pleases Geada: “it’s the best I’ve seendancing with clogs”.65

Literature TailorsGrowing up among books and magazines, nothing would make him think that hislife would be precisely that of dressing them. And that his passion would be bookbinding,creating luxury objects for the most select libraries. Twenty-seven yearsago Juan López Casás started Códice, a company that today employs five craftsmenand where they make “made to measure outfits” for very special books. Hetalks about his work with true devotion, and laments not being able to dedicate asmuch time as he would like to the work of binding books due to the administrativeobligations he has in running a company.“The leather book, byWhen he talks about bookbinding, Juan transmits passionfor his work. He explains and carries out the processeswith a mastery that only the hand of a craftsmanwho has being doing this for years can do. Juan LópezCasás is at the head of Códice, a craft workshop whichemploys four other craftsmenand where theycarry out both book bindingand restoring. “I oncehad three hundred incunabulahere (editions previousto printing), I madea book that was a coverfor the wedding of thePrinces of Asturias andanother one that was forPope Benedict XVI”. They are special books, for whichthe customer looks for someone he can trust and offershim very professional results.an artist and on art, aresought by collectors,bibliophiles, people wholike books”The main customers that go to Códice are usually officialcentres, councils or companies that wish to make a commemorativegift, especially books of signatures or giltbooks. He also does small and medium size print runsfor companies that, for example, wish to make a specialedition of a book in leather, numbered by a notary, aswas the case of a book by the writer Manuel Rivas. Henever prints more than 500 reproductions, because thenthe price is very high in relation to an industrial bookbinder,as with him the process is all done by hand.Juan’s arrival at bookbinding was by chance, due toaffection. “Firstly I was taught how to do the typical fascicule,then I started training in courses in Lugo, in Madrid,and I gradually perfected this. Nowadays thereare things that practically only I do”, he explains.And this attraction for the book as a luxury object wassomething that allowed him to establish a close relationshipwith the customers who were looking for somethingspecial. “I have a lot of bibliophiles, a good customerportfolio, many of whom used to demand a great dealof me but now give me much greater freedom. As I likethe issue of bookbinding and I got involved in a circleof people who like old books, repairing, restoring andmaking books for pretty libraries, leather books, wellbound one, I feel satisfied about what I do, and mycustomers also like it”. Then Juan brings out a book thatis a veritable jewel: a volume on which he has attacheda special paper, which was printed with typographyand with engravings made ex-professo, with poems byMendinho, by Martin Codax and by Johan de Cangas.66

“We published a small number, we kept a few and we commercializedthe rest, as it was a single edition with a limited run, it did verywell for us”, he comments. Because that direct relationship with thecustomer is fundamental: “People know me, if I make something Icall them and I tell them ‘I’ve got this’, and they tell me to keep itor not”.“Indeed, the leather book, by an artist and on art, are sought bycollectors, bibliophiles, people who like books”, so the price is noimpediment: “People who are bibliophiles appreciate the book andsay nothing about the price”. He mentions some of the peculiaritiesof his customers: some people have two Quijotes in thede Ibarra edition of 1780, another one only collects atlases,another one cookery books... In fact, the restoring of theQuijotes was complicated, given that one has to respect theoriginal so much. The process implies a study of the materials,because sometimes they have deteriorated due to the sunor humidity, and may not appear to correspond to what theoriginal material was. “One needs to deconstruct it without itripping, because the criterion is always that of conserving theoriginal, as best as possible, and to put as little as possibleof the new in it”. If it is necessary to remake a part, one makes thepaper and grafts it on, one also gets the leather, dyeing it or ageingit if necessary, and one can also put new fly-leafs on, if they can bemade like the original design.He also makes facsimile editions, like an order he is working onfor Obras del Puerto. “They had a unique book, we had to go andphotograph it there, both the printer and myself, and make an originalbookbinding. We found paper with the same acidity to makethe same book, just as had been made in 1909. The paper hasits tones, the typography as well, for the engravings we found thepaper from the time, with photos of the date that it had”. It is usualto have to travel, because in the case of unique books the ownersdon’t usually let the book leave the library.In the case of bookbinding, the process is totally manual, from thestitching of the bindings to the decoration itself, which uses techniquessuch as gold cloth. “It is how one engraved in the past andthat now is usually used in artists’ books and about art, which is 24carat gold that hardens with heat. The process is very crafted andvery old, done with egg-whites...” Another very simple and currentmethod is with gold leaf, applied with a machine called a wheel,which in Códice is a veritable collector’s item. “I wanted a machinethat would print, there was a new one, but I kept this one becauseI liked it”. The machine, which he bought in Madrid, is over a hundredyears old, and shares the work with a more modern one. Theprinting is a process of great responsibility, given that is the engravingturns out wrong the whole of the work done is useless.“In restoring the criterion is alwaysthat of conserving the original, asbest as possible, and to put as little aspossible of the new in it”In order to design the bookbinding on a book, in Códice we arefirstly interested in the contents, the subject matter, in order to establishcoherence with the proposal. The design is usually done byhand, and, if it is necessary, we prepare a pattern for the printingwork. “If the work is more artistic, the design is done by hand,including the drawing. We do gilt patterns, engravings of flowers,prints, mosaics... all by hand. If someone says the leather has to bethat tone, we dye the leather, if it is necessary we colour the paperto be the same as the old one”.For this reason training is of the greatest importance for the correctdevelopment of the trade, but Juan is sorry that there isn’t an orderedtraining course. “Bookbinding requires professional training;it used to be a higher course of studies. Many years ago here inLa Corunna there was the School of Arts and Crafts, now it is theSchool of Fine Arts, and one could study bookbinding there”. In thissense he highlights the work that the Galician Craft and Design CentreFoundation is carrying out. “When we are worried we request69

courses, let that person come to improve such a technique”, and Códice hasalready received some of them in their own workshop.Because the founder of Códice is sure that the craft of bookbinding still hasa great future, but always involving innovation and adapting to the newrequirements of a changing society. “Now we are in the digital age, I’ve gota project to design a box- book to put some pen drives or a DVD in, in theshape of a book to be kept in the library and to put the magnetic supporton. One has to adapt to the times: if people don’t buy books because theydownload them on the Internet, you can put your DVD with them on insidethem”, Juan explains. He recalls how the market of the fascicule has almostdisappeared, and how many works and projects are today presented inthe electronic format, and has been adapting his business, introducing theproduction of folders and presentation boxes.Códice Encadernación Artesanal,Avda. de Montserrat, 16 B15009 A CoruñaTN: 981 130 414www.codize.comjuan@codize.comFrom the display cabinet he takes out a folder, ordered by the photographerManuel Ferrol, which covered and protected the reproductions he sold andwhich Juan conserves like a little treasure. One among so many that onecan find around the workshop, relics like the bronze typographies that areno longer made in Spain, or the old printing press that decorates the displaycase. Examples from a whole life enjoying his craft.70

ookbindingThe process of binding a book is laborious,and involves several different phases.Here we explain some of the mostusual techniques involved in this process.Fold SewingThe folios that make up each quire of the book are foldedin half and then bound.TrimmingWhen all the quires are prepared they are trimmed so thatall the pages are on the same level.OversewingThe book is placed in the sewing machine and the quiresare sewn.Placing fly-leaves and protective coversFly-leaves are the first and last pages of the book, whilethe dust covers are to protect the book when it is handled.The covers can be stitched onto the book or attached withglue.CuttingTo make the book the same size it is cut with a guillotine.This is also the moment when artistic techniques can beapplied, like gilt edges on the pages.HeadingA range of colours that goes on the back and which isknown as the heading. It is not included only for aestheticreasons, but because it grants greater solidity to thebook.Cut and Placing of the CoversThe backings are cut in relation to the character and thevolume, always leaving a space that is known as a cell,which is the part of the cover that overhangs. At that momentthe glue is applied over the stitching and the endsare rounded off.Backing the book and preparing the spineThe two parts of the backing are joined together, a processthat is known as binding. In order for the leather tobe resistant, the spine-board is made, a cardboard basewhich helps in future handling.Cutting the LeatherThe whole cover has to be calculated, the cover, the hingesand the edges at the time of preparing the leather, if itis going to cover the whole volume.Paring the LeatherThis means beating the leather so it is as thin as possiblewith a tool called the paring tool.Gluing the Leather to the rounded edgesSo that the surfaces are more resistant during use, theleather is glued to the edges, which provides an elegantresult.Attaching the CoversThe covers are cut to protect the book during use. Theseare very important because the bind the cover to the book,the cover to the surfaces, the leather edges and the leatherto the spine.Pressing and FlatteningThe book spends several hours in the press and it has to bechecked that the gaps between the binding and the cover,as well as of the different lines are flattened.71

Collaboration“There is no world if there is no mirror is absurd, but all of our relationships,no matter how exact they are, are merely descriptionsof man, not of the world: they are the laws of this higher optics thatdoes not offer any possibility of taking us further. It is not appearance,it is not illusion, but a coded writing that is expressed withinan unknown thing, very clear to us, made for us, our human positionwith respect to things. Through this things are hidden to us”.To DuplicateRealityAlberto Ruíz de SamaniegoDirector of Fundación Luis SeoaneFriedrich Nietzsche.Duplication – even serial multiplication – that is implicit in the wholeprocess of printmaking constitutes the central axis and at the sametime the conceptual motor of the work of Anne Heyvaert. This occursacross her representation of boxes, book, sheets of paper andmaps, as if reality had been captured by its identical double, to bereplaced by an identical twin that has hidden it away and substituteditself for it, perhaps with a certain malice in that this supposes aneffective deception and a fooling of reality. Alternatively perhaps,and to the contrary, we ourselves will not come up with anythingless than the triumph of ambiguity, equivocation and ambiguity inthe realm of split personalities. She honours it and, as it were, isfaithful to it and credits its existence beyond all doubt – that is tosay of its own being divided into two once more, as much beingquestionable, and thus certifying its authentic and true character ofwhich, naturally, it is impossible to be in doubt. In fact it is this, thedoubling of the existence of reality, that we have done since thedawn of time.In this way, in contemplating the Anne Heyvaert’s images, whichexemplify the duplication of figures, one surprises oneself at thisflagrant deviation from reality. At first glance we have a simple andtruly existing entity: a cardboard box, a page, or an unfolded map,but we soon realise that things are neither that simple – nor unique– and that in fact we are witness to two concurrent realities: one realentity which is absent and in reality never there, and another thatbecomes real exactly in the degree to which it captures and completelyreplaces the other. The deviation to which we are referringis as subtle as it is oracular, and of great consequence: on the onehand these images, in their blunt and precise physical clarification,in the exemplary character that they possess as very specific visualobjects, and even as visual objects that are specifically marked –the cardboard, the flaps, the whiteness and folds of the pages, theinfinite information that a map always presents – produce a verypowerful ‘effect of reality’: the accession to that which is present,effectively and unquestionably. Here, as in all processes of mimesis,detail plays – almost ontologically – a decisive role. Certainly, in theextreme attention paid to detail, one can recognise the transparentimage of an object, perfect in imitation down to the last detail; but itis also advisable to see a representation of pure plastic matter – pictorialor drawn – manipulated for representation and yet evidentin itself every time, spellbinding beyond a doubt in its presence. InAnne Heyvaert’s work the qualities and potentialities of printmakingmanifest themselves through this subtle representation, in all itssplendour. We know, besides, that this manner of representation,minutely and intimately devoted to reality, has often been attributedto the Flemish pictorial tradition. It is in this variety of the painting ofdaily life (to use a term that artistic literature itself endorses) that thereferential universe of Anne Heyvaert – made to share and protectintimacy, or to favour the processes of dreaming and the transportationof the lonely individual – situates itself in a conscious and undeniablemanner. In fact, Anne Heyvaert’s Belgian nationality bringsto mind two significant facts with which this extreme will of mimesisis concerned. On the one hand, a relevant writing belonging to thisFlemish tradition is ‘The Book of Painting’ published by Karel vanMander in Haarlem in 1604, in which is demonstrated how thepleasure of detail can become transformed into a obsession, andeven into a desire to cut the painting into pieces, to ‘carve it’ inorder to keep only the most beautiful part. Anne’s work is in otherways no stranger to this ‘tension of the fragment’. The testimony ofvan Mander is especially interesting because it concerns an importantfactor in the history of Flemish painting: the mastery of FransHals, who was at the same time poet, playwright and painter, andthe glory of Haarlem at the end of the 16th century. He reaffirmswhat Michelangelo himself had already criticised in Flemish painting:the excessive attention given to detail, approaching ‘trompel’oeil’ and in the extreme the generator of confusion and conceptualdisorder. This type of painting would also become the deception ofthe spirit, as another Belgian painter, Magritte, understood so well.73

We know clearly from Francisco de Holanda that the great Italian sculptor considered this type ofpainting to be created, ‘to deceive the gaze from the outside’, everything, ‘clothes, masonry, crops,shadows of trees, rivers and bridges, that are termed landscape, and many figures here and there’,an art that, in conclusion, pleases, ‘women, particularly the very old and the very young, and (…)monks and nuns.’ That is, by all those accustomed to spending their time in solitude, retreat andrecollection. But in the end a dangerous type of painting, because such an accumulation of theoutdoors and daily life is arranged, in Michelangelo’s judgement, ‘without rhyme or reason, orart, without symmetry or proportion’: that is to say that it leaves behind any ideal of harmony andsymmetry, precisely because of its love for and dependence on the most minute and real aspects ofthe universe, the true skin of the world. It is because of this, according to the Italian, that it is onlyliked by, ‘Some gentlemen who are deaf to true harmony’, in other words, painting that is never inthe unfurling of the empirical world, but is in the mind and spirit – abstract, immaterial, absent – ofthose who organise it.The other fact that we cannot forget, and which in some ways reinforces this passion for the exactreality of empirical things, is the great cartographic tradition of the Flemish countries, which appearedat the same time as the birth of rational thought and the beginnings of science, where thesubjective gave way to the mathematical projections of Mercator or Ortelius, and to the real dimensionsof the planets, freeing itself from the mysterious and theological traditions, thereby facilitatingour rediscovery of the world: a recognition of the image of the world which, let us not forget,comes from lithographic impressions, or engravings on wood or copper plates, that is to say, fromthe techniques of representation dependent on printmaking. It is precisely from the middle of the16th century that a school of producers and printers of maps, whose cartographic production immediatelycame to be the most important in the world, was developed in Flanders, then part of theSpanish Empire, and held this central place for an entire century. The secret of such success resided74

initially in the selection and critique of the information employed, in theexquisite elaboration of the plates, and in the effectiveness of the methodsof commercialisation. A whole life style distanced itself widely from theNeo-Platonic (mystical, grandiloquent and theosophical) concerns of theFlorentine tradition and that, through its purity and almost miraculous simplicity,its precise optical lucidity, with an intimate silence, reserved andfeminine, Vermeer of Delft (for example) knew how to reflect with perfectionand angelic evaluation.One will be able to recognise, as a consequence, two levels of reality inthe images of Anne Heyvaert: her actual truth, betrayed, simulated, deviated,doubled, and her de facto truth, which has imposed itself by usurpingthe place and rights of its precedent. In as much as that this divisionshould not be as sharp, because the case here is not exactly a split withthe truth (that is to say, in a situation of understanding the particularity ofeach) and is due to a perversion (etymologically a splitting, a dislocation)of its own right, to the extent that these visual phenomena, in practice, setout the same information as the thing itself. The fact is, as we have stated,the presentation is meticulous to the finest detail, in a sort of extrememimesis that results, due a pure love for the thing itself, by absorbing it,concealing it beneath the folds of its twin representation. All of this is, aswe have said, extremely paradoxical – and in fact Anne Heyvaert’s workplaces itself continually before paradoxical objects: the duplication placesus in front of objects that are at the same time one thing and another: forexample, a map and something other than a map, a page from a bookand something slightly different to a page from a book. But what is alsointeresting in Anne Heyvaert’s artistic process is that this eventuality itselfconfers a failed attempt on all rules and in addition an amendment to thewhole notion of what is real, the credibility of which is now compromisedby a representation very close to falsification, such as occurred with thepipe of Magritte: to the extent that, in order for this effect to occur, the realAnne Heyvaert’s workplaces itself continuallybefore paradoxical objects:the duplication places usin front of objects that areat the same time one thingand another: for example,a map and something otherthan a map, a page from abook75

object itself has disappeared and has been replaced solelyand completely by its representation – as occurs specificallywith a map in respect to the territory that it represents. Theappearance of the double implies, with a strangeness thatis certainly troubling, the calling into question of all reality,or at least its distancing from that which is perhaps soothing,but also agonising and terrible. The double supposes,by definition, not just the duplicity of this or that image, butmoreover its own existence and the knowledge of all images.What refutes all arguments to the extreme and evenmore so in the images that Anne offers, is the very fact ofthe objects that she replaces or responds with: the fact thatthey can exist, that is, that by so saying there should be anirrefutable proof of their existence. That, in sum, when wesee things, we are in front of objects worthy of being takeninto consideration in as much as they are genuine and real,or (which is the same thing) perfect and beyond doubt, existing.As the philosopher Clement Rousset has pointed on anumber of occasions, the shadow of the double, omitting thereality of particular objects, bases itself dangerously on thefact of existence in general. And this is why, finally, all realityexposed to replication ceases, even, to be credible.The conclusion, as we see, could not be more alarming – andcertainly gives us much to think about, which is one of thosethings that at the very least we can demand of art – so thatwe have an understanding of reality, eventhe reality that must be removed and replacedby another uncertainreality which, upon beingeliminated, guaranteesand ends upattesting to itsquestionablelatent presence.In otherwords,e q u a l l ys t r a n g eand parado x i c a l :in order tohave accessto reality – andto make it as consistentas much as believable– we must putreality itself to questionand by this short circuit conceive of a representation that isno more than a copy, and thus a ruse, a rival and an unfolding,a dislocation that ends up affecting us as if it concernedreality itself. In this way, that which finally takes place, bymeans of the support (or betrayal?) of this artistic interventionand beyond the object, is an intervention that presents itselfnot only in art but also in many other areas of life – in cartography,maps, plans – something, let us say, other than normalthat remains veiled and separated in a dimension that cannotbe assumed or presented, but which is the obscure basisof our reality, constituting the final degree of our present life.What takes place in the mimesis is assuredly other than reality,something else that duplicates reality and splits from it bybetraying itself, we might say, in occupying it in totality andon which reality – that entity as provisional as it is fragile – itselfis based. One is right, then, to question it: but in the finalanalysis, what is reality? In the end, does reality exist? Thisis precisely that which is always suggested by the theme ofthe double: nothing of what we see is singular and nothing isentirely, in the same way, profoundly and lastingly real. Is itbecause of this that we care so much about appearance, ourrepresentation of an improbable or vanished reality, for beingthe only evidence we have, however insignificant it mightbe? Is this the reason then for the greatly emotional sentimenttowards the smallest and most still detail shown in the Flemishpictorial tradition and despised by the Florentine idealismof Buonarotti, the seeker of harmonies and ideals that arealways beyond vile substance? All that our eyes see is purespectacle and possibly a vanity that is but smoke, shadowand nothingness, where there is no guarantee of the realitythat accredits it. Reality is a phantom (or a fantasy). One cannever believe ones eyes, as nothing of that which one cansee is part of the reality which, being exposed to a duplication,is by definition the indelible mark of the ‘non-real’. Thedouble, un-doubling itself, is the undeniable evidence of thelittle of reality that we possess or, to paraphrase Lacan, theconfirmation that reality, if it exists at all, is not everything,is an incomplete entity, an unstable universe, volatile andperishable, which it is necessary to care for and to unfold,as one would care for a map of a lost treasure. Reality isthe total absence of the infinite whiteness of a blank pageor an unreadable book, open and as yet unwritten, such asthose that Anne Heyvaert likes to show to us. Reality is like aperfectly (re)constructed fantasy, unfolded as if by one whofulfils the action – always capricious and useless – of origami,or as one who arranges an irreducible and untreatableblank page with cartographic Flemish precision.76

And is it not precisely this non-totality, this uneasy evidence of crumblingand absence in the optical effects, once again absolutely paradoxical,that Anne Heyvaert presents to us? Does not the immaculateand unreadable whiteness of her books and papers constitute an indication,a sort of stain on constructed reality – whose function wouldbe identical in this sense to that of the Lacanian object because itis missing from its place – which works precisely as a warning tonavigators, a sign even of the inaccessibility of reality? These uneasyand strange folds arranged implausibly upon the surface itself ofmaps and plans – do they not function as an obvious twist in thevisual dimension of reality, like an obscene rustle in the satinisedrepresentation which then indicates to us its definitive inaccessibility,and as much as warns and counsels us not to accept or verify theinconsistency and even the impertinence of all searches for ultimatereality? These divisions, that duplicate and superimpose themselvesupon even the surface of the representation, are signs of the indispositionand radical strangeness of that which may never take place, ofthe impossible and unrecognisable existence of each and every oneof us, and of the inadequacy of all techniques of representation, asmuch for its absurdity – a pleasant absurdity – as for anything else.As a consequence reality ends up being invisible, unrecognisable: itis always veiled and concealed under the multiple creases and foldsacross which the fantasies of reality like to involve and disguise themselves.It is to this invisibility of reality, that is not, finally, an accidentalinvisibility, but to the contrary, that without doubt results in a necessarylack of reality itself beneath the eventualities of its concealments,that these folds and duplications bring us. The object of desire forreality is in effect invisible and unknowable, inappreciable and unrepresentableas such, but precisely to the extent to which it is unique– that is to the extent that no representation can suggest its completeor total knowledge by means of mimesis, replication, mathematical orscientific measurement, or copying. Because, by definition, reality isnot that which has no double, that which can be neither folded norundoubled: an unappreciable singularity for which there is neither apossible mirror, nor cartography, nor calculation. Reality is an entitythat is impossible to capture. It is impossible to capture its non-visibility,its non-accessibility, except through its doubling and undoubling: thatis to say, never by direct means. The only way – and a strange way– to make visible the invisible reality is to show, precisely through itsdouble, the evidence of its non-visibility.I would like to conclude with a biographical detail that does notappear to me to be futile on this point. Who better than Anne Heyvaert– born by chance in Memphis, a wanderer from childhood theinfinite geography of reality, a perpetual inhabitant of the obligatoryand provisional, a Franco-Belgian artist who now lives at the‘Finisterre’ of Europe – to understand that the search for any identityis a vain enterprise? This on the principle itself that it is, understandably,never possible to be able to identify what is real. Reality is thatwhich always remains refractive of all attempts at identification: thatwhich has no ownership, an unassignable and fugitive whiteness, anopen and unreadable book. Reality is forever a diversion. Reality isa stranger.(translated from the French version of the text by Richard Noyce)77

Anne Heyvaert was born in Memphis, Tennessee (USA) in 1959. She isthe daughter of René Heyvaert, a Belgian architect and artist, and at the ageof two she moves with her family to Belgium and then to France. She studiesat the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de París, where she chooses the workshopof M. Carron and M. Faure, due to their teaching based on the traditionof the history of art, as opposed to her father, who had an avant-garde andradical tradition. Later on this would stand out in her work, the materials sheuses, and the details, etc.She comes to Galicia for the first time in 1977 and settles in 1980 in Santiagode Compostela, where she begins to make contact with the Galician artscene. In 1989 she moves again, this time to Luxembourg, where she beginsto learn the techniques of engraving and soon sees the potential of engravingfor her work in these techniques that will allow her to produce her work, alongwith other techniques in printing such as silkscreen, copying, representation,multiplication and transformation...Since 1994 she has been back in Galicia again, in Oleiros, where she hasalso set up her workshop. Besides her creative activity, she is a teacher andresearcher at the Fine Arts Faculty of Pontevedra, where she teaches issuesrelated to drawing, graphic techniques and experimental projects.Anne HeyvaertR/ Río Sil, 2715173 OleirosTN: 667 543 690anneheyvaert@hotmail.com78