VANESSA BARRAGAO: AN INTERVIEW IN A BRIGHT STUDIO
The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Her eyes are green with the slightest shade of brown. And warm.
Warm is her soft voice and the soft, cozy, tactile wall art that she creates.
She is Vanessa Barragao, a textile artist from sunny Albufeira.
In the spacious, white studio, full of air and light, I am welcomed by a friendly Catarina, who introduces me to Vanessa.
It was not that long ago, Catarina tells me, that they moved to this new, big studio. The previous one was too small for Vanessa's art: her wall pieces need enough space and proper lighting to blossom with their full tactile, warm and gently-colored potential.
A tapestry is suspended on a huge white wall. In front of it, two women are working with scissors, threads and their bare fingers. The piece is big and impressive: one of the women stands on top of a tall ladder to be able to reach all its nooks and crannies.
The JI: Does Vanessa create all these pieces?
Catarina: No, these ones, on this wall, are commissioned by our clients. Those are mostly done by our interns: students of textile art and other artistic and industrial disciplines from around the world. They find us, and we welcome them: to help them learn, and to allow them to freely test their new skills in creating pieces for our clients.
This, by the way, is Vanessa's mother. (Catarina points to a woman busy crocheting an element for the textile wall painting). She is also helping us out.
And there, on the opposite wall, a new collection is being born. That one is crafted entirely by Vanessa herself.
The JI: So, you have many interns working on the projects here. Do you organize seminars for outsiders, who also want to learn a teensy bit of this art?
Catarina: No, we don't. We simply do not have time for teaching right now. Our schedule is fully booked with orders for this entire year, and part of the coming year. Vanessa also works on the new collections, prepares exhibits for our galleries. We simply do not have enough hours in the day and days in the week for teaching now.
***
The space is filled with threads. See-through, huge bags with yarn: thin and thick, hard and soft, plain and fluffy. Immense shelves going up to the ceiling, a few storeys high.
The JI: So these are Vanessa's treasure chests?
Catarina: Yes. We work exclusively with textile leftovers. We purchase from textile factories what is left in their production process and give the leftovers a new life.
We often don't even know what we're buying. We are told by a factory: “We have a hundred kilos of leftover yarn, do you want it?” We say yes. And only after we have received it, we see the texture, the colors, the length, even the smell. (Because yarn can smell very differently, depending on the type - natural or synthetic, the coloring agents, the factory it came from).
It's a game of chance. But a nice one. Mostly.
Catarina then takes me to the cozy space within the workshop: the "office", from where Vanessa and her team run their warm, soft, artistic business.
Am I ever angry or frustrated? I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated? No, never.
Mother Teresa
Again, I am approached by Vanessa: warm, friendly, shining from the inside and out.
The JI: Thank you so much for meeting me!
Vanessa: It is always a pleasure when people come to our workshop and want to see, hear and know what is happening here. I love it when people come here.
We come to see a few tapestries - some finished, some not - hanging on the wall.
The JI: So this is your new collection? Being born right now?
Vanessa: Yes, this is a new collection I'm working on. See? Even on these "finished" pieces, there are still tiny bits of cut-off yarn which will need to be removed. (She touches the pieces with soft affection and cleans a few bits of leftover yarn from them.)
The JI: How do you do it? Do you sketch before you take the threads and start compiling a piece? (I don't even know the proper technical jargon to call the process: is it knitting, or crocheting, or weaving, or threading? It is a little bit of everything and then some more of skill, craft and creative magic.)
Vanessa: No, I never sketch. I start working with textiles immediately.
The JI: The threads and patterns just come out of our head?
Vanessa: Right!
The JI: It is a very physical process. You work with your fingers a lot. Does it hurt?
Vanessa: Oh yes it does! I get cuts, rubs, my finger joints hurt. See? (She shows me her thumbs.) My right thumb is visibly thicker than my left from constant work with scissors.
All of these creatures woke, slept, played, swam about, and lived their whole lives under the sea, unconcerned with what went on above them. But there were other animals in this land, strange ones, who spoke both sky and sea. Seals and dolphins and turtles and the rare fin whale would come down to hunt or talk for a bit and then vanish to that strange membrane that separated the ocean from everything else. Of course they were loved - but perhaps not quite entirely trusted.
Liz Braswell, Part of Your World
The JI: What about the central theme, the focus of everything? It looks like it is all sea, sea, sea... Corals, corals, corals...
Vanessa: That's right. I created my first coral reef-themed piece back in 2016. And it is all still here. As the coral reefs will also hopefully be for many years and centuries to come.
But it is not only ocean and sea life, although it is the main theme. There is, for example, a collection called AFTERLIFE, which is not exactly about the marine world. But people still hear the echoes of the waves there.
The JI: Ecoactivism is very important for you. Do you feel that your art changes something in people? The way they think about the ocean? Nature? Our world?
Vanessa: I hope it does. Art is pointless if it is just for the sake of itself or money. Art needs to have a bigger purpose and have a bigger message than just "Look at me, I'm so pretty!"
The JI: Do you go to the ocean often, to see and touch it, to get inspired?
Vanessa: I am inspired not by seeing things. Not exactly, at least. I am inspired when I Ieave the workshop, the routine, and go on a journey. At that exact moment, something clicks in my head, ideas start popping out on the surface of my brain. The change in the environment - this is what gives me the big push and fuels my engine, which creates the new visions, new thoughts, new meanings.
The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.
Marcel Proust. The Prisoner
The JI: How did you come up with making these huge, powerful and gentle tapestries?
Vanessa: I come from fashion design. I studied it for many years. But at some point I realized that this niche is "overbooked". There are so many talented designers out there that many just stay unnoticed and underappreciated, despite all their talent.
It takes so much work to design and tailor a quality, stylish, beautiful coat. But there are so many beautiful coats on the market that most of them remain forever unnoticed.
So, I thought: what could I do differently? Which would also make a difference?
The JI: What does your art mean to you? Do you create each piece with a clear message in your head?
Vanessa: When I make a new piece, I rarely think: “it needs to speak about love”, or “it has to reflect hopе”, or “it must carry some other exact meaning”. Actually, it is the other way around. I create a piece and, when I'm approaching the finish line, I look at it and ask it: "So what are you telling me?"
The JI: And it speaks back to you?
Vanessa: Yes. I speak to it, it speaks back to me, and I start remembering, understanding what I was feeling, thinking, reflecting, projecting while creating it. (Although I might have not known it during the process of creation.)
The JI: Are there any upcoming exhibitions?
Vanessa: The most recent one was in September, in San Sebastian, Spain.
