Österreich 2001, reine Schurwolle in Knüpftechnik, Baumwoll-Kette, 160 x 210 cm. (DRAX)

Unikat.

Versteigert zugunsten des Jane Goodall Instituts (JGI), Austria

Provenienz: Geschenk der Künstlerin an Jane Goodall anlässlich deren 80sten Geburtstages, übergeben bei ihrem Wien-Besuch im Oktober 2014.

Dear Jane,

Many words have been said already about the importance of your work and the inspiration and hope that you are for many. I feel that words cannot express what you are really doing.
One can easily feel that the driving force for all you are doing and helps you keep going, comes from deep within your heart. Art is the language of the heart and this offering is an expression of gratitude and deep admiration from heart to heart.
In our breathless profit and digital era, the handicrafts are dying out as all the species and rainforests you are trying restlessly to save. Weaving is the oldest handycraft of mankind and all big civilizations have demonstrated their prosperity and wellbeing through the splendour of their textiles.
The art of Tapestry has come to its culmination in the Middle Ages and was made by weavers organized in manufactures. Later on as the manufactures dyed out this tradition was preserved by artists and weavers who have found their creative expression through that technique.
From early childhood I knew I would like to weave Tapestries. I came from my home country Bulgaria with 18 to learn this technique that was preserved here in Austria by few contemporary artists. Last year the last studio for Tapestry in Austria at the University of applied Arts in Vienna has been closed. At present there are less than 10 artists here who are preserving that heritage and are struggling financially to be able to continue their work.

Tapestry is not a fast-food art – it is a slow art. When one weaves she comes out of the concept of time and space. There is only NOW. She becomes one with the loom and the artpeace. It is like a meditative dance. There is the music of the sounds of the loom, the movements of the body and the results of that dance at the end. It is a dance that lasts days, months and sometimes years. One can sit for more than one year on one single peace without seeing the whole during the work – one can see only the 20 cm that are being woven at present and cannot roll out the tapestry to see what has been woven till then. So one must focus on the detail and keep the whole in mind all the time. It becomes the diary of the artist.
I wove this tapestry Anima Archaica in 2,5 years. The inspiration for that pattern were the cave paintings of Africa. It is dedicated to mother nature, my son Immanuel, motherhood and the traces of our anssessors that we are carrying forward.
Tapestry is not a decorative art, it is painting with material instead of paints. I dyed around 200 nuances and mixed them again during the weaving to get the illusion of the picture that had been painted with oil and pencil traces on it.
During the work 2,5 years I was seeing only 20 cm. from the whole at a time. As the time came to take the tapestry off the loom, it felt like a delivery – as if you are finally going to see your child for the first time.
Indigenous people celebrate that occasion of finishing a carpet like a birth with rituals. Weaving is present in all myths all around the globe. But in our time the work of tapestry artists is not honoured anymore. So I would like to give this artpeace to you, Jane as someone who is tirelessly trying to wake us up, as a sign of Hope. My name – Nadeshda in bulgarian means Hope. My parents and my family have supported me to become who I am but YOU Jane are inspiring me to continue and not to give up my Hope!
This Tapestry is much more worth than money can express and what you are doing is much more than words can express – so let me simply say:

Dear Jane – THANK YOU!

Nadeshda Dimitrova,
01.10.2014, Vienna

Zusatzabbildung: Jane Goodall during her visit to Vienna in 2014. © Jane Goodall Institute, Austria, © Michael Neugebauer