times are dark right now and it seems they are getting darker and darker.

Not only because of the Winter and its short days unfortunately. Winter days would mean rest and cosy feelings around the fireplace, but that’s not the case right now. No cosy feelings and fires are burning but the fire places in the houses are crumbled.
I started to make flowers already a while ago, out of the leftovers of Bellaperforza cloth. Actually for a project in Riace to raise money for the housing of migrants. The village of Riace was crashed by evil forces and so was the project. But the desire to make flowers remained and grew stronger and stronger over time.

We started again in Egypt, flowers for Fadwa Nayef’s wonderful exhibition. It was not just me anymore exactly as I had hoped for the original project, we were many and we had so much fun.
It was so joyful to make them, it was beautiful to see them, it was like giving life to a child’s dream.

Back in Europe I continued, not immediately, there was Covid in between, but they were always in the back of my mind.

And when I restarted I got seriously obsessed. Not only the flowers anymore but I started to make also the vases. Collecting glass jars from everywhere. With the help of my neighbour, she works in a shoeshop and brings me all the silk paper which is inside the shoeboxes and which gets just thrown away, I started to cover the jars. I paint them and gild them and draw on them.

Hof 33 Freestyle, I call this obsession, it can include almost everything and it unleashes positive energy I think. And maybe that’s about all I can do right now to fight against the evil forces. I know its not much but I want to try. With materials that would be thrown away from discarded textiles to paper from shoe boxes. The trash becomes fun and maybe beauty, but whatever it is, it makes people smile and that’s already a lot these days.

Real flowers are quite a nasty business today so lets all start to make flowers out of old textiles, it is easy and is also a lot of fun.