Trying my hand

It's been too long since I haven't painted. At least on something other than my books :) One of my early fascinations was illuminated manuscripts. Many years ago I made copies from Byzantine manuscripts and had them exhibited in club from Lucerne, Switzerland. With help from my friends in two weeks I sold almost all my works. It was such a great experience for me at that time, as I was a fresh graduate from university. Now, the preparations for the medieval fair opened my appetite for medieval manuscripts again. So I made these small reproductions from the Bestiary of Aberdeen, an English manuscript from around 1200 available online here.

I really enjoyed to paint these details. The copies measure around 4 x 4 inches and are painted in egg tempera on golden leaf.

And below, a few archive images that I am lucky to still have. They are from the expo in Lucerne in 2003. All I had at that time was a floppy-disk Mavica that did its best :)

   Magdalena Club, Lucerne, 2003.
  

Medievals

These are probably my favorite three books I've made so far. I think they represents a step forward in my bookbinding practice - they are books with memories, that tell stories even before being written.  

I found this wonderful quote while writing on the endpages of a book:

"The labour of the writer is the refreshment of the reader. The one depletes the body, the other advances the mind. Whoever you are, therefore, do not scorn but rather be mindful of the work of the one labouring to bring you profit... If you do not know how to write you will consider it no hardship, but if you want a detailed account of it let me tell you that the work is heavy: it makes the eyes misty, bows the back, crushes the ribs and belly, brings pain to the kidneys and makes the body ache all over. Therefore, O reader, turn the leaves gently and keep your fingers away from the letters, for as the hailstorm ruins the harvest of the land so does the unserviceable reader destroy the book and the writing. As the sailor finds welcome the final harbour, so does the scribe the final line. Deo gratias semper." 

Colophon, from the "Silos Beatus" (12th century).

   The endpages
  

A Wonderful Coincidence

This month we celebrated one year since we moved to Vila do Conde, in the north of Portugal. When I first came here I had no idea if I will like it or if it was really the place where I wanted to live. I didn’t know anybody and being such a small quiet city, I had no expectations of meeting people or making new friends around here.
 
And then this wonderful unexpected thing happens, and one day I discover a blog of another artist who works with leather and lives right here, just a few streets away from me! Two weeks later I receive an email from him, as he had already discovered me before I got to contact him first. His name is José Machado and he also moved here with his family exactly a year ago. He is a creative shoemaker who - honestly, I’m not saying that because we’re friends now :)- makes the most beautiful and original shoes I ever seen!!!

His work is the perfect blend between antiquity and medieval styles and contemporary materials, colors and textures. These are one of a kind shoes made after extensive documentation, beautifully designed and carefully created. To me they seem some magic objects that came out of a beautiful story and once you put them on, they’ll take you to some dreams world.

José has a background in theater stage lighting and sometimes designs pieces for actors 
and theater play.

You can see the beautiful shoes for yourself on his blog http://ecosdooficio.blogspot.com/ and sneak a peek into his studio.

As for me, I must dedicate a separate post to my first visit to his workshop and how amazing was that experience! For now I can only say, gosh… I have soooo much to learn from him!