2023-07-29 08:13:00
Time.news – An arch, a small serpentine, a few steps up, to discover the way of the Soul. It is the gateway to the small and perched village of Forenza, a precious jewel of the Potentino area, where the art of sewing by Antonia Murgolo, the Apulian representative of the Guild of the Arts, was the host. Among ancient looms and embroidery stitches, memories of a past that is lost more and more every day, and an imperious discovery: a seventeenth-century standard, from the church of the Santissimo Sacramento of Modugno, in the Bari area, embroidered with Japanese technique.
“No one could have imagined that in Puglia, at that time, they knew that refined art – explains Murgolo to Time.news -. Now, to study it, learn it, you have to go to England and we absolutely cannot lose this heritage: it is my will to be able to teach the youngest everything I have learned”. Fifty-seven years old from Bitonto, a city on the outskirts of the Apulian capital, Antonia graduated from a technical institute and then, only ten years ago, she began to study the lost techniques of embroidery and sewing on her own.
“I have always been passionate about the art of embroidery and crochet, as a child, ever since I saw the thread flowing through my grandmother’s hands – He tells us -. Now it has become a job for me and I cherish the dream of not letting this knowledge die: I would like to recover artefacts that are being lost, together with techniques, fabrics and precious silks that are found above all in sacred vestments and royal clothes”.
Mariella Desario, Carmela Veneto and Orsola Murgolo are also at work in her small workshop in Modugno: “We restore value to an old job, but above all dignity to women – Antonia says satisfied -. We must not imagine sewing as an art for women behind the window, in noble palaces, but an art that involves effort, like assembling a loom, which can cause pain, and for this reason we wear thimbles, but restores confidence and independence to those who he practices it. Imagine if the very young started doing it again? It would be wonderful”.
In February 2024, the creations of Antonia, Mariella, Carmela and Orsola will fly to Turin: “We will bring dresses, shirts, jackets, created with bobbin lace, filet modano, but also tatting jewels, considered a lace dating back to the Victorian era , embellished with fine yarns and stones”. And she concludes hopefully: “The art of sewing must cross borders and come back alive. Art must not die”.
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