The beginning of the year is time to organize the home, update wardrobe inventory lists, and have meetings with memories.
In the process, I came across an old box of cotton threads. It dates back decades when some women in my family would gather around to embroider, especially on summer vacations.
I loved working the line until it turned into colorful illustrations in my hoop. We embroidered small hand towels, sachets for drawers, ribbons for gifts, glass lids for jams and sweets. None of this has survived time in my closet.
Only scissors and some scraps with old tests remained along the cotton lines. Some finished, others eternally on the way. A ladybug, a flowering cactus, cave paintings. The Altamira1 bison was just the outline.
In those days, I visited caves and collaborated as a volunteer in speleological research. I lived adventures worthy of a movie, set in forests full of wild nature and mysterious paintings, such as those in the Peruaçu Valley (photos in the notes)2.
They are traces of the people who inhabited Brazil, long before the caravels left the western Lusitanian beach and burst into seas never sailed before, as the poet Camões wrote. These are fascinating windows into our remote past.
The simplicity of the cave drawings captured in the delicacy of embroidery entangled my thoughts. However, what caught my attention the most were the opposites sides.
In my embroidery, I was very concerned with the reverse side of the fabric — the one who doesn’t appear, hidden behind the curtain. I tried to make it whimsical and, whenever the layout allowed, as close to the original side as possible, albeit to my own delight.
Front and backside, those embroideries print a nuanced allegory of those who aspire to mend everyday life with ethics and meaning.
Nobody is perfect. Everyone is a little worse when we come home and take off our shoes and public persona.
However, those who seek to act harmoniously, walk the talk, and stitch public and private life will always have the nobility of their embroidery recognizable on the reverse side. There will be an agreement between what is portrayed on the front and what is revealed on the back.
Keeping this alignment in embroidery is difficult! Every embroiderer knows that you pay a high price for having a demanding needle. However, the result is worth it: nothing is more gratifying than finishing a piece and feeling that we have fought the good fight. And so, we add beauty with legitimacy to the world.
And that’s how, when tidying the closets, old embroidery challenged me about the value of sewing our own lives with coherency.
Notes
1 – Cave Paintings: inspiration for drawings and embroidery.
Rock paintings from the caves of Altamira – Spain, Lascaux – France, and those found in Brazilian archaeological sites, inspire my drawings and embroidery.
2 – Expedition to Peruaçu Valley – Minas Gerais State, Brazil.
Peruaçu Caves National Park is on the North of the Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Its lush natural landscape is dotted with ancient archaeological sites and breathtaking colossal caves.
I participated in an expedition to the Peruaçu Valley in 2000, where I visited some of its most stunning caves: Janelão (Big Window), Rezar (To Pray), Desenhos (Drawings), among others. It was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever had the opportunity to visit in my life.
At the time, I was part of a team of volunteer researchers that prospected and surveyed caves not officially registered yet.
Today, this park is managed and open to the public, with well-signposted trails and guided tours. Those days, Peruaçu was wild and closed, and we needed authorization from the Brazilian government to carry out the explorations. We crossed dirt roads in jeeps or 4×4 trucks. Then we went into the forest, crossing the dense woods for hours, opening paths with machetes to get to these caves.
The effort was worth it. Majestic and sublime are adjectives that fit here. The impact of seeing these places lost in time is something that will never leave my memory.
I also participated in expeditions in Pirapora, Caraça, and Lagoa Santa.
Acknowledgments: Alberto Nogueira Veiga, Paulo Rocha, and all who gave me their precious feedback, thank you for your comments and suggestions. Also, I’d like to thank my English teachers Courtney C. and Anneka F.
Images: Blue lines tubes (Ron Lach, Pexels), Embroidery (Ana Cecilia Rocha Veiga), Drawing in Peruaçu Valley (One of my friends took the picture for me. Unfortunately, I don’t remember who), Paintings from Lapa dos Desenhos – Cave of Drawings (Ana Cecilia Rocha Veiga), Dolina dos Macacos – Monkeys’ Sinkhole (Wikipedia), Lapa do Rezar – Pray Cave (Ana Cecilia Rocha Veiga), Pastel and charcoal drawings (Ana Cecilia Rocha Veiga).
Post published on my Portuguese blog on March 26th, 2022.
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