Introduction

Born  in Brasilia, spent 16 months in Melbourne (2001-2002) and 3 years in Barcelona (2004-2007).

Living and learning/making jewellery as a foreigner made me aware of things that in my natural environment I am not. I felt uncomfortable and dealt with it through the making.

Many times I felt my own presence harder to bear and bumped into otherwise numb boundaries all the time. The overall process was very intense and the work done under those circumstances is significant.

Anyway, living abroad has always been a meeting with the stranger in the mirror. Curiously, the longest the absence of sunlight, the strangest I have met myself.

Hello Thelma

Welcome!

So, I got in the blog. I have to figure out how it works.
Nice picture to get ready. I am looking forward to being your partner for this project.

About me shortly: I grew up in Switzerland, near Basel. I always dreamed of moving but never got a chance. Later, after my apprenticeship I worked in Canada, in Montréal for about a year, went back to Zurich and to the mountaines, studied in Germany, Pforzheim for four years, during that time I studied in Canada, Halifax for eight months, and made a practical training in Japan, in Tokyo for five months. Finally I had all my moves, sometimes four a year. After seven years I returned to Basel where I am still staying. Basel, a small town at the border to Germany and France. That was one of my criteria to choose a citiy in Switzerland, the borders and the harbour/station/airport/transit possibility.
I keep going back to Canada, specially Montréal where somehow a part of me is still totally at home (strange way to say this…).

Let’s get ready for take-off!
Talk to you soon, byebye

Luzia

Nature there and here

Dear Thelma

What a wonderful tree on your picture! Half dead, half alive, strong colours, strange form for a tree.
Abundant nature, fantastic.
Destruction and clearing as a basis for renewal, for a new start. Migration necessarily brings a lot of clearing with it. I can not take everything with me. I have to leave behind people and objects, I have to clear my mind, to get ready to observe and absorb. I can and will bring my memory, my character. I will have my invisible suitcase.
At the beginning of a transfer:
Having signed a contract, agreed to requests, trusted without seeing faces. Ready and especially curious to start in a (for me) new town as if sitting in front of a blank paper.
Entering another world as if entering another life capsule.
At first sight only seeing streets, houses and movements. After a while people, then only faces.
The every day differing to the accustomed back home, the life rhythm, the lights, the sounds such as bicycle bells, ambulance, police, car horns, the voices, the labials and gutturals, the sound volume, the intonation, the subway and its spoken instructions, the music in- and outdoor, drums, flutes and street bands, getting used to, being tired and hearing nevertheless, discovering preferences for sounds. Understanding words. Talking, asking, answering. Missing words, being limited, talking with an accent, making mistakes.
Trying to blend in, in the same time trying to be myself. How far can I go to keep my customs, to preserve my habits? What are my habits? What habits do people in this new place have? People do not talk about accepted customs. How can I discover them?

I was hiking in the mountains. I send you a picture of biological migrants, of moss. They are actually algae, coming from the sea. They adapted extraordinary well to their surroundings.
Still keeping their character.

Take care, bye for now
Luzia

Dear Luzia,

Long time no see!

The algae are very strange living things. They are detached (Are they? They travel a lot! And they are eatable! And can be sticky and can be beautiful!). At the same time they carry their home environment in their cells.

So many materials resemble them. If they were jewellery pieces they could be made of leather. Instead of lost beings found somewhere, they would be part of a shared culture and then they could float in the medium we create with our energy (effort, communication, work, words). And this medium would be part of them too.

Finally they could be made of what they are.

Still on the picture finding fun I found this one. It was taken last February and shows one of Olinda’s carnival high points: The midnight man (O homem da meia noite). The midnight man is a giant doll that goes out on a particular day and is said to have enchanted many people with his charms. I admit I was quite fascinated by him and impressed with how much people love this guy.

Every year he wears a special outfit and dresses up under the blessings of his Orixás, African-Brazilian deities, hence his seductive power.

This night was really scary because of the heavy rain and of so many people, all soaked. It felt as if the rain washed up my soul (meaning bliss). As a bonus to the spiritual treatment, I got the impression that The midnight man looked right at me as he passed by…  ; )

My dear Luzia,

How are you?

I wonder how are you going on with this project.

I am experimenting and dealing with the pressure. Soooo sunny here!

A few weeks ago I met a boy who’s into origami and he turned a piece of paper into a rat and then back to the piece of paper that was then a diagram. He told me it was from the unfolded paper that he once found his way into the rat. Apparently it is a common exercise for the origami makers to do the reverse way and find out what is it.

I am happy that this is a Japanese tradition that maybe can link to your experience.

It got me thinking about a reverse mode.

At the same time I thought that the diagram didn’t have to be a rat, did it?

Then I started making my own diagrams as if I could reverse what they had to be. I don’t like the have to be and I don’t like to plan too much because many things can happen and they don’t depend on us. It happens all the time when I travel and the unfolding many times surprises me and is even better than the plan.

At the same time, the unfolded paper with marked lines send me straight to the palm of my hand.

I think of it as unfolding life.

So now I am into cutting and folding paper and cloth.

I am having problems with uploading pictures and will try to solve them soon.

Take care,

Thelma

Luzia,

I am the worst person for technology things and was having trouble resizing the pictures. Now that I know a bit how to do it, I had to post the man. Here he is.

I’ll go back to the unfolding now.

Take care

origami bird

Dear Thelma

Here are three pictures o f a folded goose or duck (?), an origami example, which a Japanese girl gave me once as a present. It is so small and delicate. I am happy I could save it up to now. I thought of unfolding it for you. I do it if you like me too. I might be able to fold it back. Maybe I will fold something else? I really like your idea of reverse. It is very interesting. Especially if you give someone else your undone folding to re-fold it. As there are different rules and backgrounds something new will arise.

I put all three pictures, as I like the different shapes, twists and corners from the same 3-d-form.

I will get back to you soon.
Have a great sunny day.
Luzia
(Spring seems to tiptoe and tease a bit outside today here.)

corrigendum and incredible cave

As you wrote me, Carolina, the folded bird is a japanes crane (Kranich in German). How could I forget, …sorry.

About the incredible cristal cave in Mexico

Here is an interesting link about a huge cristal cave in Mexico. Just as an information. Unfortunately the cave is not accessible for public. and as I understand it will be flooded as soon as the work around in the mines will be finished. It looks so incredible and wonderful.

Have a look on the bbc page, the link is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8466493.stm

or on the naica page

http://www.naica.com.mx/

Luzia,

I was unable to see the cave’s video and will try again later.

I send you a reverse mode of a tool, the pio,  used to connect people and birds.

It reproduces the sound.

I whish I could make one of those to communicate with people.

beso,

Thelma