Italy Textile Tour, Florence

We actually had prosecco at our kickoff,
but I drank a lot of these later in the week.

Florence is hot, muggy, and overrun with tourists in June; lots of Americans acting like they're in the Disneyland of Renaissance art and architecture. Yo, Countrymen! Please behave yourself when you go abroad!  The nice man I bought a hat from suggested November, January and February as the best times to visit.  I'll heed his advice when DH and I make our return plans.  

Full Photos album for these four days is here.

Day 1

On the first day of the tour, we met in the late afternoon on the veranda of our hotel, the Palazzo Guadagni on the Piazza Santo Spirito. It's a little confusing to get into the first time, but the hotel is on the top floors of the old Palazzo with stunning views over Florence from the veranda. The rooms we were in were blissfully facing the Pitti Palace, instead of the very hip and noisy Piazza Santo Spirito, so I never heard the late night revelry.  There I met Linn and Eleanor, guild mates of Eileen and Gretchen, and finally met Sarah and Simon, who briefed us on tour logistics. After drinks and snacks, we walked to Il Latini, a charming restaurant on the other side of the river. It's tucked away on a side street but not hard to find, and seems to be very popular. We ordered a little bit of everything, and passed it around. What I remember best was the Tuscan steak, and the tenderest rabbit I've ever tasted, seasoned with rosemary, and way too much food. And a perfectly lovely Chianti. I rolled myself back to the hotel and swore never to eat again.

Day 2

The colors!

On the second day, we walked through the Oltrarno (the "other" side of the Arno), and by this sidewalk farmers market... Look at the colors!

We met Valentina for  coffee and pastry at this fabulous coffee bar, Santa Rosa Bistrot, for a quick language lesson and briefing on things like coffee customs. How much language can you learn in an hour? Not much... but it was interesting to listen to Valentina talk about typical Italian life.  Two rules: don't have a cappucino after 11AM and don't skip meals. So I ordered a caffe macchiato  and had a piece of cake.

All silk!

The next stop was the Antico Setificio Fiorentino workshop and showroom; they've been weaving dreams since 1786.  It's true! Just look at their website! On the high end, these are the folks to go to when you're not sure what type of silk fabric you want for the upholstery in your yacht, but you want it to remind you of the ocean; they'll help you design it, then weave it for you by hand or machine. Besides bespoke textiles, they have their own line, too, of fabrics and coordinating passementerie, working mostly in silk and selling to interior designers. Most of their machines are mechanized older vintage Swiss jacquard looms but they still have some hand looms for special fabrics. We also saw fringed trim being made by hand; an automated jacquard loom weaving several decorative bands simultaneously, all the same pattern but with several little shuttles (there's a video in my Photos album).  They also use an amazing warping mill made from a design by Leonardo di Vinci.

Fringe on a specialized hand loom

Chiara, one of their interior and textile designers was our host; and the director, who lovingly maintains all the looms, was in house warping a loom but able to answer our questions.

After lunch, we visited the Art Restoration Institute where Martina explained how art is restored, assisted by one of the bi-lingual students, Julia. The students here embark on a three year course to learn how to restore paintings, frames, mosaics, frescos, graffiti,  statuary, and so on. The owners of the painting only pay for materials, and the students work under the direction of their highly skilled teachers; their primary client is the Italian government. We saw several paintings in various stages of restoration, and got to see some of the techniques they use to restore in a way that can be reversed, and that is easily detectable but not distracting. Many of the techniques were developed after the flood in 1966; restoration is still being done much of the art and manuscripts. Wikipedia states that at the height of the flood, the nearby Santa Croce area was under 22 feet of water!  The Institute is in an amazing building; we were lucky enough to see the phenomenal frescos in the directors office, restored by students. This place was incredible; if you're ever in Florence and can swing a tour, do so. The plein air art tour folks at our hotel were jealous!

My tote bag matches my knitting! I didn't plan this...

After a nap and a gelato, we went to La Serra MK Textile Atelier to meet Margherita Pandolfini and Karl Jorns  at Margherita's family home, Palazzo Pandolfino.  The building dates to approximately 1514, and Margherita briefly told us the history of the family and the lovely gardens, as if everyone knows where their family was in 1514. The greenhouse on the top floor of one of the buildings was added much later, and Margherita has converted it to a surface design workshop. Vibrating with excitement, she and Karl showed us some of their work, which is spontaneous, fresh, lively, organic; their work echoes their infectious enthusiasm. Sadly she didn't have any of her current work for sale, or it would have come home with me; she'd taken it to London for one of the larger flower shows. So we sat down to stamp, stencil, and paint like water color on little tote bags. Karl and I soon started discussing eco prints, mordants, screen printing, stenciling, hand painting, and all things surface design. A glass of wine, some snacks... I left pumped about coming home and painting fabric.

Did I get any photos at the Art Restoration Institute or at Palazzo Pandolfini? No!  I have no excuse, and both were photo worthy.   Do check out La Serra MK's website, it's got exquisite photos of the garden and workshop, as well as of Margherita and Karl.

Day 3

Paolo shows us his grandfather's sketchbook,
which he didn't find until after his grandfather died.
What a special heirloom!

The next day, we visited Paolo Carandini who works with parchment, primarily making boxes. He explained to us how parchment is made, and showed us some of the tools he uses to work with it. lecture on how parchment  He then showed his boxes that tell a story; he heavily researches a topic that takes his fancy then fills the box with images and items that fit with the topic. He showed us one box inspired by women during Klondike gold rush; it included images of the womens suffrage movement and images of the Klondike. He does an amazing amount of research for these boxes... There's a good article about them here.  Some of his boxes are adorned with images that his grandfather, a woodcarver, had drawn... His work was stunning. I could not resist a little box with an owl on it, which I brought back for DH, who was as delighted with it as I was.

Mercato Sant'Ambrogio

Next, we met Valentina at the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio, which was a open building full of shops selling meats, charcuterie and cheeses; outside there were vendors selling all manner of local fruits and vegetables, bread, and so on.

After we'd wandered through the market, oogling the wonderful food, we reconvened at
Teatro del Sale for lunch. This is a club (yep! I'm now a member) created as a "place for socialization, thoughtful relax and entertainment." In the evenings there's usually a musical act, and at lunch during the week, members can have a wonderful buffet lunch; this was a great opportunity to taste a lot of different dishes.  The food was incredible. I ate too much.

Day 4

Maria working her marbling magic

On the fourth day,  we went to  Giulio Giannini e Figlio, a bookbinder and paper decorator. When I talk about paper decorating, I mean marbling.  Maria, part of the 6th generation, took over the family business; she talked a little bit about the issues she faced being taken seriously as a business woman by her father and uncles, as well as the issues she has faced making her work relevant in a world where hand bookbinding or hand marbling  is rarely called for. Maria demonstrated paper marbling to us in a backroom lined with old leather stamps; she's got an amazing eye for color and pattern; then we gave it a go.

 I asked Maria about her marbling media; she uses carrageenan, which she buys in it's unprocessed seaweed form, then cooks it and strains it.  Compare that to Dharma's put it in the blender product.

The shop in the front had all manner of marbled goods; boxes covered in marbled paper, stationary, note cards, intricately decorated leather goods, it was so beautiful and inspring. Now I'm all excited about marbling at home again.  I think I'm going to kick start that with a class at the Center for the Book in San Francisco.

We had the afternoon free after the visit with Maria; the rest of the group took the train out to Prato to visit the textile museum. The museum, an old textile mill, is a stop on the European Route of Industrial Heritage (this route bears closer scrutiny; lots of textile museums, mining operations, and railways, etc), and apparently has a large collection of very old textiles and an excellent conservation workshop. They gave it mixed reviews, I'm guessing on how well it met their individual interests; I regretted not going. I spent the afternoon with my feet up; my feet and ankles had mysteriously swollen (salt? heat? too much walking? a combo?), and I wanted to be fresh for the weaving the next morning.

Textile tour in Florence and beyond! Before the tour...

Did I mention I went to Italy for a textile tour?  I've been back a couple of weeks now, working through the photos and trying to digest everything I did and saw.  The next few blog posts will be about the trip, but I broke it into a few pieces for readability. Photos of my time in Florence prior to the tour are here; most of them have identifying text in the Info section of the photo.

I'd booked myself into the Handwoven Textile Tour with the Tour Studio; I'd tried to join them last year but it was cancelled when the other participants backed out. That ended up being ideal for me, since I'd spent so much time in Japan last year. It was the first time they'd run the tour, so there were no reviews, so I wondered how it would go... It's Italy, right? It would have to be good?

It was extraordinary.

Torre della Pagliazza at the Piazza Santa Elisabetta;
6th or 7th century tower now part of the Hotel Brunelleschi. 

I flew into Florence a couple of days prior to the tour start to get some of the jet lag out of my system before meeting up with our guides, Sarah and Simon, and the four others on the tours.  For the first two nights, I stayed at the Hotel San Firenze on the Piazza di San Firenze; it's in a great location, with lovely quiet rooms, and a great breakfast. During the first couple of days, I saw the outside of the Duomo (line to get inside was hours long), the Ponte Vecchio and other points of interest around the old part of the city. I had tickets for the Uffizi Gallery (pro tip, get your tickets online ahead of time!), which was amazing, and did Elyse Weiner's IJourney Florence  audio walking tour.  This tower was on Elyse's tour... it's one of the older buildings in the area, and sits on top of some Roman ruins... And it's right across the street from a charming little store that sells some amazing trims!

Note that there's a lot of must-see places in Florence that I didn't see. The reason is that DH and I plan on spending a couple of weeks in Italy for our 25th anniversary next year, so I was saving a couple of special places to see for the first time with him. 

I'd been in touch with the rest of my tour mates prior to the tour; they all belong to the same weaving guild in Rochester, New York. These ladies are amazing weavers, and were a pleasure to tour with and I wish they lived closer! Two of them, Gretchen and Eileen, were already in Florence the night before the tour, and were kind enough to include me in their dinner plans at Il Santo Bevitore, saving me from eating alone again at a sidewalk cafe. Great choice! Turns out Eileen is a foodie.  After dinner, I walked back to my hotel across the Arno, watching lightening striking in Florence's dramatic skies, the Ponte Vecchio in the distance...

Eileen and I met the following day and toured the Florence museum of Anthropology. They have a lovely international collection, but few local artifacts. We checked out Casa dei Tessuti, an amazing fabric store, then had gelato at an amazing place that I was unable to find later... and returned to our tour hotel, Palazzo Guadagni.  That night we hooked up as a group and started the tour... 

View from the Ponte Vecchio