Hi,
The first half of this day was devoted to driving around Lisbon with a kind of tone deaf tour guide looking at some of the different buildings and neighborhoods in Lisbon. The guide took special pains to remind us several times about how friendly the Portuguese are and then went on to talk about what good colonizers they were. As my friend Charles Hayes said "I thought she was going to tell us how happy the slaves were". Anyway Portugal did have its ups and downs throughout its history. The down being a huge fire followed by a devastating tidal wave which she said left the country in a very melancholic state- thus Fado......
The Tour Guide
One of the two hills of Lisbon with Roman ruins
Their version of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Jesus from Brazil
We went to lunch at the Can Can which sells canned fish which is evidently a delicacy here. The lunch itself was great. We had soup and salad we could serve ourselves.
Notice the light fixture is made of cans and the whole wall is piled high
View of our party from above
Next we went on to the Gulbenkian Museum for the big event of the week- the signing of the book on Portuguese Jewelry and the exhibition. The museum was impressive and so was the show and the book. But first we show two other shows there.
One was of Lalique jewelry. They have a very substantial collection. Such amazing work.
Can you see the rooster head?
Then we saw a show by a painter named Sarah Affonso who did paintings of peasants and collected folk art as well as made jewelry in the filigree tradition of Portugal. There is a northern tradition of gold jewelry associated with an area called Minho where everyone collects lots of gold necklaces and earrings and brooches and one day a year wears them all at once.
Something else our curator guide mentioned is how often the artist models turned painters (which Sarah Affonso was) took their inspiration from folk culture. It is an interesting idea to keep in mind when we look at other women painters of the early 20th century.
And now on to Cristina Filipe's jewelry exhibition. It is beautifully displayed in a wide corridor with art work from the collection included where it related to the jewelry.
Cristina giving us a tour
Then on to the discussion with Cristina, Barbara (the director of the Design Museum), Susan Beech, Someone?, Greta from Arnoldsche the publisher, and Yvonne ( ED of AJF). Everyone had their thank yous and other congratulations to pass along emphasizing the importance of this exhibition to the Portuguese community. It was lovely and long and largely in Portuguese. Several in the AJF group fell asleep. Sigh. Susan Beech was also interviewed by the NPR in Portugal -that is how big this was.
That's all folks.
xox,
Susan
Comments
Post a Comment