Hi,
This is the last day of the AJF trip to Lisbon. It is a busy one.
Every morning starts with a gathering in the lobby of the Four Seasons Ritz where I am staying. It is a lovely hotel and I don't know when I have such thoughtfully helpful service.
The first stop of the day is at the storage area of the Design Museum. Barbara Coutinho who we met at dinner the first night is the Director there and the museum itself is closed for renovations so the whole collection is in storage including the jewelry and fashion part of it.
The collection of jewelry is small but good. Mostly Portuguese pioneers like Kukas and Cristina who did the large installation on the left. It is a case dedicated to Joan of Arc and each square has a place for a ring in it. The rings were made to fit friends who were asked for a word to describe Joan of Arc and so those words appear down the center of the display- Strong, brave, honor, etc.
The next stop for the morning is ArCo- the school were almost all the Portuguese jewelers we have met have gone to school. Teresa Seabre (the woman who owns the gallery we went to on the second day) was chair of the department from the 70s to the early 2000s when Cristina took over. Now Catrina Silva is the head and she also works for Teresa. You can see how small the community is.
The students set up a show for us.
Marta Costa Reis also set up her work. She teaches jewelry history at the school.
We visited a small art gallery named Galeria Franciso Fino.....
that had a downstairs cave like series of small rooms where Ligia Dias curated a jewelry show called Corner Piece. She said it was about creativity by any one with any kind of material.
Lunch was at the Espelho de Água near the monument to colonizers called the Age of Discovery.
Right outside the entrance to the resturant.
Inside the restaurant
After lunch we went on to the studio of Joanna Vasconcelos who is a real force. She has a huge building with 60 employees with all kinds of skills including a healer. There are embroiders, engineers, finance people, technicians, architects, etc. She was trained as a jeweler by guess who? Right Cristina Filipe. She spent a good part of our long tour talking about how her jewelry training was necessary for her success as a sculptor.
The work she is probably best known for is embroidery over ceramic animal forms.
But she also does a lot of other things. Here is shoe completely made of pots and pans.
She does a lot of commissions like this big ring for Bilbao which you can see in its model form on the right.
Or this wedding cake which is in process and here is its model. It will be 4 stories high and you can climb up and become the jewel at the top.
It was a fascinating tour through her whole building with many works on display and being worked on.
Next we went to dinner at a private space with a special chef that was recommended by Marta. It was a quirky environment and the food was excellent. This was our farewell dinner and lots of toasts were made to thank the organizers- Bonnie and Yvonne and the Portuguese like Cristina and Marta who helped with everything.
And with that I will say good bye to Lisbon. Tomorrow is a travel day so I will not be posting. But then I will be in Venice and so you can expect a whole new and different bunch of posts. Now you will see probably hardly any jewelry but lots of art.
Thats all folks.
xox,
Susan
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