Textile Forum 2010
Sep. 17th, 2010 01:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaIf you ever get a chance to spend a week in the Schnals Valley in South Tyrol (Italian Alps), go!
That was the location of this year's Textile Forum. 20 of us gathered to spend a week taking and teaching workshops, listen to talks, and work on projects together. Our base of operations was the Archeoparc dedicated to Otzi, the man they found in 1991 on the peaks above this valley (way, way above)--he'd been there for 3,000 years, more or less, and thanks to the cold climate in his final resting place he, and his accessories were very well preserved. This museum is set up to share information on all aspects of his world, from the foods he and his contemporaries would have eaten, to the tools they used, to the clothing and accessories he had with him when he died. Since this museum displays replicas of the items people are permitted to pick up and handle the items. The outdoor portion of the park includes a few buildings designed after some archeological building remains found not too far from here that date to that time period. They've also got a garden showing the food-plants that were used.
We stayed in a guest house located a short 15 minute walk down hill from the Archeoparc.
The valley itself was pretty
But I would love even more to live in one of the houses higher up
Our week fell into a nice routine--breakfast was served, at the Archeoparc, between 8:30 and 9:30. Since that meal gave us a choice of only bread, butter, jam, honey, thinly sliced cheese and meat, I didn't always attend but instead enjoyed the muesli I brought with me. The days I skipped the shared breakfast I either went hiking or turned on my computer and did uni work. The days I attended breakfast I had a small bowl of muesli in my room first, then enjoyed the company of the others while nibbling some of the bread and butter and or cheese. After breakfast we had free time, which I spent either doing uni work, going for a walk, or talking with the others.
Lunch was served at noon, and was always really, really good. It was cooked by our hostess at the guest house but served at the Archeopark. All 20 of us agreed that our hostess is an amazing cook. Lunch usually consisted of some form of pasta plus a variety of fresh veg to choose from, and I wound up taking seconds most days because it was so good.
After lunch were the formal workshops. Since there was a 40 Euro fee to take workshops I decided to enroll in only two of them: Stone Age techniques that often employ bast fibres, and tablet-weaving techniques based on Finnish Iron Age burial finds. I also taught one on laid-and-couched work embroidery (the fastest ways to colour with a needle and thread). Since I had two students, and it turned out that the registration fees were given straight to the teachers I wound up earning as much as I spent on classes. The afternoons I didn't have class I either got out my computer and did uni work (I had a fair bit to do to get ready for the talk I was to give the following Monday) or went for a walk.
Dinner was served at 18:00 (also at the Archeopark--we didn't need to return to our guest house during the day unless we chose to, but it was such a pretty walk I chose to on more than one day), and was also delicious most days. Dinner included both meat and vegetarian options (4 or 5 of us are vegetarians) and there was always a salad, with dressing on the side, so I could eat it. The only meal I was disappointed with was the day that they served us French fries and deep friend zucchini. I very rarely eat fried food, and would have passed that day, but I was really, really hungry, and I know that the lettuce and tomatoes alone wouldn't be enough to be filling. However, after eating fried food my tum was unhappy enough with me that I went and asked for some bread (meals were served in the museum cafe, and there was a basket of bread out for every other meal, but for some reason hadn't been put out with that one till after I asked. It is amazing how much eating a chunk of plain bread helps after eating something fried when not used to it.
After dinner each evening we had the formal talks. One of the highlights for me was the talk showing how two of our attendees made their Reproduction of 17th century wool garments from Shetland. While the clothing from that bog find is much later period than I normally go for, I really enjoyed their photos of the project. They started by examining the actual artifacts, then they returned to Sweden where they selected appropriate wool for each item, spun it, wove it, then hand-sewed the garments. Then, when they were done with all of that they carefully used razors and other implements of destruction to mimic all of the wear and tear and mending (they did the mending after the destroying) that was present on the garments when their owner died in them.
The man who did the weaving and tailoring for the outfit was the only man who attended the form this year, and he earned the nickname "the destroyer" for the gleeful look in his eyes as he described the hard work it took to cause the wear and tear on the garments. He theorizes that it must have taken 15 or 20 years to get that much wear on the original clothing through normal use. They had the jacket from the outfit with them (the rest of the outfit is already on display in a museum in the Shetlands and the original garments are at the Museum in Edinburgh) and they spent hours each day doing the destroying work on it--always looking at the photos of the original to make certain that the damage they caused matched the original. Most of us present said we didn't think we would be able to thus destroy something we'd worked so hard to create, but he seemed to actually enjoy the destroying as much as the creating. Perhaps because the amount of effort required to destroy it was a tribute to how well he'd done the weaving in the first place.
On Saturday night instead of gathering in the Museum Cafe for our usual evening meal we walked a short distance to a 14th Century house, where we joined the Bergermister (Mayor) for the region and the Director of the Archeoparc for a traditional lamb dinner. I suspected in advance that when one combines "14th Century house" and "traditional lamb dinner" that the vegetarian options might be a bit lacking. Therefore I wasn't terribly surprised when I was served a couple of plain roasted potatoes, a huge scoop of fresh cheese with garlic and herbs in it (that was really quite tasty) and an even larger slice of solid cheese. Yes, that was it. The solid cheese turned out to be too strongly flavoured for my taste, so I gave it away (the meat eaters were given lamb which had been slowly roasted/stewed with more potatoes, which had soaked up the rich juices, and both were served with some of the thick gravy/sauce that they'd cooked in. Yes, that was all they got. The lamb smelled nice, and the meat eaters seemed to really enjoy it.
After the food was done, there were a few speeches and many toasts made they brought out desert. A local traditional dish called "snow-milk". Oh, wow, yum!!!!! It involves raisins, apples, bits of bread and pine nuts & spices which are then covered with a thick layer of whipped cream. Even though it was served later in the evening than I normally care to be eating I had to taste it. Having tasted it it was necessary to have seconds. Then thirds. I wanted fourths, but my poor tum was full, so I didn't. But wow was that good. Hopefully the Arceoparc director does get me a copy of the recipe--she said on the evening that she would.
Sunday we had to pack up and return home. It was hard to leave. Every time I go spend time in the mountains I am reminded of how much I love them, and how very much I want to live in them. However, I have never come up with an idea of how to finance this dream, and I really like the part where I get to eat on a daily basis.
The train ride there and back was also an adventure. I had two traveling companions--people I'd met at last year's textile forum, one from England, the other from the Netherlands. They flew into Milan, arriving on the Saturday evening before the forum. This meant I had just enough time after training home from Vienna (via Zurich--a very pretty trip which I highly recommend) to get my luggage home, start a load of laundry, check e-mail, hang up the clothes to dry, and return to the train station to meet my guests. That Sunday they did some sight-seeing in Milan while I did a bit of work, and on Monday we took the train out to the forum. We left Milan at 12:30, and three trains later (change in Verona and again at Bolzano) arrived at 17:09 Merano Meran, where one of the Archeopark employees picked us up and drove us to the parc, arriving right at 18:00 on time for dinner.
We three were quite amused at the way the language of the announcement on the trains changed during the trip--starting in Milan the announcements were in Italian and English, then as we made our way north from Verona they were in Italian and German, and as we got closer to our destination they were in German and Italian. The Schnals Valley is in a German-speaking part of Italy (it used to be part of Austria). Fortunately, our Dutch traveling companion is also fluent in German, so she did the ordering of the return train tickets.
Hopefully I will remember to write up the week in Vienna before the forum and the Italian conference afterwards, but not tonight--it is getting late.
That was the location of this year's Textile Forum. 20 of us gathered to spend a week taking and teaching workshops, listen to talks, and work on projects together. Our base of operations was the Archeoparc dedicated to Otzi, the man they found in 1991 on the peaks above this valley (way, way above)--he'd been there for 3,000 years, more or less, and thanks to the cold climate in his final resting place he, and his accessories were very well preserved. This museum is set up to share information on all aspects of his world, from the foods he and his contemporaries would have eaten, to the tools they used, to the clothing and accessories he had with him when he died. Since this museum displays replicas of the items people are permitted to pick up and handle the items. The outdoor portion of the park includes a few buildings designed after some archeological building remains found not too far from here that date to that time period. They've also got a garden showing the food-plants that were used.
We stayed in a guest house located a short 15 minute walk down hill from the Archeoparc.
The valley itself was pretty
But I would love even more to live in one of the houses higher up
Our week fell into a nice routine--breakfast was served, at the Archeoparc, between 8:30 and 9:30. Since that meal gave us a choice of only bread, butter, jam, honey, thinly sliced cheese and meat, I didn't always attend but instead enjoyed the muesli I brought with me. The days I skipped the shared breakfast I either went hiking or turned on my computer and did uni work. The days I attended breakfast I had a small bowl of muesli in my room first, then enjoyed the company of the others while nibbling some of the bread and butter and or cheese. After breakfast we had free time, which I spent either doing uni work, going for a walk, or talking with the others.
Lunch was served at noon, and was always really, really good. It was cooked by our hostess at the guest house but served at the Archeopark. All 20 of us agreed that our hostess is an amazing cook. Lunch usually consisted of some form of pasta plus a variety of fresh veg to choose from, and I wound up taking seconds most days because it was so good.
After lunch were the formal workshops. Since there was a 40 Euro fee to take workshops I decided to enroll in only two of them: Stone Age techniques that often employ bast fibres, and tablet-weaving techniques based on Finnish Iron Age burial finds. I also taught one on laid-and-couched work embroidery (the fastest ways to colour with a needle and thread). Since I had two students, and it turned out that the registration fees were given straight to the teachers I wound up earning as much as I spent on classes. The afternoons I didn't have class I either got out my computer and did uni work (I had a fair bit to do to get ready for the talk I was to give the following Monday) or went for a walk.
Dinner was served at 18:00 (also at the Archeopark--we didn't need to return to our guest house during the day unless we chose to, but it was such a pretty walk I chose to on more than one day), and was also delicious most days. Dinner included both meat and vegetarian options (4 or 5 of us are vegetarians) and there was always a salad, with dressing on the side, so I could eat it. The only meal I was disappointed with was the day that they served us French fries and deep friend zucchini. I very rarely eat fried food, and would have passed that day, but I was really, really hungry, and I know that the lettuce and tomatoes alone wouldn't be enough to be filling. However, after eating fried food my tum was unhappy enough with me that I went and asked for some bread (meals were served in the museum cafe, and there was a basket of bread out for every other meal, but for some reason hadn't been put out with that one till after I asked. It is amazing how much eating a chunk of plain bread helps after eating something fried when not used to it.
After dinner each evening we had the formal talks. One of the highlights for me was the talk showing how two of our attendees made their Reproduction of 17th century wool garments from Shetland. While the clothing from that bog find is much later period than I normally go for, I really enjoyed their photos of the project. They started by examining the actual artifacts, then they returned to Sweden where they selected appropriate wool for each item, spun it, wove it, then hand-sewed the garments. Then, when they were done with all of that they carefully used razors and other implements of destruction to mimic all of the wear and tear and mending (they did the mending after the destroying) that was present on the garments when their owner died in them.
The man who did the weaving and tailoring for the outfit was the only man who attended the form this year, and he earned the nickname "the destroyer" for the gleeful look in his eyes as he described the hard work it took to cause the wear and tear on the garments. He theorizes that it must have taken 15 or 20 years to get that much wear on the original clothing through normal use. They had the jacket from the outfit with them (the rest of the outfit is already on display in a museum in the Shetlands and the original garments are at the Museum in Edinburgh) and they spent hours each day doing the destroying work on it--always looking at the photos of the original to make certain that the damage they caused matched the original. Most of us present said we didn't think we would be able to thus destroy something we'd worked so hard to create, but he seemed to actually enjoy the destroying as much as the creating. Perhaps because the amount of effort required to destroy it was a tribute to how well he'd done the weaving in the first place.
On Saturday night instead of gathering in the Museum Cafe for our usual evening meal we walked a short distance to a 14th Century house, where we joined the Bergermister (Mayor) for the region and the Director of the Archeoparc for a traditional lamb dinner. I suspected in advance that when one combines "14th Century house" and "traditional lamb dinner" that the vegetarian options might be a bit lacking. Therefore I wasn't terribly surprised when I was served a couple of plain roasted potatoes, a huge scoop of fresh cheese with garlic and herbs in it (that was really quite tasty) and an even larger slice of solid cheese. Yes, that was it. The solid cheese turned out to be too strongly flavoured for my taste, so I gave it away (the meat eaters were given lamb which had been slowly roasted/stewed with more potatoes, which had soaked up the rich juices, and both were served with some of the thick gravy/sauce that they'd cooked in. Yes, that was all they got. The lamb smelled nice, and the meat eaters seemed to really enjoy it.
After the food was done, there were a few speeches and many toasts made they brought out desert. A local traditional dish called "snow-milk". Oh, wow, yum!!!!! It involves raisins, apples, bits of bread and pine nuts & spices which are then covered with a thick layer of whipped cream. Even though it was served later in the evening than I normally care to be eating I had to taste it. Having tasted it it was necessary to have seconds. Then thirds. I wanted fourths, but my poor tum was full, so I didn't. But wow was that good. Hopefully the Arceoparc director does get me a copy of the recipe--she said on the evening that she would.
Sunday we had to pack up and return home. It was hard to leave. Every time I go spend time in the mountains I am reminded of how much I love them, and how very much I want to live in them. However, I have never come up with an idea of how to finance this dream, and I really like the part where I get to eat on a daily basis.
The train ride there and back was also an adventure. I had two traveling companions--people I'd met at last year's textile forum, one from England, the other from the Netherlands. They flew into Milan, arriving on the Saturday evening before the forum. This meant I had just enough time after training home from Vienna (via Zurich--a very pretty trip which I highly recommend) to get my luggage home, start a load of laundry, check e-mail, hang up the clothes to dry, and return to the train station to meet my guests. That Sunday they did some sight-seeing in Milan while I did a bit of work, and on Monday we took the train out to the forum. We left Milan at 12:30, and three trains later (change in Verona and again at Bolzano) arrived at 17:09 Merano Meran, where one of the Archeopark employees picked us up and drove us to the parc, arriving right at 18:00 on time for dinner.
We three were quite amused at the way the language of the announcement on the trains changed during the trip--starting in Milan the announcements were in Italian and English, then as we made our way north from Verona they were in Italian and German, and as we got closer to our destination they were in German and Italian. The Schnals Valley is in a German-speaking part of Italy (it used to be part of Austria). Fortunately, our Dutch traveling companion is also fluent in German, so she did the ordering of the return train tickets.
Hopefully I will remember to write up the week in Vienna before the forum and the Italian conference afterwards, but not tonight--it is getting late.
